we've had our allotment about a week! we've dug one bed and planted a little spinach, dill and some radishes yesterday. the dill seeds came from my own plants grown from seed. we're in the process of making a two-compartment compost bin from wooden pallet. we've also laid down some wooden planks for a small chill out space.
we have inherited very sweet and tasty raspberry bushes with fruit for this year and a few bushes without fruit for next year, rhubarb, what we think is a cherry tree but has no fruit, and what may be a plum tree without plums. needless to say it's dig, weed, raspberry. dig, weed, eat a raspberry while we're out working and there's a lot to be done!
one of our allotment friends has given us a garden fork and we've bought a little set of four hand tools. we've been borrowing the wheelbarrow and hose and things from krister's parents. we dug up one bed and it is now relatively weed free. then our friend went over it with a machine that turns up the ground, mixing in 50 liters of peat and 50 liters of bagged cow manure. this is the bed we planted.
he also went over two more large areas with the machine, about 1/3 of the plot. this is and isn't so good. it means there's much less digging. only the deepest of the weeds must still be dug out. the bad side is we have to pick out small pieces of the weeds. have only identified one weed (in english) as dock.
we'll probably spend all winter making drawing up plans and redoing them. i think it has a lot of potential and will come to be one of my favourite places. will post pictures soon!
