17th October 2020
Enthusiastically (if not a little wearily) we returned the following week to what resembled the Somme battleground, to once again toil the soil. You can now see much more clearly what the actual allotment size and scope is, as the boundary has begun to take shape.
It's surprising what you dig up on a plot that hasn't been worked hard for a few years!
We could have built a small conservatory with the bricks uncovered!
But they were piled up (as many treasures were) for a future use, yet to be discovered.
It looked like a pointless exercise - this taking pictures of wet soil, trenches, puddles and not much else - but Chris was adamant that at some point in the future the “Allotment” transformation story would be told, so we persevered and took pictures (mainly Chris did, claiming his camera was better, yeah right!)
And now look what is happening: The story is being told!
This has been a consistent theme throughout this adventure:
conceive an idea,
imagine some of it,
work on it,
improve on the original concept,
and then, as they say in Star Trek, “make it so!” …
At this point in the whole evolution of this bit of land, the plan was:
dig here,
then dig somewhere else,
then dig more.
What else could there be?
What we did know was that if we had any chance of growing anything next year then we had to dig it all over so the frost and winter could get at the roots and break down the soil… plus, as we were digging in the foliage, we were giving the worms something to work on whilst we were celebrating Christmas and the New Year (alone of course, Christmas cancelled due to Covid, not!)
Then in the spring we dig again, sort out all the tenacious weeds (and burn them), hopefully get some manure and dig that in at the same time. But for now - dig and then, dig more!
The plan wasn’t sexy, it was tough work… But then, starting an allotment usually begins that way (or so we were told), unless you choose No-Dig. We decided not to go that route. We had no idea where the manure would come from, but we imagined it would turn up when it was needed.
Onwards and upwards!
The following week we were back...
