Allotments and recycling

I love the way allotments are made up of begged, borrowed and found materials and objects. When we were looking at getting an allotment we visited a couple near by and I was instantly taken by the ramshackle way in which they have been created, on one site a shed had been made using an old glazed door for a window and a great big old window for a door! MAD! But it has a fantastic charm to it, it worked and what's more it's free!

I am saving anything and every thing to use in the garden and the plot and today I took a load of lemonade bottle for cloches and lots of little bottles from the yogurt bio drinks that we have every day for cane ends up to the plot.

When I arrived the broad bean plants in bottle cloches were escaping out of the top of the bottles, I'd decided they were going to be liberated today anyway so I quickly set them free. I planted up 16 more broad beans that I took up with me and covered them in bottle cloches. Total broad bean plants now 26.














...Broad bean plants in trug ready to go to plot (spot the snail!)


Now, the idea of the yogurt drink bottle going on top of a cane is for 2 reasons, the first is that any cane tops are covered to protect your eyes and the second is that in the wind they will rattle and scare away any birds trying to eat the crops. Good idea you may think but while I was crouched planting (having set up the yogurt pot canes already) a blackbird flew down and landed on the bed about 2 feet away from me and just stared at me! Oh well, you can but try!
I also managed to dig 2 of the beds that we'd already de-turfed, I haven't made the seed bed as hoped (soil still bit too wet) but at least I have space now for potatoes to go in soon.

Broad beans in bottle cloches with number 1 helper in background!

There has been a fair bit of work on the site by different people since I went down there 2 weeks ago. It's really nice to see actually, I've only been on site since November and not really seen much activity and the site looked a bit rough to say the least but now it's starting to wake up for the spring. The forecast cold snap hasn't been too much of a problem either, I've covered a few delicates in the garden with fleece and put the paraffin heater on in the greenhouse as a precaution but I think it would have all coped anyway. Isn't it great as things are waking up, even small set backs like a cold snap seem less of a problem and only a slight hiccup in the start of a gardening year.