Hello everyone. Physical and mental health struggles, plus feeling beset by the UK government on every side, means that I haven’t managed to finish this week’s post yet. I also didn’t get my usual Allotment 2025 post out on Tuesday, so I thought I would give my general readers a chance to see what is going on at the ol’ lottie.
I’m still limping along. Progress is painfully slow, but it is still progress all the same. With half of the allotment under thick plastic sheeting, I am hoping that nature won’t overtake me this growing season. I am working for a few minutes and then having to sit down, but if I repeat that cycle often enough I can get some work done each day.
This week I have continued to clear the autumn raspberry bed of nettles and other weeds, lifted, divided and then replanted my clumps of sorrel, and (not shown here – big reveal next week!) continued to tidy up the greenhouse after my dad helped clear it a couple of weeks ago. It is all ready for me to start sowing seeds this weekend!
Another job I have been doing is sieving compost, which is more tiring than it sounds, so that I can make my own potting mix. I will be adding various extra ingredients like perlite and worm castings. I’ve tried various ‘recipes’ and I’m trying to find the perfect mix! I will give you my current recipe next week.
On the subject of ‘next week’, if you are not signed up for my weekly Allotment 2025 posts and would like to be, click the link below:
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I’m going to try to share a few of my favourite gardening and vegetable growing resources in this section each week.
Today I want to tell you about a YouTube channel that is new to me. I came across Angela at Parkrose Permaculture’s channel due to her sensible and proactive commentary on the current political situation in the USA. I have also been exploring her videos on Permaculture, which is something I have been interested in for a while, but felt overwhelmed by when I’ve tried to learn about it in the past. I’ve been exploring and learning about some of the ideas over the last couple of weeks, when I have been too unwell to do anything other than knit and watch or listen to something.
I recommend both Angela’s political videos and her home, garden and permaculture ones.
And a quotation to finish from writer and journalist Elspeth Thompson, who died too young in 2010.
15 March 1998 ~ The Allotment
…the mood on plot number 26 is good. Two years of hard work are finally beginning to pay off and the plot is looking – dare I say it – almost smart. In previous years we’ve had to clear, dig and sow in quick succession; this time, having prepared the soil properly in the autumn, there’s been time to sieve and rake it to the ‘fine tilth’ mentioned in all the books. It’s a strangely sarisfying process, not unlike kneading bread – repetitive enough to keep the mind occupied but not enough to strain it. And the finished substance is so beautiful – soft, crumbly and a dark, chocolate-brown – that you can see how seeds would prefer it to the stony stuff of previous years.1
That’s all for this week, folks. I’m off to the allotment to soothe my heart and mind with some raking. Like Elspeth, I am in need of something ‘repetitive enough to keep the mind occupied but not enough to strain it.’
Elspeth Thompson, Urban Gardener. Orion: London, 2000, p.157.
I just discovered Angela's videos, too! They just started showing up in my YouTube algorithms (though for a different reason, probably - it was more about how many of USAID programs are actually subsidies for farmers.) But a very jinx! moment.
My favorite allotment! It’s looking fairly spiffed up!