Went to the allotment, first time for ages, not as bad as I expected. There were a lot of weeds on the uncovered patches, but not lost everything.
I had a couple of friends with me to help dig up the spuds. We dug the whole potatoe bed in one go, got about 1.5 buckets of spuds. We also dug over the opposite bed, which I had originally sown carrots and beetroot in but had become overgrown. We found the carrots and beetroot, but they simply hadn't grown - just tiny stringy single white roots like tiny seedlings, nothing usable, not even a tiny baby carrot. Both beds were sheeted over.
One brassica bed had been sheeted over and planted through, but pigeons had destroyed all the veggies anyway. I had used netting over the brassicas in the other bed, but the netting hadn't been secured properly and the pigeons had got to that too. I did manage to pick a couple of tiny sprigs of broccoli and one swede - a bit pathetic, but not a total loss.
The sweetcorn was barely waist high, but I did pick 4 cobs that were "ok" - the rest was useless. Got 3 small pumpkins though, not sure what I'll do with them yet - I don't fancy eating them myself. The giant pumpkin had a flower, far too late in the year to grow a 4ft pumpkin!
Cucumbers and courgettes were disappointing - only about 4 of each - and that's after being in the ground for a couple of months.
Plan is to get another 2 beds dug over and sheeted up sometime this month and prepare for next year. I have loads of timber at home to build a shed for the allotment - I've cut some of the timber already, but need to work out how much I've got and how much I still need. I also need to build a couple of pallet compost bins - the sooner I get them done, the better.
Arthritis is ok, coping ok, still not up to full fitness. Got a slightly bigger problem in that I've been dumped by the girlfriend and don't understand why - my heads a mess and difficult to focus on things or get motivated - but I know that'll change with time.
