I have been working on my plot about nine years – how does the time fly!!. I’m sure that I have mentioned my granddad many times here and I will do so again. As I was growing up I always went to his garden – we didn’t call it anything else because that’s exactly what it was. It was a large area on the outskirts of our town and he certainly was a dedicated gardener because he was working full-time and to get there he had to catch two buses.

When I started gardening on my plot I was still working and I clearly remember the struggle at times when I came home and had to get out again to do some gardening. For people who have a job I totally sympathise when they let the whole thing slip…..

Now I’m a lady of leisure I can spend all my free time on my ‘farm’ – and I do! It is not an easy task, the weeds grow ever so well and as soon as I think I’ve finished the weeding I can start all over again.

There are many theories regarding digging – no-dig gardening seems gaining popularity. I’m not sure about that – the piece of land I was working on today is so overgrown that it has to be done the hard way.

It is very satisfactory to see a nice patch of freshly dug ground.

This is also the time to patch things and maintain existing ones. We have decided to dismantle our office and change it back into a spare bedroom. I enjoyed reducing the desk and filing cabinet into pieces of wood. I knew it’ll be used on the allotment…

The smaller pieces were used to build a holding wall on the side of a path, that enabled me to repair that path and make it easier to walk.

The large pieces are holding in a fast growing compost heap – result of the digging of the neglected plot.