At the end of January my key arrived. I felt like when you get a new house! Someone had finally given me my own plot of land, and it was only going to cost me around £50 a year! Bargain right?
So, at the beginning of February on a cold but sunny Saturday morning, I went along, with my rake in hand to start taking up all the grass and brambles.
So barely 10 minutes in, and I accidentally woke up this critter! Feeling very guilty, I ran around the allotment trying to find somewhere sensible to put it. In the end I ended up recreating the bed I had just woken it up from in a safer place.
I then figured due to the state of the allotment that I was bound to come across a lot more of these! There is also a mound of dead grass by the entrance of the allotment, so who knows what's living under there at the moment! However, all I could do was add to the pile!
After 2 hours of raking up all the dead grass, chopping down the brambles so I was able to rake them up, and pulling out the odd bricks and pieces of rubbish I came across, I had all but cleared barely 2 metres square...
It's safe to say it's going to take a while! So, after a few hours that morning, even though it was freezing cold outside, I was sweating and dirty and in need of a cold drink and a shower, I headed home. I figured, probably better to do just a few hours at a time right? So I don't become disheartened? That's my thinking anyway.
So the next day, I took my husband along. We were able to go over much more with the 2 of us there! It still seems like a huge job, despite it being a fairly small allotment.
After taking a moment to pose with the rake, you can see how long and full of brambles the plot is in this photo! On the plus side, a lot of the grass just raked up fairly easily, even though it did mean we were left with the small pile now a lot larger...
It must look like I'm about to go and collect a couple of shetland ponies at this rate! Who know's what the people next door to me think! Although, I have yet to meet them.
So we decided after a few more hours work, and the allotment looking like this, that it was time to go home...
I know it doesn't look much better, but it really is!
We also decided the best thing to do would be to purchase an incinerator and a rotavator. Despite me not wanting to spend too much money on things to do with the allotment, we sort of thought that was the way to go.
Until today...payday of course! So we headed to the shops to buy an incinerator - we discovered Wilko's has them for just £16 at the moment, so decided that was a bit of a bargain.
However, we then drove to a garden machinery rental shop to look into a rotavator, only to discover that the shop that we thought was there was no longer there! After looking online and finding another place, we discovered that for a day, to hire a rotavator it would cost us at least £70. A little out of my price range sadly! So it looks like we're going to have to turn it over the old fashioned way...need to get some good hand moisturiser in!
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