I am sooooo delighted, as since I no longer live on a farm, land is an issue. We do not have a huge front or back garden, and with the chickens I already have taking up one of my raised beds, and pecking anything in sight when they get let out, there is not a lot of space to grow food all year round, barely enough to go through one summer season to be honest. Certainly not enough to can, freeze and preserve in anyway shape or form! I have around 50 giant pots, which come out in spring to contain toms, peppers, beans, courgettes, squashes, summer and winter lettuces, the odd cabbage and purple sprouting broc' but never enough to store!
We spend £24 a week with able and cole, which is a bill I really want to get rid of, but I like the seasonal choice, instead of going to Waitrose and picking out the same veg religiously, same salad types and more or less the same fruit. I like that every week something changes that I have to make use of. When I look at the cost, that I spend over £1200 a year on fruit and veg.. it sort of hits home how expensive it truely is. It more expensive than electricity, its almost the cost of the interest on our mortgage !!
The day they phoned, Jan 3rd, I was down to the site with an hour! quickly viewed the plot and signed on the dotted line, grabbed the key and started making friends with a few others who were down there. Measured up.. and got home to start investigating greenhouses and potting sheds!
Two days later, my heart was thumping. An A4 package came though the post, marked with our local councils logo on the front! Ohhh, ripping it open I found...
First page: welcoming me to the allotment association, and hoping I will send them £5 a yr to retain this membership.
Second page: The bill, with a yearly mandate attached.
Third to eighty sixth page, yup 86 pages of : Rules and conditions
My shed must be no higher than 8ft, the width must be no greater than 5ft, the length, 8ft. No immoral behaviour, no fires, no, no , no, no, you must compost everything you can, you must never leave the site without signing.. omg.. the list .. oh bees.. I can have bees if they are one of three varieties the council like.. erm.. the hard standing for the shed must be made with 6 parts sand to so many parts concrete.. blar blar.. jeesh.. it took me a morning to make sure nothing I had thought about doing already had been banned!
My only problem with my plans are my water carrying abilities. I phoned the council to ask if I may bend the rules on hosepipes, as I was unable to carry a watering can.. ( basically I can hold it one havnd and push round and round in circles with the other hand.. my other option is to put the watering can on my lap and push over the uneven ground and let it slosh around covering my crotch with wetness which I will basically put a sign on my head "cripple through and through" LOL I explained my dilemma, exactly as I just typed, the lady on the phone laughed hysterically, and said.. " you know, I never thought about the water thing, you can not have a hose pipe or pump from the communal trough, but I'll ask a few people here and phone you back when we have come up with something". To which I thanked her gratefully and waited for the phone call.
That afternoon, only 3 hours after my question to the council, she phoned back and gave me the solution
They will install a new permanent pipe, all the way to my plot, by which I can fill up a water tank. I can then use a hosepipe from "my" tank, to water the plants. LOL Ok, so I'm not allowed to use a hosepipe from the trough, as its against the rules, but I can move the water to my own "trough" and use a hosepipe from there.... which then keeps to the terms and conditions they wrote for this year, that they do not want to re-write Well I'm happy with that, and I'm sure my allotment neighbour will be thankful too when I meet him/her and ask if they would like to share my butt!!
I am not allowed to have a greenhouse, but I am allowed to have a potting shed with an angled front as long as the total glass is not over 40% of the entire structure
So I'll go with that...that seems quite alright to me. Greenhouses are quite expensive, sheds are pretty cheap.. but erm potting sheds I've just found out are a bit dear! But I have to think of it like a business. My total veg outgoings are over £1200 a yr, and £400 ish for a potting shed is a business expense, that can divide its cost over the next few years that it stands, growing my melons and grapes! I'm sure I may justify it after a few bottles of wine and melon schnapps! First years are always the expensive ones!Well I'm sure If you have read this much, or your just looking for the pictures, you are dying to shut me right now and talk MUD! So here we go, new year, new start, new allotment, one very boring picture of a piece of land that is erm.. empty!!!
My plot from the front..
My plot from the side... nicer profile I think
My allotment neighbours plot... Fruit trees galore!!
The steaming muck heaps.. 50p a wheelbarrow load from a few plots down
Seeds under the grow lamps that I've started.. which I"ll go into greater depth in a mo..
Early leeks have come up nicely.. 2 yr old seeds .. seems to be about 60% germination so far
Oh, and of course my key and the toilets....very interesting, but thought I'd throw them in! LOL
The council have asked if I'll keep a blog site for them as I'm apparently the first in our borough in a wheelchair to have an allotment by ones self, and not through a social services therapeutic schemes LOL So this will be my first post when I set it up
