We (that’s me and OH) took on plot 6 in our local allotments at the end of December 2010.  Although I love to cook and we pay attention to food miles, buy seasonal and organic produce and frequent our local farm shops and farmers markets, growing my own fruit and veg hadn’t been a great ambition of mine. However, OH had put his name on the list and after a period of waiting, the letter from the council had arrived.

My first reaction was to laugh out loud – did he really think he’d got time for an allotment? My second thought was that this piece of land (all 240 sq yards of it) could become the “third person in our marriage” as he spent hours there leaving me to amuse myself.  The plot is only about 250 yards from our home so it was easy to go and have a look at what he (still not ‘we’ at this stage!) was taking on.

This is how we started. Overgrown and in need of a lot of clearance work.

Cold New Year’s Eve and first day on the lottie!

After months of lobbying the council, most of this was eventually removed, but broken glass is still a feature of this end of our plot.

OMG! Overgrown didn’t begin to describe it. One end was covered in broken glass, old asbestos sheets and a couple of tree trunks, couch grass was predominant amongst a foot high wilderness of weeds and the lovely dry stone wall at the other end was mostly obliterated from view by a high pile produced by previous clearance attempts. On a positive note, the location was beautiful, with almost 360 degree views across our lovely part of West Yorkshire. It was cold, the wind was blowing, but I was hooked. This had become ‘our’ project and ‘we’ (no longer ‘he’) were already looking ahead and thinking of the opportunities, as well as the hard work, ahead.

Our first few months were hard work. OH spent hours digging over and removing the weeds from the plot. Out in all weathers, we were determined to have some of the space ready for planting that season. A bonus was uncovering several rhubarb crowns and a few strawberry plants, plus a gooseberry, three or four red currant bushes and some raspberry canes. By March about half of the plot was dug over and on the first sunny day we celebrated. An old shed base was somewhere to plonk a couple of plastic chairs and this quickly became our ‘gin terrace’!  It’s still there and still lovingly called our terrace!

Mid March and we’ve cleared around half the plot. That beer tasted so good!

Potatoes were planted, along with garlic and onions.  Over the next few months we planted beans, peas, salad crops, purple sprouting broccoli, sprouts, cabbage.  The first harvesting was another cause for celebration and a certain smugness!

Throughout the year we continued to enjoy the crops we harvested and Lottie 6 became a hugely important part of both our lives. We laughed a lot, learned an enormous amount and loved spending time together on something so positive and productive.