The Inventor’s Allotment

I went down to the allotment on Saturday morning to have a bit more of a tidy up at the back of the plot. The corner was the main focus of my attention, I spent about 3 hours cutting it back in the end, but before I’d started any of that I met one of our neighbours, a nice guy called Andy. He’s only had his plot for a year so it’s all fairly new for him too. It hasn’t stopped him building a great shed though, something I’d like to get round to eventually.

The corner was mostly full of twisted brambles, nettles and other sharp, spikey things. In amongst the organic hazards were a number of man-made dangers, comprising mostly of shards of broken glass. After getting to grips with the brambles, I got one of our many buckets and filled it with the glass bits, removing as much as I could manage from the soil. The majority of the glass was just behind the cold frame, where I assume it was dumped after ‘Old Bob’ had finished replacing a broken pane, or 12.

As with most of the other clearing that we’ve done, part of the work has involved discovering long-lost goodies buried deep in the greenery. From the corner I managed to pull: 2 Wheelbarrows; 1 Small metal bath (with leaky bottom); 1 Large metal bath (Full of water); A flattened, bottomless bin; 2 Watering cans; Last but not least, I found another stash of plate glass wedged behind the apple tree that we have growing in the corner, I’ve yet to fish it out.