Neigh? Yes please!

We've had a glorious weekend here in our part of the world! How can you not run to the allotment to do some invigorating digging? Well, I didn't exactly run, I drove, and I didn't have hours to spend. However, Mrs. G. and I met up for a bit of digging yesterday afternoon and we were not alone. We were in the company of lots of these little things: 

Healthy soil has lots of healthy looking worms and we seem to have loads of them. Great start!

We managed to finish digging over the big space and after looking at the surrounding allotments and talking to some of the experts, we decided to take a trip to the local garden centre today. So we headed off just after lunch and filled our trolley with this:

Horse manure! 8 bags heavier and something to plant, we headed back to the allotment. Time to do some serious planning. Armed with string and some very useful hooks, we methodically outlined beds and paths. It took some thinking and giggling before we were done. Pleased with ourselves and our ability to create a plot that looks similar to the ones around us, Mrs. G. carried on digging over the smaller patch where we intended to plant raspberries and I started pouring manure over some of the beds.  I used a fork to mix it with the soil, which wasn't too difficult, but we were both working so hard that we forgot to chat! How about that? 

Mrs. G. digging away.

Look at those beds!

One of our lovely neighbours came over to chat and brought some everlasting salad onion and chives. How nice was that? We separated the onions - we'd never heard of them before - and planted 4 clumps. Looking forward to using some in salads! We've decided to plant onions and leek in the first bed and planted  a row of red onions. The garden centre was out of yellow onions so that'll have to wait until next weekend. 

Thank you neighbour!

We'd also bought first potatoes and decided to plant a whole bed of them. We both love new potatoes and are planning a midsummer meal at the allotment in June. Roll on potatoes! Luckily, we seemed to be the only ones left in our area of the allotment as we must have looked a sight. In order to raise the soil into three mountain range like rows, I thought it was easier to crawl on all four pushing the soil with my hands. Well, it might have looked silly but it worked. Look at this:

Actually, they don't look like mountain ranges in the picture but I blame the photographer. They certainly did in real life. To round off our extremely productive afternoon (we're really chuffed with ourselves - can you tell?) we planted our 4 raspberry pots. Minus the pots that is. We'd soaked them straight after coming back from the garden centre and ignored that the label stated to soak over night. Let's hope they'll grow anyway. They look alright, don't they?

And a close up shows some lovely shoots:

I realise this is sideways but I have no idea how to turn the photo. Sorry.

We had a brilliant afternoon and are already longing for next weekend. We're both too busy during the week so the allotment has to be a weekend activity at the moment. I'm sure we'll get a lot of pleasure from this new adventure of ours. I'm also sure that I'll sleep like a log tonight!

Mrs. M.