My First Allotment Weblog

I think I’m growing up!

My wife and I had a baby girl born Christmas eve 2005, watching her grow and enjoying every minute has been amazing I cannot ask for more.  With this responsibility it also meant that my wild days we’re severally limited, the 4am parties have nearly all but disappeared, and I don’t mind!  I found myself more interested in the things around me, especially food.  Be it vegetables (the wife is veggie) or chicken, fish, wood pigeon, whatever, I became more interested in sourcing it for ourselves rather than buying it from supermarkets.  Being a city boy through and through this meant starting from scratch and reading everything I could find and also watching programs like Ray Mear, Hugh FurryWhittingstall (I can never remember his last name).  I found plenty of information of how to capture food, forage for food, grow your own food but nowhere I could do any of this.  My garden is a reasonable size with a stupid raised section in the middle that needs to be removed, so I was quite limited on my options.  I decided a few months ago to put my name on the waiting list for the allotments behind my house, I was 17th on the list – not a chance of me getting anything for years!  So I started growing things in the garden, only simple herbs etc, but things we would use.  Amazingly, I had a call not too long later and there was a plot available for me.  This was the beginning of my adventures on the allotment.  I still have no access to other produce like chickens and fish, but my father will teach me all about fishing and I will find other ways of getting meat from poultry and game.

…..one day you’ll find me on my small holding with a few animals and a wonderful crop of veg.