Starting on the allotment

Well I've finally made a start on the allotment! Yesterday mum came round and gave me a hand to mark out the paths and the different beds for crop rotation, the fruit area and an area for a shed and compost bins (all marked with blue string).

Although its been rotovated twice the soil it still like concrete and takes a lot of digging, no good for sowing seeds directly into the ground just yet! We did manage to plant a few things though.

A nice long 15ft row of raspberries went in (pinched from mums garden), along with rhubarb, a gooseberry bush and some comfrey. Today we also managed to put in the broad beans I'd been growing in pots and net them over to protect them from pigeons and rabbits. The main trouble, besides the rock hard soil, is the lack of water on site, I've been taking a large drum of water every time I go down but it doesn't go very far!

I've also put in four raised beds, these are quick fix pallet collars that I've stained up, but they look nice and they will help me grow root crops until I get the soil sorted out (then they can be used to grow asparagus next year). My plan to get parsnips and carrots in now is to import some soil (there's some nice soil at the farm) and mix it with a little compost along with fish, blood and bone. At least then I'll have some for Christmas dinner!

Next weekend I'm thinking about fencing the whole plot with rabbit wire as everyone else seems to be doing it and there seems to be a lot of wildlife.