Bedding Down for Winter

Allotment39

Nov 26

Finally, after weeks of being unwell and the weather conspiring against me, I managed to spend some time on the plot today. Others on site have been busy, clearing their plots and covering their beds with tarpaulins to stop the weeds. With all of my autumn jobs still to complete, I cracked on with the most important jobs.

To get myself on a roll, I began in the greenhouse. Aside from needing to replace some of the glass at the back of it, there were a ton of weeds which needed clearing. Five minutes later, most of the weeds were gone and five more saw the seed trays tided and the potting bench cleared. Pleased with my progress, I opened up the shed and armed myself with the Wolfgarten Tiller, gloves and a weed bucket before heading across to Geoff's plot.

With Geoff very kindly letting us use four of his raised beds, it was essential that these got cleared first. I began with the tallest bed, working away methodically, using the gloves to protect myself against the occasional nettle. Moving on, I managed to clear the strawberry bed and the other bed, filling the weed bucket multiple times for each bed. The final bed had the chard in which rather miraculously is still growing. Weeding around the chard room some time as I didn't want to pull it as the chickens love it and growing our own over the winter is significantly cheaper than having to buy greens for months on end.

Now that all the beds were clear, I decided to leave clearing the paths for another day. Back on our plot, began to hoe the beds underneath the plum and apricot tree. As I worked, I told them in no uncertain terms that come the spring, they needed to actually produce some fruit. It's been years since I planted them and we've never had as much as a single plum or apricot. I pulled the old courgette plants and dug out the biggest weeds before hoeing it all over.

The final bed I tackled was the one by the Bog garden. The willow arch has shed most of it's leaves which I left covering the soil. Over the winter, they will breakdown and fertilise the soil. The added bonus is that they provide cover to stop the weeds.

By now, I was rather cold and all that was left was to check on the chickens. All of the girls were fine and happily tucked into their treats while I refilled their water. This is a job which will become distinctly more labour intensive once the site water is switched off tomorrow. Back to lugging tons of water down to site each day is not my favourite job but it's essential both for our girls and to ensure there are no burst pipes on site!

The plan for the next few days is to finish clearing the top two beds near the shed, clear the paths around the raised beds and dig over the Omlet run provided Maude and Mavis let me!