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!
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!
posted by Tina Mammoser at 2:01 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Tina,
went through the same, since April last year, at the same allotment site. Fingers crossed and good luck! It's tough stuff but very much worth it. Might see you some time.
Marketa
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