Trevor and the Rotorvator - Feb 09

Here are some pics of the way the plot was rotovated back in Feb o9 - we were quite against it for a while as its very frowned upon in allotment circles - under the breath its seen as lazy and apart from that if you chop one weed into 6 pieces aparently you get 6 more weeds - since this was done it is now covered with a carpet of fresh green weeds but they are very easily removed when we need to use that end of the plot - I also wanted to preserve Trevors back and mine - and it saved time which is our most precious commodity on the plot when you work full time - so Id rather be doing something else other than hours and hours of digging - this is actually the first year ( fingers crossed ) that we will be able to use all our land - we've always had some areas covered with cardboard or carpet trying to supress the weeds. So thats why we cheated a bit!

Secrets from Inside The Little Red Shed....

As well as gardeners we are active campers - we have been since our sonewas about 3 years old, so 12 years - Much longer than we've been plotters - we have a folding trailer tent called a Dandy.

http://www.rivadandysales.co.uk/index.cgi?action=page&pageno=3

The link here shows you what Im talking about - we have a very old Dandy - its well over 20 years old - Id love one of the ones from the website - navy and white but ours is orange and cream - they built them so well it will probably out last us! We've had many years of fun from it and been all over UK but never taken it across the water - still to do that.

The reason for telling you all that is because this picture shows you our kitchen station here in our shed - it is the old one from the Dandy - when we up graded our cooker we put the old one in the shed - works a treat 2 rings and a grill - we can easily have breakfast, lunch and dinner on the plot and we do - we've even taken potatoes straight from the ground along with lettuce tomatoes onions and sweetcorn and cooked and eaten it within 30 mins - Amazing!!!

This is our location on the plot - We have this as a whole plot - and 171 we have as the half, we got it in our 2nd year as it was opposite ours and Pat who has been on the allotments for over 10 years isnt getting any younger and had 2 plots - he decided to give one up - the 2nd half does apparently have an owner but in the last 2 years Ive never seen them.

to chit or not ??

Seed potatoes are never chitted by us they just get a kiss before they go in the ground and then they are earted up when they start popping their little heads through the soil.

The onions here went if a couple of weeks ago - around the begining of April - a wee bit early but we were itching to plant something! They are now 3-4 inches high and seem very healthy.