I showed a friend some pics of my newly dug veg plot, his reaction was unexpected-That looks just like an allotment on some lost fenland backroad....
Hang on! I cleared and dug this garden from a bit of shaggy turf- it was hard labour!
And it’s staked out by greedy fat pigeons and beady eyed blackbirds ( suddenly I see wildlife differently, oh dear!) so I have been set on preventing them from scoffing my seedlings.
And felt pretty thrilled that the bird-scarers I’d devised using torn strips of the plastic manure sacks were doing the job.
Looking objectively, for the first time, I could now see what he meant. It is a bit rough and ready.
And ... I don’t mind! I have always admired the chaps biking slowly home from their allotments with their handlebars slung about with leeks and carrots and stuff- if only I can learn proper vegetable gardening like them I’ll be proud as can be.
3 days ago I ate my very first salad from this plot - which does indeed contain a few additions which those old-school allotment holders maybe didn’t rate so highly, such as delicious rocket; this was one of the happiest meals of my life- no exaggeration.
Right, more digging, I think some of the tomato plants are hardened off sufficiently and I’m going to go and plant them out- the basil seedlings can follow in a few days time.
I’m so excited! All my own work!