No-dig green manures

It was wonderful to get outside today in the warm sunshine. The snow has melted away, the sky is blue with a few clouds, and the temperature here in London is a balmy 16C, made slightly cooler by the cool wind. I walked to the allotment listening to the end of Mark Cocker’s book about […]

Spring around the corner

I’ve never been so happy to see the turn of January to February to and feel the first signs of spring. This was the first week when the light began to change, the sun felt a little warmer when it made an occasional appearance, the days became noticeably longer and something in the air proclaimed […]

Dirt to soil

June and July came and went, just like that June was a bit of a write-off, work-wise. I was doing crazy hours, chucking myself at the task in the hope of making a little bit of a difference and absorbing myself in something constructive to try and keep myself reasonably stable and ok. I managed […]

Sowing seeds

I love this time of year for the lengthening days, the way everything starts quietly and in tiny ways coming to life and the hope and optimism that is involved in sowing seeds. I get most of my seeds from The Real Seed Company, because I love their general ethos, they have a good range […]

12 beds done!

There are 12 beds! They’re not completely finished, and there is a lot of digging to do, but the basic structures are there so we’ve definitely broken the back of what turned out to be a bit of a major undertaking… We had a long day of it today, in mild but grey weather and […]

3 more beds, and spring is in sight

Spent 4 hours on the allotment today, lugging more wood up to the plot, building 3 more raised beds, digging a bed over and sowing some seeds. We’ve done 8 out of 12 beds now – if we get one more done tomorrow morning, we’ll be able to finish all of them next weekend. I […]

Sunshine

There are beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine today. Still cool, but absolutely lovely. Made it up to the plot for about 930am this morning and did a couple of hours of pottering: weeded, levelled and added 3 barrowfuls of leafmould to bed #7 – the last of yesterday’s lovely delivery flattened the paths between […]

Hail and rainbows

I ended this week with a horrible migraine, feeling completely wiped out. Woke up this morning feeling stressed about not having done everything I planned to at work this week and worried about the general state of the world. Thought I was too knackered to go up to the allotment, but after a bit of […]

February 2020 vs February 2022

Seeds

I did a lovely big seed order a few weeks ago from The Real Seed Company. I love The Real Seed Company’s ethos (they use organic seeds and help you save your own, not that I ever actually do) and their seeds are good quality and reliable. Last weekend I had a mammoth seed-sowing session at […]