More progress!

Jonathan has cleared a sizeable patch for our first crops and we hope to get them in during half-term. He has worked so hard!
Hard to believe that just three weeks ago this was lush, tall grass.
Norman from the next-door allotment deserves a thank you for loaning us his lethal mattock, it's really helped with the initial clearing.
Rotovator? No thanks!

Digging so hard we forgot to blog

Well, Jonathan is, and I am in charge of fetching lollies, hosepipe extensions etc
Lots of progress since I last blogged, and I really really really need to get some photos uploaded.
Jonathan has got the strimmer working properly and cleared most of the site not under carpet. He has dug over quite a bit of the cleared ground and we ought to be kissing Eda and Ron's toes because under a superficial weed/grass cover we are finding well cared-for soil and not having to contend with the likes of bindweed and creeping thistle.
We have pallets in place to start creating a contained compost heap, and Jonathan damped down our cleared bed last weekend. So we should be able to crack on and get some stuff sown over the Bank Holiday weekend!

We have seen the soil and it is fab

Busy Sunday, strimming, raking and clearing a small token patch of soil to make us feel better about the rest of the plot.
Met some more new allotment friends, including Gerry, who offered us some pumpkin seeds. All the pros recommend clearing a bit and getting some easy, quick crops like beans and radishes in the ground, I notice!
Jonathan coaxed the Lewises strimmer back to life but we finally had to give up when it ran out of strimmer wire. He and William got about 3/4 of the uncarpeted patch strimmed though!
Next big job is to stake out paths and beds so we have a rough allotment plan and don't waste time digging over ground that will be needed for access or to pop a shed on in future (we have shed envy already).
Jonathan and Issy planted some parsley and coriander seeds in the propagator on Sunday evening but I think we'll keep culinary herbs for the patio at home. I got some trailing geraniums into my patio pots too but the patio needs big work to get it neat. That's for a different blog methinks.
We've started a compost heap on the allotment but need to build a box for it. Apparently a lady came and looked at 38A but was advised by everyone to plump for 5A (she had a choice) instead. The problem with the bottom half of Eda's old allotment was that there is a sizeable earth bank at the bottom end, with no drainage channel cut. So in wet weather it turns into a paddy field. Not that you'd know this right now - the whole site is looking pretty dry and several people were using hosepipes.
When we first saw the plot I found it hard to imagine that it had been under cultivation just last year. But course, as soon as Jonathan strimmed the grass and Will and I did hard raking (grandpa John's bulldog rake was perfect) we soon started to see fine, worked soil underneath the light covering of grass and weeds. It was a good moment!
We do also need to dig out that stubborn hawthorn bush...

Oaths are cast, weeds are carpeted

Back to the allotment today to measure properly, stake out, and inspect the plot more carefully.

We have thistles, a hawthorn bush whose stump will need poisoning :-( and a complete covering of weeds.

We met the Lewises there and Emma advised us that under the Queensberry Rules of Allotmenting, if Eda said we could re-use whatever we wanted from her allotment EVEN IF we only get half of it under the new rules, we could drag useful stuff from the half we don't want.

She's on the PCC - if she says so, it's fine!

So we dragged all the grimy carpet up from the lower end of the allotment and lo and behold, beneath it was pristine if rather dense and baked-looking rich clay soil.

We have rehomed the carpets to our own meadowland and Emma says in two weeks everything underneath them will have lost the will to live.

We have decided to strim and then dig the plot little by little - I gather rotorvators can cause more trouble than they solve in the end. Mike suggested nukeing with Round-Up but Jonathan wasn't so keen and it does sound a bit drastic.

Without having the tools to level the plot today we still got a lot done I think - William pruned the hawthorn down to the ground, I lopped thistles and stubborn tall weeds so the carpers could lie flat, we cleared a truly manky and biodegrading pile of green plastic sheeting, everyone helped lug carpets and bricks and Jonathan staked out the plot.

I'm so excited I even watched a video of Monty Don showing me how to hoe on the internet.

In which we empty our wallets at Thompsons Garden Centre

Off to the Garden Centre this afternoon to buy a few bits and bobs

We leave the place £60 worse off with...well...some twine, some seeds, two pairs of gardening gloves, lots of onion sets and a bumper crop of bamboo canes.

Plus the saddest looking pots of borage ever (no seeds in sight)

Then we get home and realise that we really, really need some sharper shears, a proper evil hoe and either a scythe or a strimmer!

It's rather nice knowing we will be using some of grandpa George's tools - a first rate garden fork and rake that are probably over sixty years old and still stout and firm.

Hear's hoping the Royce and Holloway green fingers for allotments and smallholdings will come to the fore!

First sight of our site

After three and a half years, we have finally made it to the top of the waiting list for our allotments!

I got the call on Wednesday afternoon, and by Friday at 6pm, a gorgeous sunny May evening, we were viewing the plot with the site coordinator. He is such a sweet man - he has let Isabelle's primary school have half his plot so she already knew him well from Gardening Club.

It's a bittersweet pleasure on one level though - the plot we are taking over half of was in fact a friend from choir's. It's got too much for her now her husband's dementia is getting worse, and I can't help feeling sad that we profit from someone else's change of circumstances. The plus side is we have it with her blessing.

We have opted for the top half of the plot, an area of 10 x 15 m (no idea what that is in rods, poles and perches!), on the advice of Eda and John the site coordinator.

Now all we have to do is contact the council and sign the paperwork!