Allotment swaps this weekend. Michelle’s site is on a seam of flint, is council-run and still very much a start-up . Lots of the plots are not let/worked, which must be a challenge. We reduced the grass paths from foot-high weeds to lawn-like trimness with shears, rescued a pigeon from someone else’s brassica cage, put together the compost bin, harvested beans and mammoth courgettes and played with the new strimmer – neither of us being particularly accurate! A couple of pics of her plot are attached to this – it’s very different to mine but very pretty and much-loved too. The waist-high grass in the background is on unlet/worked plots.

I have 2 red ant stings on my hand, and have a fairly violent reaction to them, so again, no digging at mine. It helps to be able to close your fist for that. We did manage to move the water butt and dalek on my plot, to water and harvest, but after that we gave up. To be honest, after a full day the previous day I wasn’t feeling much enthusiasm. Found refuge at a friend’s for a BBQ and have agreed to take all their chicken poo/shavings for my compost bin from now on.  Result!

My strawberries have gone off to Alan’s plot, and it was lovely to meet up this morning (and not to have to look at/after the huge pile of strawberry pots anymore!). Alan, as agreed this is your reminder – if Jen likes the taste, you also had some golden purslane seedlings – if she didn’t like it, you had some compost bin filling!

Less good things about today:
1) realising too late that I was kneeling in chicken poo when playing with Katie’s ‘poochon’ puppy
2) spilling rotting comfrey all over me when reloading the comfrey pipe. It really is powerful stuff and the smell sticks!