Day 1: Discovering slow worms and more

Today I had my first visit to my brand new allotment. I’ve been so excited for this, and I’ve been turning it over in my head all that I want to do there.

The allotment is located on a hillside and my half plot has a slight incline, so you walk through my neighbour’s plot up into mine. The compost heap and a lovely looking apple tree is at the bottom of it and there are some trees (I forget the name!) at the top which neighbours have told me will give lovely red leaves and shade in the summer/ autumn. Other than that the plot will get sun all day as it is south-west facing.

I am fortunate in that I’ve got a couple of bits that have been left by the previous owner, and there is the rough semblance of a structure with some beds still with their wooden barriers around them. There are about six beds which is helpful as I can slowly clear them out and the paths are already outlined for me.

When I arrived this morning at about 9ish it was only about 6 degrees but because of the location of the allotment and as it was a sunny morning, it was very warm and I quickly needed to take my coat and jumper off as I was lugging things up and down the plot. I brought my youngest son with me asleep in the buggy, so he slept happily all wrapped up for the first two hours.

There is a green storage bench towards the bottom which holds some bits and bobs that I emptied and sorted through. Then I dragged the bench to the top so that it sits below the large trees. Eventually I’d like to put a shed at the top to store things safely and also for shelter when it rains. Underneath the bench I found three small snake looking animals! One of my neighbours told me they are slow worms which are legless lizards. I’d never seen or heard of them before, so that was interesting.

First bed cleared

I found a hand fork in the green bench which I used to weed one of the beds of a long grass and some deep rooted bramble roots. The bed is approximately 2 x 1m in size  but it took me about an hour to do! I mistakenly used the hand fork to them weed out a big bramble root which broke the handle off…. Lesson learnt – for big roots use bigger tools.

My baby woke up, so he had a feed and a change before we headed home. It unexpectedly started to rain and then hail in the middle of the nappy change! Poor little fella!

I met some of my plot neighbours, who were lovely and only received their plot two weeks ago, so it’ll be wonderful to share our experiences as we progress. One of whom also has young children, so it makes me excited for the kids to have this space to learn and play together, what a privilege.

One of my slow worms

The tools and miscellanea that I found today are:

-          Green bench where bits and bobs can be stored

-          Two watering cans (will be useful as the tap is a half plot down and two plot to the right)

-          A long old hose pipe which looks to have been gnawed by a small animal, so I’m yet to try it to see if it’ll get water up to my plot

-          Hose pipe nozzles

-          Large water tank which is full of dodgy looking murky water

-          A large compost heap which needs sorting and reinforcing

-          Some plastic flower pots

-          Some larger tubs which I think will be useful to plant herbs or flowers perhaps

-          Lots of panes of glass which seem to have been from a greenhouse that had been dismantled (these look heavy, so I’ll leave them where they are and figure that out later!)

Next week I plan on doing a rough drawing of the lay-out so that I can decide what to put where, also to map my progress over time.

All in all, a successful first day at the plot!