Welcome To Our Allotment...

Welcome to our allotment.... I have been taking lots of photos over the past few months with the  intention of blogging about my allotment plot. So I thought it's about time I share them with you.

This is my baby boy when he was about 18 months old, he's now 4 and half. Love having a big boy but still I miss this little man watering his sunflower plants. 

And of course Little Lady giving the orders. She is very good at overseeing all the goings on at the allotment.

Four years ago when Little Man was only a baby we decided to take on a small allotment plot at our local field. The main reason, other than to grow veg, was to create an outdoor space for my children to play. This was my idea of a perfect place to learn about the world. I wanted more than our back garden for my little boy. I wanted for him what I had when I was growing up, freedom to explore on his own without a care in the world. The great outdoors where you could create memories spending hours on end playing. This is a relatively safe space where my children can get muddy, do real digging with real little person tools, plant their own seeds and watch things grow. This is where they can build dens, play games with the other children on the site and explore with all their imagination.

We are really lucky that our site has lots of other families with children about the same age. We often get together and like to share ideas, plants, seed, veg. It really is a wonderful community to be part of. Everyone looks out for each other and helps a little where they can. Our site is also full of animals. We don't have our own chickens or goats or anything like that but do enjoy visiting the resident animals at our allotment site. They are always very keen to eat our leftovers too.

Since we first arrived we have expanded our plot quite a bit taking on two other plots next to ours and now we have a rather large space. Our plot is a constant work in progress and it isn't posh, please excuse the weeds. It changes each year depending on the latest project ideas and for of crop rotation. Our original plot is home to all our fruit bushes; raspberries, gooseberries, currants bushes among some. We also have a huge globe artichoke plant, rhubarb, strawberries plants and recently planted asparagus. We make lots of jam and freeze fruit for puddings and cakes to enjoy during the winter months. 

The other two plots are where we grow the real veg. This year we have grown all the usual things you would expect to see on an allotment but have added in some extras for their beauty, colour and interest. I have tried Kohlrabi, Borlotti beans, climbing purple french beans this year. We have also attempted and failed at growing sweet potatoes and baby corn. The baby corn was really easy to grow and would have been a great success but we didn't harvest it early enough unfortunately. You can't win them all. This is something you have to accept when you have a big allotment, or any veg patch in fact, sometimes things fail miserably. Last year we had no onion at all. They all failed. All because I planted the set too deep and we watered too much. This year I simply sat them in the soil, just enough that they didn't fall over, we didn't water them and they grew, every last one of them. We have onions coming out of our ears! Instead potatoes weren't great this year.

We are now about to start packing up the plot for the year. Everything but some kale and a few brussel sprouts growing over winter will need clearing ready for next year. We are already planning what we will do in the spring.  I am hoping to improve the play equipment we have for the children and would like to add a playhouse for Little Lady. This will involve finding one for free as we try not to spend money on the allotment but hopefully Freecycle will come up trumps for us. We also want to build a bug hotel and a mud kitchen. Planting plans will be the same as always with the hope we might tone down our aspirations and be a bit more sensible but I doubt it. 

Thank you for taking the tour. 

xx Sarah xx

Playtime

This week is May half term... Yay!! Time has flown since Easter and it doesn't seem like five minutes since we were waving good by to the last holiday and here we are again. That doesn't mean to say that this term has been easy. Work has been hectic, we have Little Man's 4th birthday and lots going on at home as well. So this week will mostly be spent enjoying time together at home and getting a few jobs done too.

I am currently in the middle of working on lots of little projects and also starting some rather big ones.

I have been working on making a little cot blanket for my darling baby girl. The lucky little thing was given a gorgeous wooded push-along pram for her birthday months back and I was determined to make her a bit of crochet to keep her dollies warm. Far too quickly time whizzed by and the little cot blanket went on the to do list at the back of my mind. Last weekend I finally started it and here we are.

While making the little cot blanket I have given myself a short break from working on my v-stitch stripe blanket (need to think of a more exciting name for this blanket, perhaps retro blanket or rainbow blanket). Loving these colours and the fun of mixing and matching up the different colour combinations. I really love how neat it feels too. Granny square blankets are wonderful but they are high maintenance when it comes to those loose ends.

The garden is coming along too. This is our first year of living in this house and we had to make some very drastic changes to the backyard. I inherited this summerhouse and my lovely Hubby has painted it ready for me to decorate the inside now. I am really keen to push on with this now as the Spring is rapidly turning into Summer and I want to be in there making and enjoying the space soon. 

I have been working on the playhouse too this week. We bought this little lovely on ebay for just £40 when Little Man was 18 months old and it lived in our old garden before we moved it here. So far it has been used for toy storage more than play but I have always had plans for it. I am desperate to make this a lovely fun playhouse now before my Little Man becomes to old for playing house.

While we're down at the bottom of the garden I might introduce you to Dinosaur Land. Yes, you read it right! Tucked away in between the summerhouse and the playhouse we are creating at bit of a sensory-come-small world play area. Under a newly planted Maple tree we have a sandpit and an area of rough ground where we have added a collection of slate chippings, pebbles and shells with larger pieces of slate and rock to create Dinosaur land. We also have a large planter with herbs growing for the little people to feel, smell, taste, use in their play kitchen, make dens for fairies to live in, that kind of thing. We have a large blackboard and I am planning to add a secret garden window using a perspex mirror behind some trellis with a clematis or honeysuckle growing up it. I would also like to create a bug hotel if I can too. The little people are rather fond of this area of the garden. It's not huge but big enough to escape into and explore with those amazing imaginations they have for play and discovery. 

And not forgetting the other full time job I have at this time of year. The Allotment! We have had it for 4 years now. It lives near our old house which a short 15 minute drive away from us. Not ideal but it gives us so much enjoyment. It's a lovely outdoor space for our little people to get muddy in and learn so much about life, how things grow, where food comes from, how nature works to help our veg grow and so on. But it is also extremely hard work. Neither me nor my Hubby can bring ourselves to let all the hard work go. My lovely Hubby and I have a good system going at the moment where he does the digging (quicker that I can) and I do the planning and planting. We are always behind but we get good results nonetheless. Here is a pic from last year... it has changed quite a bit since this photo. Will have to take some more pics soon.

  I found this photo on my phone and I think it really sums up just how lovely it is at our allotment...

So this week has been spent working on a few of these jobs and hopefully with a trip to the seaside and a visit or two from some friends before the week is spent.

Thank you for popping by. Hope you have a lovely half term too, Sarah xxxxxxxxx