How do you celebrate having managed to cultivate an allotment for an entire year.

Like this….

I can’t quite believe that I stuck at it for 12 months. In that time I’ve found a community, in real life and on online of people who are just as crazy about the joys of growing your own food as I am.

This was my first visit when I decided that I’d take it, it was 1st May and I signed for it the next Saturday on the 7th.

Digging over and look at the weeds…

By the end of May we had some plants in the ground.

By the end of June, it was looking pretty productive

But we made a sanity saving decision to cover the bits that we couldn’t get under control

By the end of July we were feeling pretty good about it, with produce and sweet peas and new beds, everything was so green…Over August, we started to try and rehabilitate the raspberries, we also planted a tiny strawberry bed from some runners.I made plum gin from my own plums and got excited about the tomatoes

We were well into the courgette glut by then, I learnt to pickle them and made lots of courgette cake. Everything was abundant, by that point of the summer we had had gooseberries, raspberries, rhubarb, courgettes, salad, spinach, french beans, peas, rocket, some tomatoes, cucumbers,plums, nasturtiums, sweet peas, marigolds, afgan and californian poppies, by September, there were runner beans, dill and coriander, and the rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme and mint were all doing well. We also got rid of the frame, which didn’t go without a fight but really opened up the space.In October and November, with things really dying down, we did a bit of rearranging. We bought another 6 raised beds and laid down more weed suppressant.We also measured and sorted out where we wanted a shed to go and planted garlic, onions and broad beans for next year.

There wasn’t really anything left to do so visits were few and far between in December and January because we didn’t plant anything that we could eat over winter. We are planning better for this year!In February, things were starting again and we replenished the woodchip, with much swearing from Ma!We also dug over some areas for herbs and started to think about growing things again.

In March we just did more of the same. I had a bit of a crisis of confidence while nurturing seedings and I planted some hyacinths.At the end of April, we finally got a shed.And here we are a year later. The plot looks like this. 

There are things growing and some setbacks (mildew on the gooseberries, dry spring and I still don’t really know what I’m doing!) but it’s all good and I’m proud of what Ma and I have got done and I seem to have a hobby or obsession!