The Carrot Tops Allotment Blog!

Due to the most diabolical weather conditions, I haven’t been down to visit the allotment… Yesterday I managed to nip out and assess the damage.

The last time I managed to visit the allotment was on the 8th February – whereby I managed to finish the last of the main beds, on the second half of the plot. That resulted in something like this:

There may be some more beds here and there, but by and by this means that I can turn my focus onto sowing some seeds and growing some fruit and veg year – which is something I haven’t done too much of the last twelve months.

Since 8th February which is two (almost three) weeks ago, I’ve not been able to get to allotment at all thanks to Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara raining down and blowing a hooley.

Today, for a couple of hours there was a rest bite from all of this, and with the evenings getting a touch longer, I was able to give the plot a visit to assess the damage.

The weather was still a little brisk, and the temperatures have certainly dropped over the last fortnight – but undeterred I put on scarf and a woolly hat off I went.

What struck me first was how much this bucket had filled up in two and half weeks – this was empty when I last saw it. I think this really put the amount of rain we’ve had into context..

But looking around, I have to say (and thankfully!), there wasn’t really much damage at all!

Touching wood, the most upheaval the plot had seen, are pallets that have been blown over – and to be fair, I had only just propped them up against some empty pallet boxes.

I’m conscious that the temperature has dropped over the last couple of weeks, so I was fully expecting to be see some frost damage but on contrary I was greeted with some heathy, green plumes of rhubarb leaves.

And that wasn’t all!

The raspberries were also showing signs of life, which was a nice sight to behold. This would be the second year of growing raspberry plants and they proved to be a nice treat over the winter months.

Interestingly, there’s more life on the autumn raspberry bushes than there are on the spring bushes – so let’s see what happens there as the year goes on.

I was also expecting the beds to be a little bit waterlogged, but thankfully that wasn’t the case – although the ground is very soft.

Towards the end of the plot – sits a plum tree, and I was most encouraged to see fresh buds running up and down the stems of the tree.

Not so long ago, I foolishly gave this a tree a prune, (only a very light prune) to avoid stems blowing in the wind and causing damage to one another. I wouldn’t usually do this, as you’re meant to prune fruit trees, that produce fruit with a stone, in the spring.

I was quite glad to see the tree showing signs of fresh life during these conditions.

I made very quick video showing you the plot of what it looks like typically in the winter, with spring just around corner.

Love to hear how others are getting on in the comments below.