No way, hose.

Now I've been inspired to post again, I'm pleased to be able to offer an (un)guided tour of the plot for comparison with the very first photo on here. It's pretty astounding, and motivating, to see how frightening this plot looked.
This is only the second post in a year, two days apart. I'm so chuffed at what we've achieved I can't wait to show off about it. But I'm aware that I need to check myself before I start peacocking about. What I see as amazing, other plot holders will see a laughable lack of reading and experience. That may be so, but considering this is our very first year of proper production, we've been lucky.




The first bed is an extended root bed, which we (thought we'd) put parsnips in. We had oriental poppies instead. After they'd finished, we took them out, saved the heads and found five sweet potatoes there! Don't ask. So we staked them and are now waiting to see what happens. The upper half of that had chioggias and golden beets, some of which were a nice size, and fascinating. Why don't they sell these in the shops? The others, including the golden variety, have been a bit small. Further up the swedes have come on nicely despite only one thinning in a small area.

Then there are the Lady Balfours and Pink Fir Apples. They are looking tired now and are ready for picking. The first two I dug up were great.

The onions, garlic and shallots have gone and I've put mustard on as a green manure/mulch.

Some sunflowers, flanked by boxed carrots. We've been told that Sheffield soil does not support carrots - and we believed them. In between are redcurrants and goose berries.

Then the brassicas. I'm holding my breath for them.

Followed by peas, beans (of different varieties - my neighbour and I chose them during a heavy wine session and I forget which), with sweetcorn mixed in. On the edges is courgette. What is this white stuff on it?

Under the make-shift poly tunnel are the chillies, which look OK. Then there are the tomatoes. Oh dear, what happened? They were looking very good last week and now they have some kind of blight or rot. Can any of the fruit be saved?

Beyond that is where the shed of doom once stood.

Our last bounty has just been increased by one courgette, a floating potato and another fist sized swede, illustrated here. The huge marrow isn't ours. We don't like marrow. It was given to us by a friend, who doesn't like marrow.

The garlic is our first attempt at plaiting.

Plotting not publishing!

I know, it's been a long time since writing. But since my neighbour boldly agreed to take this on with me and M, we have come a long way with the allotment - and just because we haven't been writing, doesn't mean we haven't been working!

It's hard to know where to begin again. We were literally wading through weeds that were taller (and thicker) than we were. I still have a lot to read, and learn about gardening.

We (according to the allotment office) are still only cultivating about 30% of the plot. Since the last post, we have, believe it or not, still been in the process of clearing and digging and removing vast swathes of carpet. I wrote to them, after their second letter saying it was 'generally unkempt, etc etc) politely detailing our hard work and albeit minor successes. I sometimes don't know what they want. I know at the moment there is a high demand for plots, but surely, addressing this doesn't mean lavishing negative attention on people who have had a plot for a mere few years. Our plot had been left for years and years, according to our allotment neighbours before we got it.

Every week since our last post, through wind, hail, rain and bleakly sunny days until this summer, me and my neighbour have toiled, sometimes with our babies strapped to our backs, to get this plot into shape.

I never would have thought, that this plot would change my life so much. For a start, having a baby made me more, not less determined to make this work. Maybe if E hadn't have come along, it might just have been another failed project. M of course, couldn't do a week day as he works full time, and we just seemed too tired for anything at the weekend.

My neighbour H has made all the difference to that scenario, and her son has been company for E. At first, when they were only about four months old, they wouldn't get out of their buggies at all. If we were lucky, we could park them side by side and they would sleep a good two or three hours. That's how we did all the hard work. We did six hour shifts up there, from 10am till 4pm, stopping for picnic lunches, and taking it in turns to babysit while the other pottered and plotted the schedule for next time.

Now, we can't keep them in the buggies at all. But now, there is a path! Now, there are beets and brassicas, potatoes and peas, courgettes and carrots, tomatoes and er, swedes.

We have had failures - oriental poppies grew where we planted parsnips. How did that happen?

The peas have had a bit of pea moth. Not enough though, to stop my little E from picking and eating a pea straight from the pod. How happy am I, knowing that my child actually knows where peas come from?

And the other day, I gave her a blackberry. She popped it in her mouth and said 'lovely', for the first time.