Allotment gardening

I applied for an allotment site, but, there was such a long waiting list, I expected it would take years to get one. I was very lucky and I got one in less than a year.

It is not a great plot. There is nothing but weeds, grass and trash in it. It is small, because, in order to accommodate more people in the waiting list, they have divided already relatively small plots in half. Part of it floods and its soil is pure clay, part of it is half pebbles half soil, most of it is not flat but very irregular. But, some of it has surprising good soil under the grass. So not everything is bad.

We have already dug and dug for hours and managed to recover some soil and plant some things. I have found that my initial estimate of one meter square per hour of digging per person is actually optimistic. It is only a good estimate when the soil is in good condition with not too many stones or trash or hard to remove weeds.

If I sound a bit negative, it is not that I am, just realistic. The truth is that I am thrilled and excited and I found out that to my surprise I love it a lot more than I expected. Even the hard labour of digging.

However, there is one thing that is making my life hell. I love being outside and spring and summer are the best time of the year to do all the things I love doing, from hiking to gardening. But I suffer from terribly debilitating hay fever in England. It is not a general allergy to pollen, because it is only in England that I get sick. So it must be that I am allergic to the pollen of one specific plant that grows here in the North. The weather has been extraordinary this year, but instead of taking advantage of it, I have been holed up in the house, unable to go out for long periods of time, and feeling weak and exhausted most days.

My potato bed is looking good, ain't it? I have a confession to make. I did not plant them (I was not accurate when I said above the plot was empty). The previous renters had worked one single small bed and planted potatoes. The bed was supposed to be a raised bed and they used some old timber that they treated to make it, but they did not bother to fill it with soil. So it is not raised at all, just a flat bed inside a rectangle of wood planks. Eccentric.