7th October 2006

It's the beginning of October and there are still things growing on our plot! We weren't expecting things to carry on growing like this. For everything that surprises you, however, there are some things that do seem to be dying off a little. The peas, for example, seem to be going a bit mouldy but also still appear to be edible. The courgettes have stopped producing, the aubergines that are growing are all very small and the last runner beans aren't quite as prolific as they once were.

The weather has changed in temperature over the past few weeks and the days grown shorter but today was a beautiful sunny day. The gem lettuces, spring onions and cauliflowers were going from strength to strength, though.

The first thing Tim and I had to do, however, was join the work party to cut down the weeds growing on the allotment fences. Tim and I were told off by a lady from a house that was on the boundary of the allotment site because she wanted us to remove a tree that was growing a little too closely to her garden. Neither of us had brought an axe or chainsaw so we just did our best to get as much of the branches away from her garden. She rewarded the work party volunteers with some crisps, tea and biscuits!

Tim and I then went to our plot to survey what needed to be done. The greenhouse needed to be cleaned out because it was flooded from all the rain we've had recently and the mud we'd trodden in there. We also removed the aubergines in the growbags to make some more space for the tomatillo plants, which are becoming more and more like jungle plants with their massive stems and leaves. We squidged a few caterpillars that were eating our purple sprouting. We dug the bottom patch of the plot a little bit and then planted some overwintering onions.

The plot was quite difficult to dig, especially with all the bindweed that was hiding in the earth. By around 3pm Tim and I were feeling pretty tired out, so we left the plot after quite a packed day on the plot.

21st October 2006

We had a break from the plot last week but came back today with much more enthusiasm because we'd missed it! As I arrived I found Tim talking to Colin from the plot above Nigel's. When we first turned up in January we admired his plot and wondered whether ours would ever be as good as his, with his raised beds. We were really chuffed when Colin was praising our plot, even though it was looking a bit rubbish compared to the summer.

Colin went back to his plot then we had a visit from Gordon, the shopkeeper. We asked him what he thought was wrong with our onions, which were looking a bit rotten, and he said that they were beginning to go a bit rotten. The bottom of the bulb was beginning to go mushy. We took this as an invitation to pull all of the Stuttgarter onions up as the Red Baron onions we had planted were still looking okay. Nigel came over to say hello and we had a chat and then we saw Charlie and Roger on the plot below us. We didn't start doing any work for the first hour of being on the plot.

We had a cup of tea, admired our overwintering onions that had sprouted and also our Vivaldi potatoes and picked our eight cauliflowers, which had grown huge heads. We also picked some carrots for a nice fresh dinner. Roger, the site secretary also paid us a visit to have a chat about our planned polytunnel and where to position it. Tim shovelled some horse poo on the stump where the rhubarb once was. After this we summoned enough energy to dig the last section of our plot. The bottom section hasn't been dug since we first turned up in January! That's 10 months of being left fallow (plus the 10 years of inactivity before we chopped the brambles down). We had tried two weeks ago but I was put off because it felt too much like hard work.

We found loads of bindweed, tree roots and brambles in the ground along with some nice friendly earth worms. At 3pm we finished digging the plot and at that very moment the heavens opened. We found shelter in the greenhouse and the downpour showed no signs of stopping. We decided to call it a day and went home to dry off.

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OCTOBER 2006

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OCTOBER 2006