Up At The Allotment Early July 2011

This is the 4th year of having an allotment, due to having C.F.I.D.S  and some rather irritating physical limitations I have had to rely on some rather wonderful souls who give of their time and muscle to do those things I just can not do...
I am fortunate to have a couple of fantastic neighbors who are always willing to help when they are there and water when I am just not able to get there at all...

So I like to think of the allotment as a real creative sanctuary not only for me but for others to come and connect with nature...

I am totally Organic and like to work along side nature

- covering, mulching and under planting to keep weeds at bay.
- Sinking pots to water and fed plants
- plant comfrey and nettles to feed my plants encourage Bees etc and use medically
- have a pond and wild areas
- allow plants to flower so I can collect seed
- use companion plants
- using found or second hand stuff where ever possible


So I'll start to show you around...

At the back of the my plot is a little raised bed, it is a sheltered spot but is in shade for most of the day, so I grow mainly salad leaves, some I transplant out into one of the main beds, there is also chives, fennel and parsley there at the moment.

I leave some of everything to flower and collect the seeds to plant next year....
At the moment in seed there are various chicories at the back and in the foreground to the right Cos freckles...

I also allow some of the mustards and rocket to flower to use in salads...

Chicory in Flower...
The added bonus to seed saving is enjoying the rather beautiful flowers...
















To the left is one of my wild beds: 2 varieties of Comfrey, nettles, cleavers and Mellisa (Lemon Balm)...

Medicinally for me: juicing, teas and footbaths

For the Bees and Butterflies

For Plant feed, mulching and compost activating.

To the right of these beds is a home made cold frame and my lovely inherited blue shed...

Fortunately the shed's roof was refelted on Monday by Tim who reclaimed his neighbours old shed felting and just turned up and set to work...

Great timing as yesterday we had some much needed rain and as you can see the old roof was rather lacking...

Hopefully the water butt will have filled up a bit too...