Happy Birthday

It's eactly one year since we got our allotment and I feel it is a good moment to sit back and take stock.

I can't quite believe a whole year has passed, but as we start to tidy up for winter and the beginning of a new year we can, I feel, look back on a very successful year.

The amazing thing is that we have had so much success. We sowed, or planted, or took advantage of, at least 35 different crops - broad beans, french beans, runner beans, onions, shallots, leeks, potatoes, beetroot, carrots, radish, lettuce, spinach beet, swiss chard, brussels sprouts, cabbage, sweet corn, kohl rabi, broccoli, pak choi peas, turnips, parsnips, rocket, courgettes, butternut squash, coriander, sage, corn salad, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, and raspberries. Most of them have produced quantities of delicious veg (or fruit) with a couple of exceptions. The pak choi germinated and started well, but rapidly went to seed before we could eat it, the carrots were a complete failure, the tomatoes suffered from blight and nobody liked the turnips, even though they grew well. Apart from that, the rest has been fantastic. I haven't brought a veg box from Able and Cole since May, and we are still eating our own grown veg, except for salad stuff - although currently I have some lettuces doing very well under fleece.

It would be hard to say what was most successful - possibly the strawberries and raspberries but in fact almost everything else was good.

From an all round point of view, I have been very pleased with the way we have kept the allotment neat and tidy. On the whole, I have kept the weeds at bay (even the bindweed and mares tail) and it still looks pretty much as it did when we took it over. Given that I am not a tidy person by nature, this is quite remarkable. The shed needs a winter tidy, but it is still usable, the compost looks good and the manure seems to have rotted down well enough for us to use it.

As I now settle down to the seed catalogues to try and decide what I want to grow next year, I look back on the last 12 months with enormous satisfaction. I have grown vegetables and fruit good enough to eat and to keep a family of four going, I have had a lot of excercise and fresh air and I have made new friends by the bucketload. The tame photographer and I have found a pastime that we both enjoy together, taking from it different aspects, (although I suspect I enjoy it more than he does!) My one regret is that we only have 5 rods of space. I have so many other plants I want to grow, I really need more room - artichokes, asparagus, pumpkins, more potatoes, currants, dahlias, sweetpeas, more peas, to name just a few. I have put my name down for another plot, but the waiting list is long, and to be fair, those without plots should have first choice - but more space would be top of my wish list at the moment.

Well, Happy Birthday Allotment, and here's to the second year and all that it brings!