We did it. We had lots of help but we pulled down Joe’s shed and helped fill a skip with the rubbish. On Sunday there was a big big bonfire.We also got some other work done. We covered four beds for the winter, moved two gooseberry bushes, dug up the loganberries and pulled down the frame. The plot feels like a whole plot again.

It was a lot of work, now the shed is down and all sorts of rubbish disposed of (or collected by Simon for display) we have measured in from the outer fence and have a lot of space that I’m not really going to use as allotment. The current plan is to plant blackthorn and put up bird boxes and leave it for the wildlife.We were going to try and save the loganberries but they were old and in rough shape so up they came and down came the rusting metal frame. We’ve left one frame up right at the back of the plot, which in a change of plan, will support the boysenberry. All the advice I’ve had about the boysenberry is that it needs room and the width of the allotment, and I really don’t want to cut the plot in half again so it’s going at the back with the roses and the mint. At the back, is the ‘work area’ and eventually a temporary greenhouse and the compost area.There were two gooseberry bushes on the new half which I moved. I really wasn’t sure how best to do this, so I cut the bushes back, dug them up as best I could and plonked them in the new bed. The soil in that bed is pretty good and later when we get some, I’ll cover that bed with woodchip, which my soft fruit really seems to love. I don’t expect much from them this year, but assuming they live, they should do well the year after, which is when I’ll move (finally) the ones on my plot. They won’t move far, just away from the edge of the plot and into the bed right next to them. And then hopefully in four years time, we’ll have four fully productive gooseberry bushes that we can effectively cage to say nothing of the extra rhubarb plants, I want to put in the vacant gooseberry space! Allotmenting is a long game..We cut back the autumn raspberries, and when I move the boysenberry to the back of the plot, I’m going to move some of those into the spare bed. The three planned fruit beds will be ordered in January, so I need to think about whats going in there, I might wait for the spring when Wilko and Morrisons start selling fruit plants and see what they have! Before that I need to sort out my two planned flower beds either side of the new raised beds. I’ve got one planted up with flower bulbs that were given to me but there is already a rose and lemon balm on the other side so I may just leave it and sow some annuals there in spring or plant some herbs I don’t have, part of me still wants a camomile lawn but that might never happen!In short, the plot feels like we have a plan and it’ll be sorted very soon, but there is lots of work still to do to have the new half ready for spring…