I’ve spoken before about allotment goals, and personally I try to set out long term goals for the year ahead, but something I do all the time, is set very short and sharp allotment goals, with each visit to the allotment, which generally serve me well, and now is a good time to talk about that.
Sometimes life can throw some curveballs and that can make time for allotmenting, and any other hobby or interest for that matter, harder to fulfil and I’m no exception to that rule.
Because of reasons, I haven’t found that much time to do much gardening or much at the allotment in recent weeks and this has caused me to developed a weird sense of guilt as a result, for not being able to keep up with the allotment as I usually would.
I keep reminding myself that having an allotment is meant to be a hobby, a source of enjoyment and it’s not considered a high priority – so, there’s no need to beat myself up about this.
However, the weather recently has been glorious and this has been a stark reminder that I should be sowing seeds, planting potatoes and getting things in order for the season, but I’ve not been able to do any of that.
Social media is also awash with such productive and perfect allotment existence, scroll after scroll, and this of course doesn’t help either.
Reading this part out loud sounds strange and profound – so my first question is, have you found yourself in similar situations? If yes, please do let me know your experience in the comments below.
As a result, at some point the allotment plot was looking a bit haggard, and not up to my own standard.
What followed was a windy and rainy spell, and whatever plans I did have to do anything gardening or allotment related, were washed away.
Allotment Achievable Goal
However, recently I did manage to get a gap and went up to the allotment – and when I went I reverted to some basics when time was tough before and set myself an achievable set of tasks.
In this instance, the tasks were simply to:
- Cut the grass
- Strim the edges
That’s it. Generally speaking, these two goals in particular give instant gratification, as they’re fairly easy (but not too easy) to do and it makes the world of difference to the plot.
So that’s what I did and this was the result.
The gist is – everything looked plush and awesome for this time of year, and I was happy with my efforts.
Achieving Allotment Goal
Going to the plot with these two things in mind, no matter how easy, or how small and then achieving them, felt good!
Not only did I know I had achieved something, but it looked like I had too, and really, if it didn’t, it didn’t really matter – I knew I had achieved something for the day, and completed those goals.
I was even able to weed the raspberry bed of couch grass and that was my bonus achievable goal for the day.
Not only did it feel good, I’ve been left with a rough idea of what the next goal is going to be and this helps to keep up momentum in between sporadic visits.
Ultimately, the take home is, to not worry about how often you visit the allotment or afford time to a hobby or interest.
The important thing is to be satisfied with what you do each time, and it helps to distill down what you’re going to do each time into something that’s possible.
Do you regularly set allotment goals? Have you struggled to keep up with anything? If yes, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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