We are lucky to know a few friends who also own an allotment plot and offered their strength and knowledge of what was worth keeping and what was actually a weed. It was brilliant to have them around as we found out we had mint, lemon balm, more raspberries and also I found strawberries growing on one of the paths which was overgrown with grass and weeds. So here's what I've very roughly drawn. Patch 1 and 2 are complete, patch 3 has not been sown yet and the rest is still in the works.
So you can see in a circle is "apples tree" which is our little apple tree that was already planted on the plot when we got it. Our worry about this is it affecting sunlight as at the bottom-left a fellow half plot owner has three large apple trees which in the early morning until about 1pm a fair amount of our plot is in shade, which was great for us when we were there in hot weather as the shade was cool and relaxing for us to setup a picnic blanket with our son. We may move it in the future to the top-right which is currently three compost heap boxes of which two of them have just been left to grow weeds for a long time and we don't really think we'll use them so it is a possible site for the apple tree, we shall see. Next to the young tree is currant bush which says "red" in brackets. This is because we believe it is red currant but aren't 100% sure so going to wait for the fruit to arrive for us to find out exactly what it is. Next is a lovely drawing of a flower which is to symbolise a flower area, but I think we'll not bother too much there, infact we may consider moving the herbs (see on the left side next to "raspberries" for lemon balm and mint) into plant plots so they don't spread like crazy and place them there instead, we shall see. After that is a good area for rhubarb. I hate rhubarb but my partner loves dipping it in sugar and eating it, which to me is just disgusting but for some reason the idea of him growing his own makes it less gross to me. Due to the size rhubarb can grow it is likely we'll have probably only two rhubarb plants at the most. Next is our compost heap which needs sorting out but for now we'll continue using the old heap boxes, I will talk about the compost issue another time.
Okay so back to the left under the apple tree you can see a long tin area that says "raspberries". Again we found raspberries all in a row here which we thought were our neighbours but turned out they are actually ours. We were happy about this as we can make raspberry jams, eat fresh raspberries and make all sorts of tasty fruity stuff for our family and friends. Next is a patch which has been numbered as patch number one. We were given by my fiancé's dad a lot of celery plants, three runner bean plants and three tomato plants. With our friends' help we got these in to the patch and organised very nicely. Patch two is our roots and this year we are working on carrots and parsnips as all three of us enjoy carrots and at Christmas time we love making home-cooked roasted parsnips so having them grown by us will make it even more home-made. Next to patch two is currently our gooseberries which are growing very nicely, however we don't like gooseberries so once they are ready to be harvested we are going to give them out and then offer the bushes to anyone who'd like them. Currently where Rhubarb is going to be is where there's some secret raspberries, that's right we have found more raspberries hiding in all the overgrown weeds. Well we shall move those over to the fruit patch once the gooseberries are gone and prune them ready for next year.
At the bottom-left is to be flowers, although our friend inspected what is currently here and some of it seems to look like more herbs, but couldn't figure out exactly what the large plant could be exactly, but if it is a herb it'll be cut down to a smaller size and potted. The blank patch with three flowers will be for our son to enjoy and also for us to relax on, a flower bed area just for some colour and give that area a garden look to it. Patch three is currently blank but we will get the broccoli and caulflower in hopefully next time we are up and the weather isn't nasty. And then on the right side are the rest of our fruit. The strawberries were found growing on the path on the left side, god knows how they were growing but they are looking strong and have fruit so we shall be moving the rest of them next time we're up there. Behind the strawberries is another currant bush which again we think is red currant but not sure yet. Due to the insane amount of currant bushes we have we may get rid of one or even two of them, we shall see. Below the strawberries are our big currant bushes, one is red currant and the other is a blackcurrant-gooseberry hybrid. The blackcurrant bush is way too big and needs pruning, however it's currently at the point where it's best to leave it be and harvest it later on and then begin to prune it back to a size more suitable.
So that is our plan for this year. Lettuce, cucumber, Brussels sprouts, potatoes and onions will be on our crop cycle next year, if we can find a place to put lettuce then we'll put it in, however we were given so much celery that we realised we couldn't fit anymore on the first patch.
Up next is to get some wood chippings to make the paths and consider putting borders around the patches so our son knows what not to walk on. Wish us luck!
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