Days 9 and 10

Got a new fork for the allotment today - a border fork, smaller and stainless steel so hopefully I won't break this one. Visited yesterday to do a bit of semi-dry digging, it's so much easier! Met the bloke with the plot next to me which was great because he's cleared the top half of his (whereas I chose the bottom half) so now I know where my top half boundaries are. With all the overgrowth it was completely impossible to work out a month ago. Getting a FREE shed on Wednesday (can't recommend Freecycle enough) which I'm hoping to put at the top now because it will be safer up there out of sight of the neighbourhood.

And of equal importance, I sniped an MP3 player on eBay for only £7 (whoohoo!) so I can listen to music occassionally while I'm digging. Radio 4 isn't always quite what I want to listen to, although there's something wonderful about working to Women's Hour and the morning serial. (My old MP3 player fell into the canal over the summer. While attached to me and my bike. heh. Not something I'd recommend, unless you want a tetanus shot.)

Day 6

More digging. Found my cutters! Tarp half blew off last night. And the rest of the bramble on the front half is now chopped off, hoorah! No piccies again, sorry. Forgot to steal the palette so I hope it's still there on Sunday.

Day 5

More digging! Forgot my camera today (actually left it at the cafe last night after knit club) so no progress pics I'm afraid. I started out just wanting to get a bramble root out nearest my previous digging and it sort of expanded and became a bigger bed. Which is fine because I got the damned bramble out! Hoorah! I did unfortunately break my fork, so it's now a 2 pronged fork instead of a 4 pronged one. Didn't stop me from digging the rest of the length though. The secateurs also got lost somewhere. I know I put them on the ground but then forgot where. I figure I'll step on them another day.

Also put a huge plastic tarp over the cut bramble pile so it can dry out and I can have a bonfire later. A slight surprise there, see I think in imperial measurements. While I'm quite good at visualising lengths up to 1-2 metres, because I paint on canvases that size, after that my judgement gets a bit fuzzy. So I just bought the biggest tarp at our local tool shop (Handy Stores, they're fab) and it turns out to be massive. So it's covering not only the branch pile but quite a bit of ground too! I figure that's good because it'll dry out there and be easier to dig. I also have a genius scheme to get some telescoping poles so I can prop up the tarp on one side while I'm there and have something to sit under when it rains! (which seems to be whenever I decide to go to the plot, go figure) I just have to find a shed soon.

Oh, and final news: there's some house renovations or something happening across the street from the gate. There are palettes in their skip which I plan to nick tomorrow morning and to use the boards as bed borders. *grin*

Day Two

I forgot the link to our allotment's website, so here it is: http://www.fuzzy.org.uk/index.htm (you just have to click it to see the amazing carrot!)

Dug a bit of a bed today - about 5'x3' or so. Whew! Exhausting, and didn't help that it drizzled rain on me the whole time. Might not look very exciting but the place is locked down in grass so it was really hard work. Since I want to put in bulbs for the spring I'm actually trying to clear the grass and roots out of these beds rather than just dig it in and cover for the winter. So piling up the dug stuff to the side to make raised beds for potatoes probably. Will leave this a bit so the grass can regrow, as I'm sure it will, and then fork out the roots again before giving it a proper good digging up. Not entirely sure what I'm doing obviously but trying to read lots of blogs and forums for advice.


And some little shots of the broads beans and cauliflower sprouting. Aren't they cute?

Day One!

Welcome to yet another one of my blogs! I thought I'd bore you all silly with progress of my brand new allotment!

The story so far... living in London I decided I was going crazy. No garden, no outside space. I keep visiting the coast for my painting and would return to southeast London wondering why... On top of which I'm currently living to a very strict budget. How great would it be to grow some of my own veg? I've just finished (yet another) degree with Open University so will actually have something called free time as of October. And to top it off I absolutely love riding my bike but my work studio is around the corner from my flat so there's no commute. And getting somewhere interesting to ride takes about the amount of time I'd like to go riding a few times a week.

For some reason I decided to look at allotments. Scouring Lewisham's list was depressing, everything has at least a 2 year waiting list. To top it off the most likely plots were far enough away that it wasn't likely that I would keep up the enthusiasm to cycle there several times a week. Lewisham recommended looking at neighbouring council's allotments since their waiting lists are so long. So what the heck, I had a look at Greenwich's website. There are actually sites with plots available now!

So I call up a couple. Middle Park Avenue, in Eltham (SE9), is a recently reclaimed site. It was allotments a few years ago but has become very overgrown. So dragged a friend along, mainly to talk me out of anything that looked ridiculously impossible for me to handle, saw a plot, reserved it and waited! Didn't take long, just a few letters and contracts swapped in the post. Yesterday I picked up my key and today I went to "my" plot for the first time! (they probably still have plots, here's their little website:

Some background about me might be relevent. I'm going into this very ignorant and very limited in what I can do. I don't drive so will by cycling to the plot. Today I strapped a spade and fork to my bike, everything else in my rucksack, and took the train one stop away to the station nearest the plot (Mottingham is just around the corner). That way I could cycle home, the tools having a hidden home in the allotment until I get a shed. Everything will be done completely by hand because I can't get power tools (which would have to be battery/petrol powered anyway) to the plot. I've never grown anything, even houseplants die on me. So 'rules' about planting will probably be flouted a lot. I'm happy to try things and see what happens.

Last week I planted some seeds in little pots at my studio. A sort of makeshift greenhouse. The space is warm and sunny and I don't have anywhere else I can keep seedlings. This morning I went in and I have little plants! Broad beans and winter cauliflower. It's so exciting! I'm sure I grew something like this in kindergarden or something...

Decided to attack the bramble first. The space I have has 2 halves, it's 50m long altogether. The front half is overgrown, the back half is essentially a bramble forest. *grin* My plan is to clear and prepare the front half and then slowly hack away at the back over the winter and hopefully start getting the bramble roots up back there in the spring. So I slowly cut away at it and got most of the right hand side clear! I cleared all the way back to the metal framework. Very happy with myself and will try to go tomorrow and clear the left hand side. Hopefully you can see a bit of difference in the second photo. The 'bush' you can see about half way in the 2nd photo is actually my pile o' bramble cuttings.



Then it's getting out the weeds and grass. *sigh* And digging. I'm going to work small patches, board them in to make beds, and just work my way around. One good thing is that I'm not in a hurry to plant so I can leave them a bit so leftover weeds can pop up for a second round of clearing. Then the flower bulbs go in so I get a bit of excitement in spring!