Since my first post on our allotment adventure, we’ve had an unfortunate gap in being able to give it as much attention as we had hoped.
Between work and exams, we haven’t made it to our patch in a few weeks. After a load of spring thunderstorms, we came back to what looked like something out of Jumanji!!
The first time we went back I suffered a horrendous hay fever attack that meant I had to go home, but my wonderful hubby Dimas struggled on and managed to get things under control again.
This weekend we got around to putting new felt on the roof, as the old roof had come loose and the rains had rotted away at the wood both inside and out. Now that that job is finally done, we should be able to get started sooner on making the shed prettier!
After weeding the potatoes, the onions, garlic, strawberries and the rhubarb we already had planted. We worked on clearing another small section for the strawberry and rhubarb hill to treat the soil and then plant raspberries and gooseberries. I was inspired by the ‘crumble pack’ we bought in our local Morrisons to make a crumble corner. I can’t wait to bake with those in the autumn!
Dimas had the idea to create another patch for our veggies in a way that would hopefully stop the grass regrowth as we’ve had with the onion and garlic. To do this, he dug the rectangle, removing the top layer of turf in chunks. He then lay flattened cardboard and made that quite damp. On top of the cardboard, he layered a mix of fresh and dry manure and then covered this with the compost soil we had bought.
The idea is that the cardboard should prevent the grass regrowing while having a good soil that the carrots, parsnips, broccoli and corn can grow in. This is all new to us and as we go experimenting we hope to get some tasty fruit and veg along the way!
Nicola Cañaveras 