Getting there

It's been a really big fortnight down at Plot 28. I don't know how many hours I've put in to sculpting the land during the last two weeks, but if I'm expecting to be repaid in vegetables, then it will take years of produce-stuffed laziness to offset the effort I've expended. And I haven't toiled alone; Lynn and Mike have both done their share of the graft too, so the theoretical wages bill really is stacking up. None of this griping matters though, because a tremendous thing has happened. I have eaten my own home-grown food for the first time. Spinach. Fabulous spinach, (Compania to be exact), and no spinach ever tasted so good. I can safely assert that it was the smuggest salad ever consumed. Everything is growing beautifully and it won't be long before my spinach-based diet will have a little more variety. I say everything is growing, but I have had my one (and so far only) failure this month. My butternut squash has given up the ghost on being planted out. Despite the tenderest care in hardening it off in the coldframe, it has withered and died. In life, isn't it always the ones that crave the most attention that prove the biggest disappointment in the end? In future I shall treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen.

Plot 28 now has significant infrastructure. A greenhouse and a shed have been lovingly erected and now I have somewhere to store all the useless rubbish that people shower on me nowadays ('because it will come in useful for something at the allotment') and my tools. I can't wait for it to rain, just so that I can hide in my hut and not have to stand out in the deluge like some 50s dissident sent to the Gulag. The shed is 'recycled'; that means it is old and fairly ramshackle, but it oozes authenticity and integrity and I wouldn't have it any other way. The shed and the railway sleepers on which it stands were given to me by my mates down at the allotment. They have also found guttering and a water butt and they reaffirm my faith in my community every time I meet them. The greenhouse has been designed and hand crafted from wood and transparent corrugated plastic sheet and (if I say so myself) looks the b****cks! Mike and I built it on my deck in the back garden, before disassembling it and re-erecting it at Plot 28 over three days in the pouring rain. Poor Mike. I'm going to have to feed him up on produce just to get his strength back. It is already stocked with 16 tomato plants, 8 peppers (all grown from seed)and 2 bought aubergines plants. I have to go to open the greenhouse door at 6.00 am, before the gym each morning, and go back to water and close up each night. It's a real commitment this allotmenteering lark! Still, more than worth it though. More spinach anyone?