Friday 27th October, 2006

First photo of the plot

Managed to get a couple of hours digging/weeding this afternoon, and covered the first strip with cardboard and we're ready to tackle the next strip!

Kids, after a short burst of work, went to have fun in the brook. Once I'd pulled them out, they were soppng wet with squelchy feet in wellies!

Great fun.

"Mud, mud, glorious mud"

Kids were extremely eager to get going with weeding the plot, so we headed off after a short burst of work this morning.

We all wore old clothes and our wellies/boots and got stuck in - literally! The earth, thanks to all the rain last night, was really muddy! Managed to start clearing a very small area but I reckon we've thrown out more mud than old weeds and roots! Covered the small bit with old carpet now and the kids want to go back tomorrow, weather permitting, to continue, together with a packed lunch!!

Went to have a look at the local garden centre to see what veggie seeds they have. It seems K is more interested in growing flowers and B is certainly interested in the pond side of things. Found a nice, small, liner for £12.99. Suggested to the kids that in between weeding, while we wait to start planting, we could start digging a hole for the pond to keep interest blooming.

Anyway, T has found some good organic seed firms, and I'm going to have a look at these ones too, the first was suggested by the new "Move to the Country" (I wish) magazine.

www.victoriana.ws - Colossal Climbing Peas.
www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk - early crop starter plants (bit of a cheat really, but sounds good!)
www.suttons-seeds.co.uk - got some kids runner beans from here last year and they were easy to grow and tasted fabulous.
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk - always seen this company around, so may as well try them too!

Initial ideas

This is the list of ideas for the plot, it seems rather a lot, let's hope we can squeeze it all in!

A small pond and mini-wildlife area with sawn tree truck seats, rotten wood for insects and plants to encourage wildlife. This may be K and B's area to look after as I don't think we'll have space for individual "gardens".

Beetroot
Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Carrots (possibly do these in large pots)
Runners
Peas

B would also like strawberries - may do these if we have any left over space!

Welcome to The Plot

This blog is linked with our home education blog call Elles Funtimes and it will be about the running of our allotment that we're sharing with another home educating family. My children, K (9) and B (7) are looking forward to growing fresh food for the family and perhaps having their own small site to grow their own choice of flowers, fruit or vegetables.

We visited the plot today to find the council had kindly rotivated it for us. They said they'd do this to help us along with the dreaded weeding that always needs to be done before miracle veggies can be grown! We've heard lately that rotivating can actually hinder the process of weed control, but at least the plot looks bearable, rather than just an overgrown mess. B and his friend helped to measure the entire length of the plot and then we used string to divide it in half so we know our boundaries.

Both children are keen to get going, especially K, who wants to start weeding, whatever the weather, later this week!