Nic Dempsey

Ma and I have decided that allotment work is best tackled in the morning. If we get up and go straight to the plot and work to about noon, we are, or at least we feel, far more productive.

Ma picked raspberries and trimmed the winter savoury and thyme. She also fell over and managed to completely destroy a pot that had a blueberry in it. No-one believes me but even when I give her sitting down jobs, she falls over!

Fortunately, I had a spare and my allotment neighbour and I re-pottted it!

I picked tomatoes and took a bunch of the plants that were done or too blighted down. Which led to me, weeding the beds and tackling the sides of the beds at the front again. I wanted to get the plants that were languishing in the poly, into the ground so I combined the projects.

I cut the grass down, weeded, planted, laid cardboard around and covered in woodchip.

Down the sides, I planted corsican mint and thyme, I had a pinnata lavender in a pot that has not been doing well, especially when compared to its twin, which I planted into the ground and is romping away, so that went in. I had a free bbq rosemary from Urban Herbs that needed a home and last year I’d planted another at the front corner of the plot and it survived but wasn’t thriving, so I took it out and put both of them in front of a bed on this run. The last space was taken by a roman camomile.

Finally, I planted out some camomile lawn by the patio.

I have some more plants arriving this week and I have some comfrey that needs planting out. So my plan for this weekend is to tidy under the plum tree and at the front. The comfrey is going in the weedy corner that the rosemary was in (after I’ve weeded!) and I’ll add some manure to feed the rhubarbs. If there is any wood chip left, I’ll use it to mulch that area.

I think that’ll be it for this week but Ma is back the week after and I really need to sort out the strawberry runners, re-set the front poly tunnel bed for autumn/winter and clear the tomato beds. We may, if they arrive by then, plant the garlic.

For October and November, I need to clear and cover beds we’re not going to use, tidy and clear the paths on the other side of the plot and do the same to all the beds on that side of the plot (gooseberries, wild area, iris garden, rose garden, pond, squash beds and the pink and white bed and boysenberry. You can really see that I don’t walk the path on this side and it’s unruly. Yes, I do love unruly but not that much, it needs work and it’s going to be my focus for the winter.