Potato planting day

The boys planted our first veg today: potatoes. We took the old tyres we had previously used in our garden for growing potatoes and the boys set themselves a little project of preparing the tyre for our first potatoes. Louis helped Neil fill the bottom of the tyre with rocks and then compost and planted 4 seed potatoes. Sammy enjoyed getting water in the elephant can to give them a drink and each time we found a worm Sammy rehoused it over in the tyre!

Louis made a stepping stone path around his potatoes and Sammy ate dirt and put worms in and out of a jar for quite a while which meant we could dig over the large bed for trenches of potatoes.

The weeds didn't look toooooo bad............I'm not holding my breath. Can't wait to get planting in earnest.

Dig in day

February 5th and we had hired help to start the digging of our plot, Grandad, Aunt Kate and Uncle Matthew. Louis and Sammy would be there too of course but they were likely to be mucking about catching woodlice than actually helping! But help they did.

When we arrived our plot had been rotavated. AAGH! Not what we had planned as friends had warned us against it. Mostly because the weeds are just all chopped up into tiny weeds which grow back even more fiercely than before. Hey ho. Actually the soil looked great and was so much easier for us to start with a blank canvas so maybe the rotavation was a good thing after all. Just wish we had been asked by the council first!

So digging wasn't really on the menu and we had to rethink. We began by placing out pieces of wood we had collected from various sources. We made a long bed separated by bricks to walk on. Grandad and Kate dug trenches for the wood to sit in and Lou helped with the digging. We found some old blocks of concrete which had loads of mini beasts behind to discover. Sammy and Lou enjoyed collecting (and releasing don't worry) the endless woodlice and spiders and worms.

We chopped down branches from what we think are plum trees and tidied up a bit. We had an old crate perfect for compost and Matt and Neil carried (yes carried on their backs) our old plastic green garden storage shed from our house to the allotment (about 15 mins walk). I don't know if Matt's back will ever recover.

After a lunch at our house Grandad returned to the plot with us to finish edging the bed and to play a quick game of piggy in the middle with the boys. I put compost in whilst the boys were playing and then we called it a day. Huge progress for one day, more than I could have hoped for. I can't wait for more digging!!

Day one

Welcome to our blog. We aim to keep a diary of our first year on the allotment in Salisbury. Day one and we collected the keys in October 2010. The 5 rod plot is shaded and secluded in a lovely spot, handily positioned in full view of continuous trains passing by for Sammy to say "another choo choo" every ten minutes. Bliss. The water station is nearby and a friend for Louis two plots up from his school. They very kindly gave us sausages on the BBQ and halloween chocolates on our first visit. Thank you Marina!

The plot was overgrown with mainly grass and weeds. We also spotted lovely poppy heads and teasles which should have spread their seeds around for a good bloom in the summer.

Snow came and went over winter and Lou and I visited to see what we could see. Ice chunks for Louis and frozen poppy heads for me. Our next visit would be a while until the ground thawed...........