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Well, we’re back now from our clearup morning, and do you know, just as we were finishing, the rain started.  Maybe there is an Allotment God somewhere who decided to keep the weather dry for us as some of us cut back the weeds and ‘overgrowth’ and others (i.e. including me) were on wheelbarrow duty, ferrying all the bits to the Big Bonfire site.

I lost count of the number of times I barrowed stuff along the path, down the hill, then took the empty barrow back up the hill and along the path outside for some more cuttings!  The hill is on a long slope sometimes at about 45 degree angle and about two hundred yards long, and the path is about another hundred yards long.  We started at 8am and finished at about 12.

But it is very satisfying, seeing everything so neat and tidy afterwards, and there’s such a good community spirit, too!  After the ‘main event’ R and I had a very quick tidy up on our own plot, me doing the blackberries and R clearing away the dead sticks from the herb bit at the front, and took the final wheelbarrow loads down and came home. 

Oh, there’s so much to do, still – I want to dig up my camomile path, take all the weeds out and replant it; that’ll probably take two days.  Then I want to empty all the ‘rainbow’ raised bed, because some big weedy stuff has got in and the bulbs have also grown together, so they need some spacing out again.  Plus they’ve spread, so the colours have merged and it isn’t a rainbow any more.  Not that that matters of course, but still, it would be nice to have it as it was.

Then there are the weeds beginning to peek through in places all over the plot, thanks to the warm weather and the rain; they think that it’s Spring already!  And, lastly, the side border needs trimming and I REALLY MUST make sure that I collect all the seed pods of the Californian poppies before they pop, because at the moment I have about a million or so seedlings springing up everywhere, and they’ve started to flower again….. Forget the Triffids, our plot will be swamped by beautiful poppies that will spread to everybody else’s plot and we’ll be cast out!!!

No we won’t really, but all the same it isn’t fair to give everyone else more stuff to dig up, so now I know the consequence of leaving these interesting seed pods in place I shall have to make sure that I get them all.

Now for lunch, and a wander down to R’s Mum to join her for a cup of tea, then back home for a fondue!  We are treating ourselves; a nice bottle of wine, lots of cheese, some little carrots, mange tout and green beans and some raw purple cauliflower from our plot.  Oh, and we retrieved our pumpkin, too; not so huge this year, but it has done its best.  We could almost see last year’s on satellite photos from outer space!  I joke of course.  But it was huge, and some local yobs pinched it but luckily one of the other plot holders caught them and they dropped it by the gate and ran away, so he rescued it for us.

Must go, I’m seeing my MA tutor tomorrow and have to work on an outline of the questions that I plan to put in my questionnaire.