Photo journal of the jonah plot

It's been a long time since I've had so much time and mental bandwidth for the plot, but we're trying to get into decent shape before the growing season proper this year.



We're trying to get a bit more onto the no-dig side of things, so we've bought in manure and compost this year.



       



We shared this six ways with others on our site (3 tonnes of cow muck). It was a learning experience - being in charge of a delivery to the allotment site, how much 3 tonnes of manure is...Our share covers about one bed, so we decided to buy in compost as well.



   



A mere tonne of compost. We're still working on getting this up to our plot (11 of 13 on the site...up a sloped grassy path...tiny violin).



       



I hand weeded a fair bit of the fruit cage before we committed to buying in compost. We covered the remaining weedy bits with cardboard and covered that with a couple of inches of compost. I'm the weird neighbor soliciting rubbish, but I don't mind as it's quite useful.



       



I cleared a pile of bramble branches from an area of the plot that has yet to be cultivated by us. It's been covered with black plastic for a couple of years (and bramble branches more recently). The soil is in such a good state underneath and I'm really looking forward to growing here this year. It's in a lovely sunny area of the plot as well. I had to fork it over to even out the mounded bed structure that we were left with by the previous tenant. I also pulled out any visible bindweed roots (the reason it was previously covered).