THE PLOT 2

January brought very strong winds and heavy slashing showers of rain for the first couple of weeks. In just the first couple of days a problem arose at my allotment plot. My shed blew halfway off the stone slab base onto the path beside it. It also lost most of the roof felt. I did not take a photo and felt quite disheartened.

I managed to lever the shed back onto the slab base using a 50YO spade, collected the pieces of roof felt and locked them inside the shed, and returned, despite the slashing cold rains, with iron posts. I malletted these into position around the stone slabs to prevent the shed from blowing right off again, although I cannot get it into the original correct position for the time being.

The 5 iron posts and some string have held the shed on the slabs for now, and a fellow plotster cheered me up a bit by leaving 2 bags filled with seeds in my bin, giving me something more enjoyable to do than worry - drooling over the new season ahead in the dry comfort of my house afterwards. I got totally soaked at the plot, though as you can see from the photo I took as soon as I removed my coat when arriving back home.

I have managed to replace most of the old felt on the shed roof for now. The plan is to get a lift from a garden center with a new roll of roof felt to cover over the roof once more then place and hammer in a couple of boards along the join, as the boards on the sides seem to have held it sufficiently.

As to actual crop/soil work, I have once again been weathered out of luck. It was the third week of January before I could get a 20 minute session in, where I pulled some weeds and finished pruning the fruit bushes...but little else.

At the end of the month, my seed potatoes arrived and I laid them out on the coffee room floor to dry, and 'begin' - along with the onion sets. The coffee room looks and smells more like a shed at the moment - but once spring arrives and the ground is prepared properly, all these items will be popped in the soil at the plot - I hope.