Is Spring Finally Springing?

Over the weekend, the weather was actually dry. Dry! Without precipitation of any type! No rain, snow, sleet, hail! After spending several long moments in utter shock at a large yellow circular thing in the sky – I believe it has a name, but I couldn’t remember the technical term for it – we headed down to the allotment to begin preparing for the new growing season.

With my husband busy hoeing the beds, I began to clear the back of the plot by the main coop. This section of the plot has been a little forgotten in the past two years and I am determined to get it up and running again. The space between the fruit trees and the main coop hosts our compost bins and some metal sheeting. The grass and weeds have fought their way through the weed fabric unfortunately so that will be a job for another sunny (that’s the word – sun!) day. I cleared some of the worst of the creeping grass and rearranged the sheeting, working out just how much weed fabric I would need.

Next I moved onto the fruit section and my first job was to sort out the pallet wall. As I attempted to lift the bigger pallet, it crumbled. Completely into pieces. It seems like the wettest year we’ve ever known in Crewe had done for it. I moved all the bits I could and pondered what to do. Do I replace the pallets and build a better, stronger divider? Or do something else? I like the idea of a full pallet wall which I could use as a hanging basket to grow herbs in. Sourcing two large-ish pallets should be possible. Just as I was trying to work out how to get my hands on them, my husband called me over to see his hard work.

Half the plot was hoed and it looked so much better! Pleased with his work, he headed off home to do some jobs and I decided to tackle the fruit section. We have a beautiful selection of fruit bushes and plants but they are rather wild (especially the blackberries and tayberries!). I began to rediscover the bath around the blackberries and pruned back the buddleia as so it didn’t overhang Phil’s plot or throw too much shade on our fruit section. With this complete, I headed home, full of plans for the next non-rainy weekend.