Adventures in the life of an English allotment
So today I headed down to the allotment with the aim of redoing the pond by the shed. The pond base is a massive tree pot which our beautiful olive tree came in. However, over the past three years, the liner has degraded to such a point that it hardly retains water. Happily, I had... Continue Reading →
Mid-morning I ambled across to the allotment. The sun was out, the sky was blue and it was perfect weather to be outside. The only flaw in my plan to spend the day at the allotment, was the heat. Today was a scorcher! With a south facing plot, there was absolutely no break from the... Continue Reading →
After a wonderfully relaxing holiday, I trudged down to the allotment this morning dreading what I would find. In my mind's eye, the weeds were waist deep and would require days of hacking back to rediscover the plot below. Having seen the amount of sunshine Crewe has had over the past week, I knew the... Continue Reading →
I took advantage of the dry weather to make some progress on the plot today! It's been very damp and drizzly most of the week and with yet more rain forecast for tomorrow. I grabbed the weed bucket and slowly made my way down the path, weeding as I went. It seems almost impossible to... Continue Reading →
It's been a busy bank holiday filled with DIY and painting. But I did manage to escape the paint fumes for an hour this morning to feed the chickens. Fortunately, everyone was on their best behaviour and there were no missing chickens, escaping chickens or marauding eggs in the water bowl. For this, I am... Continue Reading →
I swear that our animals, despite being in two different locations, can communicate and conspire together. I don't know how they do it, but judging from today's adventures, I'm guessing telepathy. Our first sign that something was amiss was my cat, Vasili, coming in limping on his front paws. We had hoped he would walk... Continue Reading →
Busy day today but I managed to squeeze in cleaning out the Topknot Gang's coops this evening. Coop cleaning can be such a faff and usually takes ages. As my husband got busy prepping dinner, I challenged myself to see if I could clean both Omlets before dinner was ready. Removing the old bedding completely... Continue Reading →
With the sun out and showers forecast for tomorrow, I decided when I woke up this morning that today I would finally clean out the chicken coops. It's incredibly difficult to clean the allotment chicken coops over the winter due to the water being off and having two large wooden nest boxes to clean. Plus... Continue Reading →
After a long day at work, I came back home to find Cirrus in quite a state, lying on the run floor. We quickly pulled her out and I checked her over. No obvious signs of water belly, injury to hips and legs or hard lump in the belly suggesting that she was egg bound.... Continue Reading →
Yet again February and March have disappeared in a blur of work and holidays and somehow it's April and I've not started growing anything! It doesn't matter how many years I have the allotment, I always seem to end up planting late. I promised myself I would get things growing in February after last year's... Continue Reading →
Before work this morning, I fed the home chickens and quail. With DEFRA finally lifting Flockdown on next week (the 18th April), it's so good to know that the girls will be able to explore the garden again. After feeding the fluffy and ravenous silkies and shifting three idiotic birds off the nest. I had... Continue Reading →
Between a lunch of hot cross buns and a roast lamb dinner, we headed out to the allotment. We've had a busy couple of weeks and I've been very aware of how much progress others on site have been making on their plots. There are a ton of jobs that need doing on our plot... Continue Reading →
I ambled down to the allotment later than usual this morning. I was greeted by Maude and Mavis at the door, looking distinctly unimpressed when I merely said hello and disappeared off to the Main Coop. With the big girls all fed, I moved onto the New Coop. Gertie made short thrift of the food... Continue Reading →
I'm writing this after collapsing at home. Fed up of waiting for others to volunteer to sort out the pond on the Community Garden (over a year and still waiting!), I decided that I had had enough of our hall being cluttered with the pond liner. I messaged Nikki to see if she would be... Continue Reading →
Today we went lambing. I've wanted to do this for years but we've never managed to get to the local agricultural college in time to join in. Last weekend, I spotted a sign advertising lambing and immediately booked two tickets! A week of impatiently waiting and today was finally the day. We arrived a little... Continue Reading →
I've been thinking about how reusing, recycling and upcycling are important values of every allotmenteer. On the plot, we try to reuse as much as possible, taking care to minimise the waste we produce. Almost inevitably, we have taken steps to change how we use things at home. We have drastically reduced our use of... Continue Reading →
This afternoon I discovered some exciting signs of spring on site. It's been a long, cold and dark winter and the current cold weather makes it still feel very much like winter. But over the past week, small changes have been happening. Small buds are appearing on the fruit trees, the bees are coming out... Continue Reading →
How has another week gone?! It's always the same at this time of year. Somehow January and February disappear and all of a sudden it's March and almost nothing has been done! After a day out with family yesterday and the majority of today spent doing jobs at home, I headed down to the allotment... Continue Reading →
There really is nothing better than getting outside and getting stuck into digging to clear away the cobwebs after feeling under the weather. The relatively dry weather over the past few days has meant that our usually water-logged plot seemed like it might be dry enough to dig over without running the risk of sinking... Continue Reading →
Poor Gertie. She is holding her own well at the moment but she isn't happy. The others are tending to give her space but as yet, I haven't spotted anyone preferentially staying with her yet. I may yet have to strong arm one of the others into the role by putting them together in a... Continue Reading →
The Good Life Crewe 
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