*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karen’s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*
We’re getting an allotment!
My role in this project is very much as hired muscle. I think it’s going to be up to me to do all the digging and clearing and other manual labour. Hopefully this means that Karen will be the Weed Queen and keep all of that stuff in check.
Since uniting with Karen, I don’t really do much cooking, it’s true. I’m not a completely incapable cook, and if she went away for a while I am sure that I’d be able to pick up where I left off. But in the absence of such a situation, we have a mutually beneficial arrangement. I haven’t had to do much cooking for the last 3 years, and she has rarely had to touch a vacuum cleaner. I mop floors, do all the car admin, get the TV license, take the bin bags out on Mondays, trim the ivy, make the bed and keep her WordPress installation up to date, she does the laundry and grocery shopping. We’re both happy with the division of labour.
So when it comes to deciding what to grow at the allotment, I have to defer to her. And if she asks me what I think we should do, I’ll give her my ideas (Hey! How about we plant everything *diagonally*?!?!?! ((yes, I really did make this suggestion)) ) and she’ll smile politely, somewhat condescendingly, and ignore my stupid ideas. Because, truth be told, I’m like the three year old with a plastic hammer who is “helping” his dad to put up a fence.
But what I do know for certain is that we need a shed. A huge great big shed, mounted on stilts, in case it rains.
4 replies on “The blackberries are already thriving”
You need a cold frame. This can either be and expensive thing purchased from a DIY store or garden centre or it can be some bricks (or railway sleeper offcuts in the case of mine) and some panes of glass salvaged from a skip/kind friend/freecycle (a couple of ancient sealed double glazed units in my case – ok, but the light transmission is poor and I plan to uprate them to something better soon). Alternatively, and to be totally Bernard-safe, use some of the clear perspex sheets they sell in bee and queue. Won’t shatter when the small one falls on it, saving you a time-consuming trip to the hospital when you could be
in the shed drinking home brew, smoking a pipe and looking at pr0ndigging and weeding.Pete, I love you THIS MUCH.
You know that potatoes can be used to make decent home brew, don’t you? You need this website:
http://www.dmoz.org/Recreation/Food/Drink/Liquor/Home_Distilling/
Don’t tell Karen.
[…] and I have spent a lot of time on the allotment. Whereas it did look like this, it now looks like […]