I was so tired from Kayaking yesterday I passed out at about 10pm last night (another crazy Friday for me!). My alarm woke me at 7am and it was still dark, no point going to the allotment then, snooze…..7:45, getting lighter and little madam decides to wake. I get up and sort her out have a little breakfast and then out the door at just before 9am woohoo. A nice stroll round with my new fork and a bucket, meet a few of the residents who are all helpful. Get to my plot and it seems to get bigger, this has something to do with the fact I have to start digging it. So off I go, forking the ground getting the weed’s, grasses and generally everything out of the ground. At this point I thought I’d take a pic.
Granted it’s not a mind blowing pic just the beginnings of some back breaking work! I promised I would have a break until I’d reached the end of the row I was currently working on. To get there took 1 hour of digging and weeding. At this time I stopped for a lovely (much needed) cup of tea and a nice sit down. The site shop had also opened up and I thought I’d pop over and buy a much needed wheelbarrow. I met Roy in the shop and he gave me a key to the allotment, I also ended up buying a hoe and a rake for bargain price of £6.80 (that also included the key) but no ‘barrow. Back to the plot I trundled feeling quite happy with my new purchases.
My Allotment buddy (we share the same plot split in half) Ian turned up, he wasn’t aware that he could begin work on the plot as it’s not 100% ours till 1st December due to a eviction notice. I was amazed that you can be evicted from a small plot of land. 
Ian and I had a chat and he mentioned Bee’s and I remember reading on the Cardiff and the Vale Beekeepers’ Association web site that there is a course running in January 2008 on all aspects of beekeeping. Also we pondered the idea of renting one of the unused plots and keeping a hive on there, but I think we’ll get the plots in shape before we take this idea on any further. Another newbie John popped over to speak to us as he wanted to see if we were having as many problems digging on our sites as he was on his. Myself and Ian haven’t had any issues as yet and once turned over the soil looks very good and fertile (not that I know what I’m looking for). This prompted John to switch plots to another better looking one i.e. nicer soil.
The big boss man of the site, Roy, came over to see how we were getting on and very helpfully gave some digging tips and advice, it turns out that I didn’t need to folk over every patch of earth but simple talk one ’spit’ of a shovel and then turn it over. Once turned over remove some of the weeds and roots that are embedded and the coming weather will do the rest. Also you can reuse some of the grass and weeds (he did name some which your not to reuse) to act as ‘green compost’ and this can be put underneath the soil. Earlier in the day I had been given a composter by one of my other neighbours so I was able start loading this up with the compostable weeds, grasses and other stuff.
Whilst having a look over the site I noticed strawberries, this was also confirmed by Ian and he suggested that I keep them. At first I was not sure as I was looking to have a blank canvas to start working on, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. On closer inspection I noticed that there we a few strawberries were still growing!!! I was pretty surprised, I guess I need to do more reading though.
At some point during more digging John from plot 131 gave me some giant garlic, now this made me very happy as I luuuurrrrreeee garlic, I was prepare to take it home and eat it but he suggested I plant it instead. Which is excellent news as I was looking to buy some to get it planted asap as apparently it tastes better if it has some ‘holding time’ over the winter. I didn’t plant this immediately as I felt I needed to do some more digging first, the planting could be my treat before going home.
Ian had been digging his patch for a while and was coming up with a bounty of potato’s in the one cultivated section of his plot. He put these aside for me as he’d only recently had a successfully bounty at home. Cheers Ian!
I’d made it till 3pm and decided it was time to call it day and decided to pack everything up, but not before planting the garlic. I raked over the freshly dug section of the plot and marked out a straight-ish line from one side to the other then planted the garlic about 4cms deep and about 10cms apart – I STARTED GROWING SOMETHING 
With the garlic planted I struggled off home. I need to get a wheel barrow, I was carrying so much stuff it was a nightmare, it turned a 2min walk into about 10mins. By the time I got in I was deperate for a bath to chill for 5 minutes. I’m looking forward to getting back on the plot already, but works going to get in the way again for another 6 days. DOH!
I’m going to bed now!
It just goes to show that even the hardcore party people soon settle down in to the more slower (and better) pace of life. Swapping pubs for potato’s and beer for beans lol.
