Allotment
We took over our half plot in February 2006. We had been on a waiting list for 3 years. Sarah was pregnant and so we knew she wouldn’t be able to help much for a good year and a half, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.
We hear that our allotment site is one of the highest and most exposed in England and at the time we moved in, there was no water supply. A trough has since been connected by the entrance to the plots, so is considerably easier to manage irrigation.
The first thing we had to do was fence off our half as our allotments are now being offered as half plots as they become available. This took some energy and investment, but we were fortunate in that we had the choice of which half, and so opted for the lower half with the poly tunnel.
We’ve had all sorts of minor disasters since we started, including the shed roof blowing off along with our newly connected guttering system for the water butt, and fencing a hungry rabbit in!
So far we’ve tried to focus on plant productivity but this year, we’d like to think more about the plot structure and making it work better for us. This will require considerably more hours, but now the children are a little older we hope that will be possible.
1.
Jack | 23 March, 2011 at 3:45 am
Your allotment looks great! There’s nothing better than being self sustaining. I use my poly-tunnel to get my tomatoes off to a head-start at least a month earlier than anyone else. Plus they can be maintained at least a month later after the season has finished. You have the perfect spot for a bee colony, If you ever consider starting a beehivebeehive let me know.
2.
Sarah Copeland | 24 March, 2011 at 1:04 am
Hi Jack and thanks for your comments. I look forward to reading more about bee keeping soon! Unfortunately, we have had two bad episodes of gales over the last winter, and our poly-tunnel has not survived. We are going up this coming weekend to decide what to do for this growing season :-/