Suprise time - at the end of July I was offered a plot on Roundshaw Allotments, an 8 minute drive from home. The plot had been disused for a year or so, so was heavily overgrown.
It was too late in the year to sow much, so we concentrated on clearing and digging some ground to prepare for the following year. Weeds were up to 6ft tall at the time.
The plot is about 30ft x 34ft, with raspberry canes along one fence and 2 plum trees on the other fence. There is a large redcurrent bush and 2 large gooseberry bushes, and later found a 3rd smaller gooseberry bush hidden under weeds. There is a small pear tree (no fruit yet) and a small apple tree (heavily laden with apples). There is a small corrugated iron "shed" at the back of the plot, just full of junk from the previous tenant. Plenty of room for a proper shed and compost bins.
We picked up a couple of compost bins and trampled down and ripped out a lot of weeks. We dug over a small patch and eventually planted out some autumn-sown onion sets.
We got chatting to other plot-holders on the site. One lady swapped some of her strawberry plants for some of our raspberry canes.
We gradually dug over about half the plot without planting anything out before autumn and winter set in. The soil is lovely, easy to dig, has been well worked in previous years. Downside is lots of mares tail which has extremely long roots so almost impossible to get rid of.
Picked up a van-load of timber to build a new shed with. Half of it was measured and cut before winter and stacked up in my garden at home.
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