New Year, New Intentions

Like this blog, much of the allotment has been dormant for the winter. We were harvesting the raspberries until nearly the end of October, and collected the final pumpkins and squashes in early November; however, not a lot has happened since then. Our lives moved on, our respective jobs took over for a bit, and we almost forgot that we had a garden.

Last month, Rob fought his way through the undergrowth to rediscover the wreck that was our carefully dug beds. Weeds had taken over bed one, the bed that all four of us had worked so hard to rescue last year, and the fruit cage was leaning at a precarious angle. By the time he'd persuaded me to get the wellies on again, it was early February. Rob dug over bed one and emptied one of the compost heaps onto it: all that composty-goodness is now working its way into the soil and (hopefully!) fighting off some of the weeds as we speak. I took down the collapsed fruit cage and set about the blackcurrants and gooseberry with avengance. Last year, we didn't really know what to do with the soft-fruit bushes, so left them alone. I suspect that all the problems we had with mildew were caused by our inaction. This year is going to be different!
I'm not sure I'm going to be allowed to use secateurs again, but it felt very theraputic!

Today I've sat in our flat's garden, watched the chickens pecking round the garlic, and planned the planting for this year. Now I'm still outside, writing this post, with Your Cat warming my lap and the chickens off somewhere, causing trouble no doubt. Tim for some resolutions, methinks. This year will be so much better than last - we won't have the dilemmas caused by too many cabbages, we will recognised sawfly BEFORE it strips the gooseberry of leaves, we will remember to pick everything we plant - and I'm going to be more organised about recording it.