Happy New Year one and all, time to sit back, relax and take stock of the year gone by – and what a year it’s been.
Long winter
The weather in the UK was rather pleasant (as a winter in the UK goes) up until the end of February – when the beast from the east turned it’s head toward the west and plunged temperatures into minuses.
This meant that conditions weren’t too favourable for spending time at the allotment or doing a spot of gardening. It also meant that a lot of plants started to show signs of movement, only to be struck down by the frost.
The rhubarb for one suffered greatly and I remember feeling grateful that I was able to get what I got. Just before the late winter, I managed to plant some onion and some garlic sets, and these too started to sprout a little bit too early. Thankfully – they survived the cold snap, but didn’t do much else after that.
Looking back at the year, it feels as if someone switched a winter switch on, left it for a good month or two and then switched it back off again.
Hot summer
Just as quickly as the winter left, the summer arrived – a revolving door of seasons. It was a huge relief from the cold, but temperatures just seemed to increase as the weeks went on.
The lack of rain and increase in temperatures left the soil dusty and unproductive. It was also announced that the summer was the hottest since 1910.
What I’m about to say is going to sound really fickle, but I found myself disliking the summer as much as I disliked the winter, simply because I found it way too hot.
Sadly, this lead to further neglect on the plot, meaning that mares tail, bindweed and other weeds began to take hold.
Stating again
By the time September come around, temperatures managed to get back to a manageable level and this spurred me into action to get back at it.
This year was certainly a learning curve, mainly because I asked myself the questions – how can I make life easier? What can I do to make allotment life more manageable with shorter, but perhaps more frequent visits?
So thought I’d start again and I’ve been going at it hammer and tongs since I made that conscious decision to do so.
Progress has so far been good and has more or less been a war against bind weed and mares tail.
I’ve decided to cover path ways (to be grassed later on) and other areas to minimise weed growth – and also reduce the size of the beds in width so that weeding doesn’t cause as much strain on the body. The borders are also a lot straighter than before.
Check out the progress below!
Seed price comparison
I’ve made a decision to not grow too much while I reshape the plot. Once I have the beds in place, I know I can go nuts with getting plants into the ground.
September and August passed me by, the clocks went back and all of a sudden there’s more time for blogging about gardening, or finding new ways in which you share or reshape your content.
That’s when I came up with the great idea of creating a seed price comparison page – which can be found here. This all really came about when I decided to create a plant a-z page to make my content a bit more accessible.
I’m also launching a new newsletter in 2019 detailing the cheapest avenues for seeds online. You can sign up to it here.
Looking ahead
Who knows what 2019 will have in store – but I think at this point I’m feeling rather optimistic 🙂
The Carrot Tops Allotment Blog! 
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