A year in the new allotment

Mid-October marked an important anniversary: a year ago I chose my new allotment. So how has my first year been? Of course, there have been ups and downs. I last wrote about the pleasures of my first harvests of broad beans, my disappointment with early potatoes and my hopes for my cabbages, broccoli and kale. The success with beans has continued with dwarf French beans and – even better – climbing French beans. They are ones saved by a friend so I don’t know the cultivar, but they have a ‘ying yang’ patterned bean and flattish pods. I’m currently saving some of my own seeds.

The later potatoes have done much better than the earlies, having got much more rain. Still not massive crops, but they were planted into rather compacted soil which hadn’t been cultivated for years. ‘Robinta’ red main-crop were particularly good, I’ll definitely plant those again, and ‘Nicola’ too. We’ve still got lots in the pantry to eat, and I’ve still to lift the last ‘Pink Fir Apple’.

‘Highland Burgundy Red’ were a surprise – I’d picked up a bag of these without knowing anything about them – they are red right through! So it’s been pink mash…

The onions looked as if they were going to bolt in April, but this stopped once the rain came, and I’ve had a nice crop of varying sizes. This is useful in the kitchen, I wouldn’t want all the same size. I was still pleased that plenty were of a good size though!

I was also pleased that I got a small crop of carrots, unexpected in somewhat clayey soil. Beetroot and chard also did well.

The brassicas are a different story – what is it about the cabbage family that everything wants to eat them? Even though I’d netted the cabbages, the blasted pigeons teamed up and sat on the netting so that they could peck the leaves. Completely ate four nice fat cabbages.

I can see why fruit cages over brassicas are the thing round here. The kale was doing better but I’d not got round to getting some small-sized netting… so cabbage moth caterpillars have done their best to make the leaves all lacy. I do like wildlife but I must say I’ve got into squashing caterpillars. Feeding the robin, right? Talking of feeding, it was with the brassica plot that the need for fertility was most obvious. They’ve had various things this year – blood fish and bone, seaweed feed, chicken manure pellets – but I’ll be happier once I’ve really got going with compost.

I’ve also learnt a lot about the allotment layout and planning. My plots, at 130cm by 360cm, are just a bit too wide, I’m a bit titchy so it’s hard to reach into the middle. Over the next year I’m aiming to narrow them to about 110cm. This will be complicated as I’ll also be rotating crops, and extending the beds too! It’ll be worth it as it’ll give me space for more compost and leaf mould bins. I didn’t really have any major gluts, but next year I’ll sow more beetroot and leeks and less chard – I do like it but it goes a long way. I’ll plant a few coloured ones in the garden at home. I’m going to grow fewer kales and cabbages but look after them better, and try some oriental salads crops.

October is also the turn of the seasons – no denying, it really is autumn now. No looking at seed packets and thinking ‘it’s not that long past September, surely it’ll be OK…’ However there’s still a lot to be planted and sown. I’m looking forward to nurturing overwintered onions – ‘Snowball’ and ‘Sen Shu Yellow’ – and broad beans (‘Aquadulce’ and ‘Stereo’), sown right at the end of September, with some white radishes. Both have emerged enthusiastically and are now fleeced or under a cloche.

However winter lettuces ‘All the Year Round’ and ‘Lobjoits Green Cos’ sown in mid-September failed completely to appear. I’ve tried again with salad mustards ‘Green in Snow’ and ‘Red Giant’, and lettuce ‘Winter Density’. Sown in mid-October, these have yet to appear. If they still don’t appear I’ll sow more in modules to plant out under cover. Late in October I sowed ‘Feltham First’ peas, encouraged by the Chase Organic catalogue. I’m also trying garlic (shop-bought, so not guaranteed to thrive) in a ridge of soil nourished with bonfire ash, tips from Joy Larkcom’s book ‘Vegetables for Small Gardens’.

Autumn has coincided with some spare time and I’ve been able to catch up with a few things. Exciting jobs like digging up a 2m by 2m tarpaulin which had been buried under 20cm of soil then a fire lit on it. The lumps of partly-fired clay are now covered with a heap of hedge-cuttings, and the tarpaulin will still be useable to smother weeds. The extra potato bed has been dug over (revealing another couple of pounds of potatoes!) and will make part of a soft fruit area. The sycamore saplings cut down last winter will make posts for a cage over the bushes. I’ve a winter of cutting the second half of the hedge, and of digging over new ground, and of digging out bramble roots.

It’s been a good year. I’ve not always been able to get to the allotment as much as I wanted, but I’m pleased with what we’ve achieved together. The top third does look like – and is - a productive vegetable garden, and I’m not particularly worried that it’s a slightly weedy one.

I’ve started to sort out the bottom two thirds, which I didn’t think I’d manage this year. Soon I am to pick up an apple tree from the St Ann’s Allotments Fruit Tree project, so I need to work out where it is going to live in what I hope will become a small ‘forest garden’-ish area.

Many thanks to everybody who has given me equipment, bought me tools, and helped out. I’ll report back on progress over the next year, as I work out how to factor in the allotment with a full-time job.

First published in Nottingham Organic Gardeners' Newsletter

August

Summer seems to be speeding away, the weeks turning over faster and faster. The story in the allotment is of harvesting: the broad beans are long gone, some in the freezer, and now replaced by dwarf French beans, the modest amount of early potatoes are superseded by better yields of maincrop. Tasty little turnips and gorgeous beetroot for salad, swiss chard for mixing into pasta dishes and curries. Plus some rather oddly-shaped carrots (but at least I can grow carrots!) The onions did much better than I thought, once the rain came they stopped bolting and started filling out again.
Talking of rain though... it's very dry. Forecast heavy rain today which didn't happen, which in one sense was good as I was out doing good works with the Green Power Team but we do need it...

First Harvest

After months of taking stuff to the allotment, it's good to be bringing something home!

So, I have 'Maris Bard' early potatoes, 'Aquadulce' broad beans, and a mixture of rather beautiful but large radishes. Fortunately I like them hot!

Last week I dug up some of the 'Premiere' potatoes. Sadly these first earlies have not done too well: a combination of drought in spring and rain in June. No plants grew anywhere near as large as they should have done, and several have gone yellow. With black stems and a mushy seed potato, this could be black-leg. I ate some of those potatoes above this evening, tasty but fell apart in less that 10 minutes boiling, as the 'Premiere' did last week. I'm not sure whether this is due to the problems described above or a characteristic of these cultivars. I'll try steaming next time. It's also obvious that the potatoes in the section which I had dug over have done better. So if I do go over to no-dig, I'll prepare the ground, by digging, first.

The 'Aquadulce' broad beans are big but a little floury, the 'Stereo' are smaller but sweeter. It's good to be growing them, it's been some years since I had space to grow broad beans. The French beans are going well, had to make bigger netting over them. It seems a bit of a shame to have to use netting so much, but I hope that an approach with more ground cover in future will take its place to some extent. That will have to wait till all is a bit less weedy.

After digging out the potatoes I planted a 'Lady Godiva' squash at one end of the plot, 'Nero di Milan' at the other. Both from Nottingham Organic Gardeners' Plant-swap. I planted two innominate courgettes and two 'Di Nizza' round courgettes under cardboard over some garden waste in the lower part of the allotment, a bit of an experiment.

In the onion plot I planted out lots of module-sown calendula, and on the brassica plot I planted african marigolds. Not as companion plants per se, but to attract hoverflies and other useful insects.

Now I am eating yoghurt with strawberries from my little plot at home!

Two hours

I'm just not getting as much time as I'd like in my allotment, for all sorts of generally rather good reasons. However I like to think I make the time I get there really count.

Today I was there for two hours and I...

Weeded the brassica plot. 

(Before) 

(After)

I also planted a red cabbage and a Nero di Toscana kale from the NOGs plant swap, plus some more left-over Offenham 2, rather titchy, will see how they do.

Cut down the under-performing module-sown broad beans as green manures.

Netted the chard and beetroot as the fleece wasn't protecting all of it (look hard at the top of the photo and you can see some very pecked chard).

Removed the under-performing module-sown onions (it's a theme...) and planted 10 leeks which I'd bought from Stonebridge City Farm at the Green Festival.

Here's the allotment really not looking at all bad.  



RAIN

First a light sprinkling on Friday, then a shower on Saturday morning, then I was woken during the night by quite heavy rain. At last!

At the allotment yesterday everything had grown, somehow rain is far better for plants than our attempts to water them. The kohl rabi has finally started to germinate after refusing to do anything for 3 weeks. The potatoes are doing well, and I earthed up the ones at the 'dug' end. I'll mulch the others. The first earlies, sown on 21st March, are already getting flower buds so I could be harvesting in a few weeks - need to sort out what is going there afterwards! Probably courgettes.

The soil was lovely and soft again from the rain, and I sowed lots of things I'd wanted to get done for weeks. Beetroot 'Soloist' (it's a mono-germ variety so it doesn't tend to grow in clumps) and white chard in the onions/roots plot; calabrese, kale, broccoli 'Raab' and turnip 'Snowball' in the brassica plot. The kale and broccoli will be transplanted our to the rest of the brassica plot when it's cleared of weeds.

Also got to plant out the module-sown beans and onions which were intended to fill any gaps. Well, I haven't got any gaps, so what I've got now is very little room left for anything else in the onion and legumes plots! Will have to look into interplanting.

The module-sown plants had been there far too long, if you look closely at the bottom of the photo above you can see a bean plant taken out of its module with its roots all going round and round. They'll probably be OK, if not they'll make good green manure!

Another thundery shower today, and more light showers predicted for the rest of the week, and unsettled weather for the future. So I guess I'll get to know what my weeds can do...

The New Allotment: Mid-spring

What a difference a month makes – and what a month. My diary at the start of April records “No sign of anything growing yet except a few onions – and ground elder!” but by the end of the month it was “Popped in to water – it’s obvious things have grown since yesterday!”

21st March

24th April

By the middle of the month the potatoes, onions and beans I’d sowed in March were all in evidence. The onions in particular are doing much better in the half of the plot which I’d dug over and weeded, so my little experiment is turning out to be useful. When I planted more potatoes, 2nd earlies Wilja and Nicola, it was really evident that the compacted soil on the not-dug side drains much more slowly than the side I dug over. So if I do go for a no-dig system I’ll dig it over first to open the soil structure, as recommended by some proponents of no-dig gardening.

Sowed ‘Suger Bon’ sugar-snap peas (Lidl), early carrots ‘Nantes 2’ (Lidl) and ‘Amsterdam 2 – Amice’ (Wilko). Going for short rows in blocks rather than rows across the beds, which were what I did before. It’ll make them easier to weed. Carrots are a bit of an experiment as the soil isn’t ideal. Things were holding up well in the dry spell, moisture still coming up through the clay.

As well as the things I’ve planted and sown, I’ve had a few surprises. Several rhubarb and comfrey plants have appeared, possibly from where their roots were chucked after the plot was cleared. I dug up a sprouting stick from a rose bush and planted it near the gate. Maybe I’ll have roses trailing over my gate in years to come.

By mid-April I was starting to have to do lots of watering. Rain was unusual enough to record on 11th April. It’s going to be a year when getting into low-water habits is the thing. I’ve got a little system to cope with the low water pressure and save wasting water. Pop hose in watering can, go and do a bit of weeding. Grab can just as water is getting to the top, pop hose into water butt. Water part of a plot, put hose back into can and go back to the weeding… repeat as necessary. I’ve also started mulching the soft fruit, copying an idea from EcoWorks who I’d been working with earlier in the week. You soak newspaper then put it in a layer over watered ground. I put leaves/chippings from the avenue on top as I’ve nothing else, but straw looks better.

Newspaper and woodchip mulch

Later in the month I finally started on the brassica bed, planting a few scrounged cabbage plants, and sowing some kohl rabi ‘Superschmelz’. I’ve grown kohl rabi before, but I’m looking forward to trying a few more different brassicas as I’ve not had enough space before. I also sowed 3 rows of 8 Red Baron onions. The whites are looking good – I looked at them and thought “I know they are doing all the work, but it was me that weeded the soil and put them there” and felt a little glow of satisfaction.

I’m sure weeding’s going be a theme this year, especially once it does rain. I’ve tried to pre-empt this by covering up the worst area of weeds with cardboard. Well, maybe second-worst. The Japanese Knotweed at the bottom of the allotment is getting huge. It doubled in size in a few days earlier in the month. Scary. However the other clump looks distinctly peaky so hopefully another treatment will sort it out.

Cardboard over ground elder, thistles, etc, but Japanese knotweed loomimg in the background!

By the Easter holidays I was trying to decide where to put my main-crop potatoes, as there’s only room for a few more in the potato plot, and I still had twenty seed potatoes chitting. I started digging an area further down the plot, but it was full of sticks and rubbish. Tried another area near the top, but it was very dry and sandy with lumps of real clay, no good for spuds at all. So back to the first spot – at least it is full of organic matter. Planted Highland Burgundy Red and Robinta maincrop potatoes. The latter was particularly keen to get growing, it’d started growing little leaves on it’s ‘chits’. Later realized I’d done the traditional thing of planting my potatoes on Easter Sunday. I’ll have to find another spot for a potato bed especially for Pink Fir Apples, and make it a particularly comfy bed.

Early Spring in the New Allotment

In early March it seemed like Spring at last! On one gorgeous day I went down to the allotment to set out some self-layered Winter Jasmine from home, and plant Jerusalem artichokes – and for more digging out couch grass and ground elder roots (see above!) And whilst digging I made my mind up about the design of my plots. I’ve only dug over about half the area I want to use, and I’m keen to get started on sowing. So the solution is four plots running parallel to the long sides of the allotment, so that each is half dug (and weeded), and half not dug. Normally it’s recommended to have beds in line with the sun, and mine are at right angles, so if I have massive runner-beans other crops will get shaded. But it suits at the moment. Later I may go for something far more ‘organic’ in shape as well as ethos.

My crop rotation starts with potatoes on the plot worst for weeds. I’m hoping that their thick leaf cover will shade out weeds, and I’ll dig out weeds as I’m digging up the spuds. The next plot will have onions and roots, the next beans and peas, and finally brassicas in the last one.

It was super to just be out in the sun, listening to the birds, watching the two robins eating worms, and listening to the yaffle laughing. As the allotment got more shady as time went on, I could see that the shed casts a big shadow. But I’m not moving it! Pleased to see that I have comfrey appearing from what looked like a rubbish heap near the shed.

A few days later I had lunch sitting outside for the first time, then got on with pruning my currants – lots of currant clearwing moth caterpillars in the stems – I found out later they are a feature of the St. Ann’s site anyway, so I don’t need to worry about importing them! I cut the blackcurrants nearly to the ground, and pruned the red/white currants to ‘goblet’ shape, with varied success as there aren’t many branches yet. Decent material poked into ground as cuttings.

Then on with some garden design! I measured out a 6.6m x 3.6m plot and checked it was square – 7.5m across both diagonals. Old tent pegs and lots of string are very useful for this.

Then worked out by trial and error that I can have four beds 130cm wide with a 50cm path in between – just about right. I thought the space looked about right for four little plots and it is. I used bamboo poles to mark out the paths (see above) and scraped away a couple of inches of soil on each path and trampled them flat. It really looks like an allotment now! I covered up the second plot with black fabric to warm the soil for onions.

Spring Equinox

Time to plant potatoes! Three Premiere and three Maris Bard 1st earlies at each end of of the first bed. In the second plot I planted three rows of 7 Sturon onions at each end. The idea is to see what difference digging over has made. The third bed got two rows each of ‘Aquadulce’ and ‘Stereo’ Broad Beans. The seeds are seed-swap ones from the Alys Fowler event.

I noted that the plots are a little wide – I still have to step onto them to sow seeds in rows at right angles to the paths, and the idea is to not stand on the soil. The soil is showing its clay character by cracking in this dry weather, and the drainage when watering is lots worse on the areas not dug over. When I got home I planted the left-over onions and some beans and some peas into modules, to replace any which don’t germinate or get eaten.

At the end of March a friend who is giving up her allotment brought her water butt, downpipes and guttering, compost bin, two watering cans and loads of bamboo. Super! I feel like I’ve really got the kit to get going now.

March's Experiments

I really like devising little experiments, like trying out different composts (see http://kfonmebike.blogspot.com/2010/05/this-years-experiments.html: comparing peat and peat-free compost and sowing depths and http://kfonmebike.blogspot.com/2009/04/experiment.html, an earlier peat and peat-free comparison). This spring I've tried comparing coir compost (below left) with New Horizon (below right). The seedlings are (from the back): French Marigold, Calendula, Sorrel, Spinach, Oriental Salad, Mixed Salad, Lettuces 'Little Gem', 'May Queen', 'Marvel of Four Seasons', and finally Cabbage 'Offenham 2'. All sown 19.3.11, with vermiculite to lighted the growing media.

At the moment the New Horizon definitely has bigger plants, but the coir seedlings are nice and uniform and germination rates seem slightly better. The coir seems easier to keep moist too. Both trays are in my mini-greenhouse on a sheltered corner.

A few weeks earlier I'd set up another little experiment, comparing my windowsill and this mini-green house for raising early seeds. It's not totally a 'fair test' as they are in different containers, but they are in the same compost and both face south.

 

Large lettuce seedlings in the windowsill batch (above) and (below) smaller seedlings in the mini-greenhouse.

Below - both together for comparison (the empty modules are French Marigold and Basil, both rather elderly seed. A small lesson!)

Just because the windowsill plants are much bigger isn't necessarily a good thing. they are now out in the mini-greenhouse to harden off and are suffering rather, due to the fluctuation in temperature. Sometimes it may be best to have slower-grown, tougher seedlings.

The New Allotment: Late Winter

A chopped-back hedge and a view.

I’m quite happy to garden in winter, don’t mind getting cold, don’t mind getting wet up to a point, but cold wet short winter days can be a bit limiting, especially on Nottingham clay. So I found that simply finding a day with a few hours to spare and half-reasonable weather was a challenge. I popped in to collect blue trays for Potato Day on a frosty day too cold for any cultivation: it was interesting to see which areas were still hard with ice, and which were melting in the thin sun. Sheltered areas were still solid – areas where one might put tender plants thinking they would be safer here. On the other hand continued thawing and freezing could be worse than just freezing.

Potato Day

This year part of my plan is to plant lots of potatoes – they will cover the ground and help keep weeds down, and will help break up the soil. And I like eating them. Fortunately I knew just the place to get some choice organic tubers – Nottingham Organic Gardeners Potato Day. As I was helping out at the event I bought a few Pink Fir Apples before the it began, as I really would like to grow these, and I knew they would be very popular and run out. They are a late main, cropping later in the summer, and so they are at risk of blight. But they are so good they are worth the risk.

Ready to go...

I was on the door in front of this queue!

Happy customers

After the event closed I chose some more from those left over at the end – just six of each of varieties described as tasty and with good disease resistance. Premiere and Maris Bard are my first earlies, with second early Wilja and Nicola and early mains Robinta and Highland Burgundy Red.

I’ve grown potatoes in bags for a few years, and though it’s fun, it involves a lot of watering and feeding for not a huge haul. So I’m really looking forward to growing potatoes in the open ground.

February

Finally got to the allotment – a day with rain promised and threatening – and got digging.

There are plenty of roots, and as leaves are appearing it’s clear that I will have a problem with meadow buttercup and ground elder. Great. I hate ground elder. It is supposed to die eventually if you just keep on cutting it down, but curses to the Romans who brought it here as a salad crop. At least I can eat it – and the Japanese knotweed.

Still plenty to dig... 

Then back again with a car-load of red, white and black-currents, which have all been growing in a couple of little corners of my mother’s garden, after being struck as cuttings in the winter of 2008. They were rejected cuttings material from FRESH or prunings from the Community Orchard, so they are coming home, almost. They are evidence of the will to live of currants, as nearly all survived. They did start off labelled, but needless to say I have lost track of which are red and white. At least the blackcurrants will be identifiable by smell. They are now all lined out, and I feel very pleased that I’ve got this done. The seasons have moved on in the last week, and buds are starting to burst. There were still few people about – only three others. Lovely views watching the clouds and rain.

Raspberries and currants

I also brought four blue trays of shrub cuttings – Hebe, Sarcococca, Euonymus – from home. It’s a bit of a hobby – chop a bit off a plant, stick it in a pot and see if it’ll grow. Sadly most of the purple Hebes lost all their leaves in the cold weather, I’m hoping some may sprout again.

My other ‘project’ has been dealing with the mouse in the garage. The little blighter found my green manure seeds and scoffed most of them, as well as some of the last of our stored apples. It also chewed its way into a bag of blood fish and bone – was it now super-mouse? We have been offered a cat on short-term loan…

Another few hours attacking the hedge. The window of opportunity is closing: the birds are starting to think about nesting so the hedge will be left half-cut – it can wait till next year. I’ve now got a couple of huge piles of brash, only some of which is useable. So I’ll have to have a fire at some point – better check my allotment rules…!  

I almost wished I was heavier a couple of times, pulling the 15-foot bits of hawthorn out. It’s quite tricky to cut, as previous cutting has left a tangle of stems. I’ve taken it down to around 4 foot, so it’ll stay manageable. There was a lot of ivy and it’d trapped lots of leaves and bits of wood, not good for the health of the trees. Ivy can be a controversial plant, creating mixed feelings. It is a great wildlife plant, providing nectar and fruit at times of year when these are scarce, and its knarled older braches are ideal for all sorts of nesting birds. But it also out-competes hedge shrubs and trees in some situations, so I’m still pulling out great yards of it.

Earlier in the week I put the potatoes out to chit – high up so the mouse can’t get them. I borrowed an Indian humane mousetrap but the mouse managed to get the cheese off the hook without tripping it. Outwitted by a rodent! A couple of days later a lump of chocolate melted onto the hook did the trick, and a very fit and healthy mouse was relocated to my local park. However, to check I left a little piece of cheese rind on the garage floor… and the next day it had gone. So if there were two mice, I suspect there may be several little ones too, and I don’t feel like depriving them of their second parent!

The New Allotment

The story so far… in June 2009 I went on the waiting list at St. Ann’s Allotments. I chose this site as it’s central, it’s big (huge in fact) and it’s got a lot happening there, including long-abandoned plots being renovated, so I hoped I’d get a plot sooner than some other places closer to home.
October 2010.
I wasn’t far wrong; a year and four months later I was excited to open a letter inviting me to view several allotments with a group of prospective tenants. Eight of us spent two hours looking at a very varied selection of plots. I made notes and took photos, looking for a plot or two which fitted my criteria: a smallish, facing south(ish) with a view, not too overgrown and not too shaded. We all went back to the STAA offices and were asked to make our choices in the order on the waiting list – I was third down and after a slightly nervous couple of minutes got my first choice. I was so excited to at last have my own allotment that my hand shook a bit as I signed the forms!

I was now the tenant of a 264 square yard plot: sloping more east than south, shaded by a tall but skinny hedge and with a couple of patches of Japanese knotweed, but with most of the ground already cleared and with its own SHED!
So, to work. First measure your plot to get a base plan. Preferably take a friend and get them to clamber into the difficult corners. Draw out the plan and start planning where the beds are to go, the compost heap, the water-butt, the picnic bench and the fruit trees… then go back and have another look at the waste land that is the bottom half of the plot and realize that it’s not time for garden design just yet. Help was at hand in the form of the left-over black plastic from the NOGs allotment. I could now forget about the bottom third for a few months, and Rob, the STAA Partnership Worker, arranged for the Japanese knotweed to be tackled.
November
My first day’s work. I did some digging and found lots of couch grass roots. Rather demoralizing, as it took me over an hour to dig over less than 2 square yards – how long is it going to take me to dig 264? On the other hand I met my neighbours, who all seem very nice, and one has attacked part of the hedge, revealing a view across Sneinton, Clifton and beyond.

As the month wore on I got into the swing of couch-grass removal, and the time-scale I need to be thinking about. The soil seems quite good – it’s basically on clay but the plot seems to have been gardened well until recently so it’s actually not bad. I started to move things into the shed – a rake, an old fork, my favourite ancient red goretex and some elderly walking boots. Now I can come here and garden at any time.

I started pulling ivy out of the hedge: pull, cut, chuck behind. Repeat ad infinitum... I realized that the avenue was a source of valuable leaves and chippings and finished each session with a stint of raking.

December
No chance of further couch-grass-digging, it was under several inches of snow. However I pulled huge amounts of ivy out of the hedge, and used it for Christmas wreath-making. Marc, the Garden Support Officer from STAA helped me to cut down several ash and sycamore trees from the hedge. I now covet a ‘Silky’ Japanese saw. I’ve also got some very useful big poles which could be used to create a shelter. I had fantasised about doing a lovely laid hedge but reality is that I’ve not got the time, and it’s 25 years since I did any hedge-laying.
January
Hadn’t seen the plot for about a month when I finally managed to get over for a couple of short sessions: raked the leaves over the soil to protect it, pulled more ivy out of the hedge, and started cutting up the wood from the tree-felling. I brought a picnic stool from home, so now I can sit and admire my terroir. It’s going to be a long job, I can tell, but I’ve fallen for the place already.
(This blog post first published in Nottingham organic Gardeners' Winter Newsletter 2011 and STAA website).