The plan was to spend today at the allotment, but the rain got the better of me. The soil, already wet from the rain this week, was no good for digging and the dour weather was no good for morale. So I went home without making much progress.

On the positive side, Miss M also come down today and bought the cloches she had made from corrugated plastic sheets, given to us by a departing allotmenteer in the winter. A bit of DIY later and we have some sexy shelters for the timid spinach. They have no proper ends yet so we shoved a bit of broken glass (RISK ASSESS!!!) at either end to keep the heat in.

I think they look great and serve a useful purpose – so bonus points to Miss M for the bright idea. Now the spinach have no reason not to survive.

As for the weather, the sun came this afternoon, not long after I had packed off home. Just my luck.

Look! Two raised beds! Built by hand! OK, so they’re not the most professional looking constructions, but hey, its an allotment! This week we got the second raised bed built from bits of reclaimed wood and a few brackets and screws. Today we mixed in some free fertiliser from Starbucks. Now personally I can’t stand the coffee shop (I’m not even a coffee drinker), but as they were giving away free used-coffee we thought we would take them up on the offer. We also added some sand to the soil in both boxes because last year, when we only had the one bed, we struggled to get straight carrots, so we’ve tried to thin the soil.

The next task is to build a cover for the new bed so that it can act as a mini-greenhouse. The small raised bed can be covered in glass but the new one is too large for that so I’ll have to be more inventive.

Yes, the raised beds are very raised, but why not? It saves too much effort bending over (so lazy). The only problem with this is that they tend to dry out very quickly, a problem that will have been made worse now that we have added sand. I guess I’ll have to be stricter with the watering regime this summer.

Today was the last work day on the allotment for a while as it’s back to proper work next week. I’m fairly pleased though as I’ve managed to do everything I had planned to do by now. The good weather we’ve had recently has helped loads. For the next few weeks it’ll be grabbing an hour or two whenever I can. At least I’ll have this years seedlings to fuss over when I get back from work…

Today was cold. Not really cold, like being stuck up a mountain in a snow blizzard, but cold nonetheless. That was the analogy used by Mr. S, who came down to help at the allotment today. See, he had recently been stuck up a mountain in a snow blizzard. So I guess he should know. But for someone who has been digging in the faint warmth of the March sunshine for the last couple of weeks, I thought it was cold today.

Certainly it was too cold to plant anything. My chitted potatoes will have to wait for another week or so, and the onions may as well wait also. Thankfully, the raspberry transplants from last week looked healthy still, and the strawberry plants that we put in a few weeks ago are settling in nicely now that they have received a bit of rain.

So instead of planting we started on the final big winter project – the fence. This is the fourth and final side of the allotment that needs to be fenced to make our plot of land rabbit-proof. Being the skinflints that we are, we’re making the fence out of bits of reclaimed wood and old pallets. So it’s not the most attractive fence you will ever see, but all we’ve payed for is the wire meshing.

It’s not finished yet because we ran out of pallets. Hopefully more will magically appear soon.

There is so much to do on the allotment and we have so little time to devote to it. But slowly things are getting done. After digging the first half of the plot last year we realised we needed a proper path rather than the muddy quagmire that served as the access route to the bottom of the allotment. The trouble is, being true allotmenteers we don’t like spending money unless we absolutely have to. So we’ve been keeping our eyes and ears open for free paving slabs, even putting requests onto Freecycle, so that we can make a path at no cost other than that to our sore joints. Happily some slabs have been unearthed and donated so we can finally start on the path project. Happy Days!

Oh, and if you’re wondering why this is the new shoddy path, then you should look at the next photo – the original shoddy path.

Ok, so we’re not path laying experts. But its better than nothing. Hopefully the new shoddy path will grow this year along with the veg. At least the pigeons, rabbits, slugs and whitefly can’t destroy the hard work put into this addition to the plot.