Losing the Plot Part Deux. Or how I Stopped Worrying and Love the Front of the Flat.

So I cleared out my shed this evening.

I’ve still not filled in the form and sent it back like I should, so technicially the allotment is still mine, but I’ve said my goodbyes and I won’t be returning to the plot. 

It’s a good thing, if absolutly heartbreaking. I never had time for it and if I’m brutely honest, I never will. A plot that size needs a lot of care and attention that I could never give it . Not on my own. And the plot is in such a bad state now I don’t think I could ever get it into a workable space unless I worked on it solidly for a good few weeks, and I just don’t have the time, the money or the transport to move waste and get the whole place sorted and even then, I don’t think I could keep it up. This way someone more deserving and who’s been on the waiting list for a while gets to have a go on it. Here’s to them.

It was hard leaving it. Who thought you could cry over a small piece of land? But as I stood in my shed for the last time, I suddenly remembered all the little things I did in there, like hammer in nails at random points to hang tools up, or messing around with shelves to tidy the place up, making a little thing to enable me to close the door from the inside so I could shelter from the rain and having copious amounts of tea in there while I plan what to do with the plot, and it just brings home what I’m going to be missing once I give this all up. It’s lovely nipping up there after work on a hot day watering the plants and just having a sit down listening to nothing but the birds and the sounds that plants make and really having an oasis away from everything that life throws at you.

I may have given up the lottie (or The Hoffmiester, as I once called it when I first got it) but I’ve not given up growing vegetables and food and stuff. When I first got the plot I lived in a lovely flat, but there was no outside space, apart from a couple of window sills that held a couple of boxes on them. For the past ten or so months, as you know, I’ve been living with the lovely Dave. I’m still in a flat but as we’re above shops we have a fair amount of space around the front door. I have a mini greenhouse there and a coal hole to store my tools. It’s not a massive space but has plenty of potential and I already have growbags with runner beans, peas, Chinese artichokes and lettuces growing away nicely in them and hanging baskets with tomatos just next to the door.

It looks nice and it’s so much easier to look after the plant. When I want to water (when it’s not bloody pissing it down) I don’t have to walk for twenty minutes and then spend over an hour watering everything, I just step out the door. Which is nice.

So this blog will probably change a little. I’m going to keep it up beause I enjoy it and I like recieving your comments. It’ll still be gardening based and full of the gubbins you’ve learnt to expect from here, but it’ll have a new layout (I love this one, but it’s too allotmenty) and I’ll change the about pages and other such things once I get a spare minute at work, and in the mean time watch put for exciting new articals such as Hampton Court Show review! Exclusive Gardener’s World news (sort of)!