We took a walk out to the allotment at the end of March; our first visit of 2013.
It looked just as we expected but worse! Even with all the work we’ll need to do to clear the soil for growing I’d imagined an idyllic scene of G and I busting a gut gardening while E played on a toy filled blanket on the grass. How naive! The allotment is riddled with nettles and brambles and all sorts of nasty spikey things and not at all safe for a little man out of arms.
With little enough time as it is, we can’t do the maintenance needed to contain it as well as grow food so for another year it will be a place less frequently visited and more likely to be tended by one or other of us in our usual tag team fashion. We’ve tamed it before and we can tame it again once E’s a bit older! This is how it looked this time last year with our parent task force helping out.
We managed a couple of jobs at least in the hour E slept. I cut back the autumn fruiting raspberry canes and I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed that they’ll work their usual magic of producing fruit effortlessly from July to October.
G picked the rhubarb and while there wasn’t enough to make rhubarb wine he was very happy to make his legendary coronary inducing rhubarb fool.
Come again
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hopefully one day E can help you with the allotment and there will be even more help
good to see your plot again! Hope you find time to get some things planted (e.g easy stuff like rasberries), it makes a difference if you can just get few bits of produce.
Oh it’s a challenge, I know. I’ve taken 13 month old H twice this year, both times he tolerated just 30 minutes before the whining started. I’m hoping with time he’ll get more comfortable there and actually explore the plot and/or his toys, rather than just sit on the rug and pout at me.
So you plan on working a small area? Get the parents to help tame it again? I have someone mowing mine when he does his, so we’ve accessible paths, even if the beds are all weed!
Best of luck..
Looks like we need a task force of helpers to sort it.
A rota of people from early in the day to late.
Name the for’s and against of a rotavator.
Johanna – he already has a love of moving things from one place to another and is a master seeker out of stones so yes, there’s hope yet that we can put him to work ;o)
Greg – lovely to hear from you and yes we hope to get a few things in, if only spuds and beans. G has started the digging
Shelley – great to have the support of kindly allotment neighbours. We’ve been debating putting a shout out to friends for help with the promise of food to tempt them! Meanwhile the pouts are rather cute if somewhat restrictive in actually getting any gardening done!
Dad – are you volunteering, how nice {wink}. With the sort of mega weeds we’ve got I think a rotavator would simply chop them all up and scatter them further! And we’ve lots of roots that need to come out so I wouldn’t like to say what state the rotavator would get returned in. One day we’ll have the simplicity of a garden I hope …