Allotment

I haven't written about my allotment yet! What have I been doing!
Well to start at the beginning. I got my plot June 2008. It was very overgrown and in need of much love and attention. So I started hacking and chopping to my hearts content. And then I continued hacking, chopping but also digging. (I officially hate dock, it's a weed for those of you who think I'm being horrible to someone I know called dock, I don't know anyone called dock, er where was I?) I suppose it took me and my family (thankyou all) only about 2 weeks to clear all the weeds.
I then started to draw a plan of what my plot would look like. As it's very long and narrow I thought it best to have a path straight down the middle with beds on either side. I wanted a few fruit trees and maybe a fruit patch too so decided to make the beds go only three quaters of the way down the plot. The last quater I decided was going to have berries, rhubarb, fruit trees, my compost bins and most importantly my shed!!
Now the next task was to find enough wood to make my beds. Fortunatly Biffys Grandad had loads of old wood in his garage. I think the wood I got from him made about 4 of my planned 9 beds. Oh and also I managed to get some old windows and a glass door which I made into my cold frame. I think the best bit of wood foraging I did was when I saw loads of planks in a skip. They looked to have been from a roof as one side was painted with black tar stuff. I asked the bloke who I knew the skip belonged to if it was OK to have the wood and he was more than happy for me to take it!
So I eventually got all the beds made. I think it was about January when I finshed them.
In October I had got my first produce in the ground, Onions! This meant I would have Onions for Spring/Summer.
I ordered all my seeds through the allotment seed scheme where you're given a catalogue and choose your seeds, then order them through the allotment trust, this is cheaper for me and I believe the trust gets some money from it.
My choices were: Potatoes; Red King Duke of York, Cara, and Kestrel. Tomatoes; Gardeners delight and Golden Sunrise. Sweetcorn, Beetroot, Runner Beans, French Dwarf beans, Parsnips, Leeks, and Celery. I also bought from garden centres Rhubarb, Blackcurrants and Autumn Raspberries. Plus I had leftover seeds from the previous year (from my small patch at home), they included Carrots, Thyme, Courgettes, Squash and Rocket. Blimey that's a lot of stuff!
I realise I'm wittering on here so i'll stop for now and continue another time, where I'll tell you all about the how I got my shed, my turf and fruit trees all for free!
Ta ta for now.