Not as quiet as it seems

You'd have thought after the excitement of getting our plot there'd have been a surge of activity, instead it's been a surprisingly quiet week or so. The dark evenings and full time work meant we couldn't get anything done in the week, then we had Melanie's daughter to visit over the weekend and we didn't feel it fair to subject her to a couple of days digging.

We did take a trip down to show her the plot though and discovered a few new goodies at the same time. A more thorough investigation of the netted tunnel revealed it already has a load of what look like fruit bushes in it. They look like they may be in need of a prune and we have no idea what they are, but it’s a start. The mysterious locked wooden box isn’t empty, not sure what’s in there but we had a peak under the corner of the lid and could defiantly see ‘stuff’ which is exciting. There’s also a rhubarb crown and what looks like it may be another fruit bush in one of the corners as well as a rose bush by the blue water butts. It just gets better and better.

There’s been progress behind the scenes too. We've created an allotment plan which, if our calculations prove correct, should mean we have 11 4' x 13' raised beds to work with as well as space for a compost heap, cold frame and, most importantly, a seating area so we can relax and enjoy the view after a hard days graft. Drawing up the plan was an interesting exercise as it forced us to stop and think about what should be grown together and how much space we wanted to use for each family of veg. It turned out that we actually had space for a few more things once it was all down on paper so we've drawn up a little seed wish list and popped it in the car so we can tick things off if we find them cheap somewhere.

Now it's just a case of watching the weather forecasts during the week and hoping that come next weekend the rain holds off and we can spend some proper time on the plot. It'd be nice to get all the beds marked out with string and some of the paths dug in if we're able so fingers crossed the weather doesn't ruin it.