Some progress of our own

Interested onlookers

It's a pleasure to report some significant progress on the allotment that happened while we were actually there. We took the last couple of days off work in honour of my completing another lap of the sun, and spent sizeable chunks of both putting in a bit of old fashioned graft on the plot. With so much work having been done for us so far, it seemed only fair.

Sad and empty

First we had to pay a quick visit to the ghost of allotment past. We swung round to Nunsmoor allotments yesterday as we didn't want all the fruit bushes and trees we had grown there to go to waste, and we had some bits and bobs to grab from the shed. Compared to the amount of ground we'll be growing on now, Kasia and I were both struck by how massive this plot is/was. Too big for us. I'm looking forward to growing less, but, hopefully, growing better. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit gutting to see well-worked patches we've worked on over the last few years, needing only a quick turn before being planted up, but t'is not to be. A sign on the front gates noted that all tenants need to have all their stuff off by May 6th. Finality has been given a date. I'll be really interested to see what the Freemen do to the site, and how quickly. But it won't involve us; our allotmenteering future belongs to Benwell.

The best is yet to plum

So we filled up the car with a plum tree, rhubarb crowns, blueberry and blackcurrant bushes and a gooseberry. We're not sure how they will take to having been transplanted, at this time of year, but we'll find out. We spent good time and money on these plants and if they take to their new climes it'll be nice to have some souvenirs of the old plot with us. Kasia did sterling work, digging and prepping appropriate gaps for them all along the fence that Bob had put up at the back of the plot.

The soil here is fairly manageable and as the bushes and tree have been planted at the top of a steep bank, should be free draining. We'll need to give them a regular drink to try and coax them into life in their new home.

Praise be- prepped bed ready to go.

I spent my afternoon removing what seemed like endless stones and bricks from the patch we wanted to put potatoes into. At one point, not helped by a stinker of a cold, I wanted to give up. The sheer quantity of spade-proof hard stuff in here betrayed the fact that we're attempting to grow stuff on bits of land never previously used for such a purpose. Eventually we got rid of enough to be able to dig some trenches, lined them with compost and in with four rows of Pentland Javelin first earlies. We've got the same amount of King Edward main crops to go in at a later date.

Potatoes meet ground

Today, in more lovely weather, we headed back to attack another patch. Again, enough bricks and stones to start a quarry came out of the ground. I gave up digging any more than about a foot and a half down, otherwise I reckon I'd have been digging up coal. We used old steel shopping baskets to sieve the soil as we went, recycling the resultant rubble to line a path that was previously bare.

Nearly clear

On the old plot the soil was heavy with clay, but clear of detritus. Here it's exactly the opposite; littered with stones, but once they're gone, wonderfully light. It took some serious digging and sieving, but eventually we got it done and filled the patch with onion sets; half Red Karmen and half Stuttgarter Riesen. We got both of these for next to nothing from Lidl, so it''ll be interesting to see how they do in comparison to the more salubrious varieties we've planted in the past.

All set

We left the plot looking more like an allotment than a knackered pigeon hut/dumping ground for just about the first time. 

Looking better

There's a whole load more digging to go, and we're now reconciled to the fact that it's likely to be painfully slow work, but we'll get there. Getting some onions and spuds into the ground these last two days feels like a bit of a milestone, and with lighter nights coming we'll be looking to get a few more patches ready for planting in the coming weeks.