The Pain Of Dealing With Equisetum arvense (Mare's Tail / Horse's Tail)

All gardeners, allomenteers, grow your own specialists and humble window box growers know that weeds are the bane of our existence. They are a right pain to get on top of any sometimes when you think you have got them all they come back with avenges and they take over what every you are trying to achieve. Some of the weeds are quite easy to keep on top of but some are like your worst enemy as if you leave as little as the nail on your little finger they will come back and take over again.

Us personally on the allotment is currently struggling with Equisetum arvense which is better know by the names of mare's tail & horse's tail. It is an invasive deep rooted, perennial weed which will quickly and effectively take over your garden or allotment. I have not heard of many cases in which it has penetrated window boxers or hanging baskets but there must be a possibility of it being able to happen as it gets in everywhere else. When we first got the allotment back in August last year (2018) it was swarmed with high weeds, very high weeds which at first I didn't know was Equisetum arvense. As you will see from the images below I cut it all back and cleared the plot what at the time seemed like the best thing to do at the time as we wanted to know how big of an area we had to play with.

As you can see it opened up the whole allotment so we could see what area we had and started making plans on where we wanted to relocate the shed and greenhouse, but this was a mistake. As it was only August and the weather was nice unlike this years. We should have just treated it straight away with a strong weed killer that is designed to clear Equisetum arvense. I know spraying a whole allotment with weed killer is not advisable in peoples eyes as it means you cant claim that its organically grown fruit and veg, but I have checked online and spoken to many people about getting rid of the weed without using weed killers and it is a very very long process that I am not looking to do as the most productive one I found was to cover the allotment for 3 years with black plastic then lay soil and turf down. On top of that have 3 goats grassing for the 3 years and there is no way I could wait that long or get my hands on 3 goats so its down the weed killer route for me.

I spent hours and hours online looking at which weed killers are deigned to take it out, I read deeply into all the reviews online and what ways to to treat. I came across a few brands which where deigned for Equisetum arvense but the one that stood out to me the most was Kurtail Gold from pro-green. I decided this was the one to go for so I went onto the website and went to order myself some but it wouldn't let me, just before I was able to order the legislation had changed on about what chemicals can be used in weed killers and Kurtail Gold had one of them said chemicals in and wasn't allowed to be sold anymore. It was a real blow to the system as it shouldn't perfect, you didn't have to break or bruise the plants before spraying which made life a lot easier and I had my head and heart set on getting that one to sort the allotment out of its Equisetum arvense infestation. Luckily enough Pro-Green was working on a replacement and it would be hopefully coming out soon. 

We had already cut all the Equisetum arvense back and cleared it off our allotment, so I begin to move the shed and greenhouse around. Over the space of a few months I built a new base for the shed, moved it across to its new location and also built a patio area out the front of it so Dawn can come up and have somewhere flat and level to stand on or even sit on in the camping chairs. After the moving off the shed I started to build the new base for the greenhouse, I dug down and built the base into the ground as I want to use the soil inside of the greenhouse instead of grow bags as I can constantly keep improving the soil year after year. During this process none of the Equisetum arvense was starting to grow back inside where I decided to move the greenhouse too even tho it was breaking through in after parts of the allotment. Once the greenhouse was fixed into its new position I was over the moon as no Equisetum arvense had started to grow at all where it was located too but unfortunately the next week it began to grow and it is now starting to take over the greenhouse as you can see from the picture at the top of this blog.

I got home that evening and went straight onto the Pro-Green website and yes they had improved the Kurtail Gold with all chemicals that are allowed to be used and it was renamed to Kurtail Evo. I purchased a bottle as soon as I could and waited on it to arrive. It came in good time and was with me within two to three days, I took it straight up the allotment ready for when I would be up there next. 

That weekend I headed straight up the allotment to spray the whole plot to hopefully start killing off the Equisetum arvense, the weather forecast for the day was sun until later that evening so I was going to get a few hours of the weed killer on the plants before it rained. I mixed the recommended amount of Kurtail Evo to 5 litres of water and began spraying. I made sure I got in all the little nooks and crannies so all the plot was treated, spraying the whole allotment actually went a lot quicker then I thought it would have taken. I had never used a Spear & Jackson 5 litre sprayer before and the pressure it kept up inside the bottle was amazing. I only had to re-pump the spray twice to use the whole 5 litres of the mixture inside the sprayer. After spraying the whole plot and tidying down I took this picture below to show the before image.

I then begin to walk back home, along the way I took photos of all the scarecrows the other plot owners have done for anyone to see while walking along the path next to the allotments. After about 10 minutes it started to drizzle which I was hoping would stop right away but how wrong was I, the heaven then opened and didn’t stop for at least 7 hours. The amount of rain that fell in the 7 hours of downpour was probably enough to wash my whole allotment away, so all the weed killer would have been completely washed away. Which is a complete shame as that wasted a third of my Kurtail Evo. The next day I returned to the allotment to see if any of it took at all and I couldn’t see any change to anything on the allotment which was a bit optimistic as no weed killer would kill anything in 24 hours with the amount of rainfall we had. I then risked it again and sprayed the whole plot again and took a picture of the Equisetum arvense which is breaking through the greenhouse base. Luckily that evening there was no rain until early hours of the morning which meant the Kurtail Evo was on the plants for at least a minimum of 6 hours and the required minimum amount of time is 3 hours before rainfall. My hoping and praying must have worked as I didn’t want to be wasting another third of the Kurtail Evo. 

As you can see in the images the second spray worked well, it has killed off most the Equisetum arvense but I personally think next time I need to set the sprayer to a mist instead of a stream like I was using. All of the Equisetum arvense in the greenhouse is now dead and is looking amazing as you can see from the picture below.

Since I took these pictures there has been some slight regrowth in the greenhouse and around the allotment also but I will spray it again in the next couple of weeks.

So to conclude, Kurtail Evo is a great product to tackle Equisetum arvense when it is applied right and it doesn’t rain. There is no bruising or breaking of the plant before unlike most other weed killers advertised to kill Equisetum arvense (mares tail / horses tail). There is always the possibility of regrowth due to the nature of the plant but it is easily treated again with Kurtail Evo when it has reached the recommend height.

I hope this blog post hasn’t been to long or boring of a post for people to read, also hopefully it will help anyone else who is looking to take on the battle with Equisetum arvense. Also if you would like to see the process in action go check out my YouTube Channel.

Michael

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I Nearly Completely Gave Up On This Blog

So, to be completely honest with you all I had completely written off this blog as I never thought I had the time to come on here and write and post and upload it. It was more of a chore then a pleasure to get it all done but after recently watching and listening to a lot of Gary Vayner-chuck online, I can see that you have to make the time to do what you like and enjoy. Yes, I do like to write these posts but I always either watching YouTube videos or TV series when I should be really up the allotment getting it ready for next year and planning out what I want to grow with the help of my supportive partner Dawn. So, this is my statement "that I will focus more on what I enjoy, improve myself & focus on my passion" which since August last year has been grow your own food and gardening generally.

I am going to be active on all my social media which is associated with my brand, yes, I did say my brand. Currently I don't have my own brand, I am a guy who wants to be able to make a living from gardening or grow your own lifestyle. Hopefully with the support of my amazing partner dawn and some determination, I will get there one day. But first has to come the personal brand, I need to get myself a bit more of a social presence when it comes to Instagram, YouTube, my blog and Twitter (which I haven't even created yet).

one day I would like to be a person that people come to for advice or look up to as I will be doing things differently and they never thought of doing it that way their self. You can see that from my YouTube content on making the new greenhouse base and moving the greenhouse into its new location. I personally have never come across anyone else who has done it like I have, there is probably someone else out there that has done it like I have but I haven't come across them myself. At no point in my videos do I say it’s a "how to video" or an "instructional" video, I just take you along for the journey and you can see all the mistakes I make along the way.

I have big plans for the allotment and myself in the coming months and years and hopefully I will be able to hit the goals I am setting for myself. I am keeping the goals under wraps for now and I haven't gotten them set in stone at the moment, they are more like guidelines but as soon as I have set them to what I exactly want to achieve I will update you all with them all. This way we can both (myself & you guys / girls) can check I am on track and if I start to come away from them or start slacking, I would like you to remind me what I am trying to achieve.

That is all for this blog post, I do know I need to get on here more and post more which I will be doing so please keep coming back to check in on me.

Michael

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A Lot Can Get Done In Three Months

It has been 3 months since my last post and I am so sorry readers. It has been very busy here with my returning to full time work and trying to catch up with all the back log I left before I left at Christmas.

During the last few months we have been able to get up the allotment and during them visits we have been able to get quite a bit done. The allotment is now looking a lot different from when we first started back at the end of September 2018, there has been big changes and little changes and we will go through them all in the blog post. So be warned this might be a very long post as we don’t want to miss anything out.

When we last post to the blog it was about the fence and it being completed, it was a very big achievement getting that done and we kept the momentum going (even the we didn’t keep up with the blog). The next project we started on was the shed as we previously mentioned was in completely the wrong place on the plot, the first step was getting the new base sorted so it could sit level and secure. Plotting out the new location for the shed made us realise how big the shed is and how lucky we are to have it already on the plot for us to use. We wanted to base to be slightly raised so there was air circulation underneath the shed which will hopefully stop it from rotting so quick, we archived this by using five breeze blocks spread out across the four corners and one in the middle for support. We then placed a black plastic sheet down over the middle block and then pinned the corners down by using paving slabs, hopefully this will keep the mare’s tail at bay but we will have to wait and see if it works. 

Once the base was set and levelled up ready for the shed to be moved, we had to find some willing volunteers to help me move it. It took a few weeks to get everyone at the plot at one time but we finally got everyone there, moving the shed wasn’t an easy feet as it had to be moved across the plot & rotated 180 degrees. To be able to lift & move it we needed to create some kind of handles to be able to lift the shed, to do this we used decking boards which we drilled the smaller side of the shed and everyone took one corner. On the count of three we all lifted and did the shed shuffle across the plot, we put the shed down twice on the way to check everyone is okay and to check which way we was rotating it into place on the base. During the move, one side of the sheds tongue and grove came apart. We knew there would be some slight damage during the relocation as it was a very old shed being moved across the plot to that isn't level at all. We were lucky though as it was only the one side that got damaged during the move, so it was an easy fix with some cladding through my local DIY store. To be completely honest I (Michael) prefer the look of the new clad side as it looks so smooth and clean, The only problem with cladding the whole shed would be the cost and also working out the angles needed for the sides that go all the way up to the point on the roof.

Just after we finished cladding the side of the shed that was damaged the weather forecast for the next few days went really downhill with it due to rain for days. This was very bad news to hear as the wood we had just used to clad the side of the shed wasn't treated in any way at all. This meant if it did rain before I could get something on there, it might ruin all the hard work we had just put in by re-cladding it. So that night after I (Michael) finished work & had my tea, I headed up to the allotment with a paint brush and the colour which we had picked for the shed. I got the side painted and the back of the shed two, a few coats of Cuprinol Silver Copse was all we needed to get it sealed in so the rain wouldn't do any damage to the new wood. The weekend that followed, we headed up to the allotment to get the rest of the shed painted. It was a slow process but we are both so happy that it is all painted up now as it was starting to look a bit depressing with this old tatty tacky green shaded shed sat on the plot looking like there was no life left in it at all.

The next big change on the plot was the water butts and water collection as we have previously mentioned that there is no access to water, unless your live some of the other plot owners who live opposite the plot. We wish we was that lucky to live opposite but the houses along the path next to the plots are way out of our price range, but that is a subject for another blog post. For a quite a while we have been looking into getting IBC's which are 1000L water tanks that can be used for water butts on the allotments. Yes, 1000L does sound like a lot of water but if there is no access to water at all on the plots, we wanted to make sure we could collect as much rain water as fiscally possible. I have been hunting high and low for some Black IBC's at a reasonable price (the reason we want black ones if that it will stop algae from growing inside them due to it blocking out the sunlight), as we previously mention in our previous post about planning the allotment that we could purchase some IBC's from toucan environmental but they were £60 per IBC then there is a £45 delivery charge. This means that it will cost nearly as much as the IBC is to get it to the allotments. So, with a little more hunting around I found a guy not too far from the allotments that sells the black IBC's for £40 each and if we bought four at a time, he would do me a deal at £150 for them all with free delivery. That was a deal I couldn't turn down so we started asking around the plots if anyone else wanted any and Dave at plot 19 came to the rescue as he wanted two which means we could have two for ourselves for only £75. So, we bought the four and had a right pain cleaning them out but that will be for another post in the near future.

There is a lot more planned for the next few weeks and we will be updating you all about it as it happens, but we are both really happy and satisfied with everything we have been able to get done so far. So, keep coming back if you want to see how we get on over the summer.

Michael & Dawn

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The Fence Task Was Completed

It’s been a long time since the last post and it’s not because I didn’t want to post anything, it’s just that the weather and other commitments have kept us away from the plot. If your not from the UK you might not have know that it snowed here recently and us British people don’t cope well with snow at all. Everything comes to a complete stand still and due to all the snow, there wasn’t anything that we could have got done on the plot if we wanted to.

We were lucky enough to be able to get up there for a few hours a few Sunday’s ago the fence task was completed. I have wanted to get a fence up for a quite awhile due to making the plot more secure and also I needed the fence to be completed before I could make my new base for my shed. Getting this fence erected wasn’t an easy feat and where it is there was once a huge butterfly bush (Buddleja Lochinch) tree, yes I said tree not bush like it’s suppose to be. It was a lovely flowering tree but unfortunately it was right in the way of where we needed the new fence to be, so it had to be removed so we could put the new fence post in. Removing the tree wasn’t an easy feat as it had very deep roots but John (another plot owner) was nice enough to remove it one night when he was up the plot and I was at home. It was a real shock when I went up the plot to check on it and there was a gaping hole where it was and the tree slumped up on the side of the plot, this really was a god send as I spent so many nights after work trying to remove the tree to no avail. 

(Buddleja Lochinch - left hand side of the photo)

Once we had moved all the mud and dirt back into the hole that was left from the tree, we started on cementing in the new fence post as there was too big of a gap between the fence posts that were already there. We dug out a hole deep enough to sink one third of the fence post into the ground and placed the post inside, using the level I had from home (which was way to big for the job) we made sure it was level and secured it in place with a support arm. The arm was hammered into the ground to hold the post in place while Michael attempted to knock up the cement, let’s just say he isn’t the best at doing it but we got there in the end and the post was cemented in. Night had fallen and all we had were the street lights to illuminate the plot, because of this we packed up for the night and headed on home.

A few days later we were able to pop up the plot to check on the fence post and it was still standing “Whoop Whoop.” For that whole day we both had a real sense of achievement as it was still standing, which was a huge shock. I am not the best at DIY but I am getting there and cementing a fence post which stayed standing is great.

The next step was to attach the new fence material to the posts, we spent a long time trying to work out what to use for the fence and we came to the conclusion to use PVC coated chicken wire. We chose to use this over a wood panel fence or normal chicken wire because it is safer for the animals, wildlife and also we would be able to grow some climbing plants up the fence. We attached the chicken wire to the posts using a staple gun and attached weed suppressant holding pegs to hold the bottom of the fence down. This will stop any animals getting into the plot and also stop Kiki from escaping out the plot when she comes up with us. 

(weed suppressant pegs to secure down the chicken wire) 

After all that we now have a new fence which makes the plot secure, makes it look a lot tidier (ish) and means another job is completed on the long list of things that need to be done before spring. Next we will be moving everything around and building the new base for our shed as we would like to move it across the plot, so stay tuned and will be updating you all again soon.

Michael & Dawn

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The Planning of Our Allotment Plot

I have been thinking long and hard what I would like to do with the plot, it is a lot bigger then an average size allotment plot standing at 100 square meters in total. Now that is a very big plot to have, the only unfortunate thing about having this plot is that there is no water access on site. This means I need to collect as much rain water as possible, which I really needed to take into consideration when doing my plot planning for this year. Currently on the plot I have 5 sort of water butts full to the brim with rain water, they were left from the previous owner who left many months before I got the plot. In time since they left and I received the plot, it must have rained a fair few days to fill them all to the top. Having five water butts full is amazing but they are spread out all across the plot, two catching water off the shed roof and three catching the water off the green house roof. Me personally I would prefer to have all my water in one location on the plot, as this way it doesn’t take up loads of little places across the plot and it’s just one bigger space taken for water collection. 

Moving all the water to one location also means I need to have loads of smaller water contains running in an overfill system, which means that the water would fill up one container which is elevated higher then the container next to it. When this container fills up to the top (or very near the top) the excess water would go down and hose into the next container using gravity, it is a plausible system that I wouldn’t see any issue with it not working. I would just need to make sure that the first container is up high enough compared to the other containers, then make sure the containers then dragged down in a sustained fashion so that the water will travel freely down to the following containers.

The other option I have available is to use an IBC, which is a 1000L water tank used to store anything from just water up to hydrochloric acid (which can melt bodies, thank you Breaking Bad). The main concern I have about an IBC tho is that it is quite large in size, it probably won’t take up as much space as the previous system I spoke about but it will take up nearly as much. Also the other concern I have is the price, they can range from £15 each (used) all the way up to £150 (new). Buying an IBC for £15 usually means that it has had some kind of harmful chemical in that you don’t really want to have trace elements of on your vegetables, sometimes you might be lucky and find one for that cheap that has only had water in (highly unlikely). If you do go for an IBC as cheap as £15, it means you will have to clean it out yourself or pay to have it done professionally which isn’t cheap. 

After having a long discussion between ourselves and talking to many other allotment owners, we came to the decision of going for an IBC over the overflow system. Yes they aren’t cheap to buy but if you are lucky enough you might find one close to your allotment on eBay, Gumtree or even Facebook. We haven’t been this lucky unfortunately, all we seem to find is one for cheap but it is far away from where we live and as we don’t drive it is impossible to collect. Luckily enough tho I have found a company located not that far from where I live that sells used IBC’s professionally cleaned for only £60 per container, that is a steal compared to the others I could find and if I can find a man with a van to collect it means I don’t have to pay delivery. The company is called toucan environmental based in Kingswood in Bristol, they deliver all over the UK for £45 delivery charge (which I am trying to avoid by collecting in person). Here is a link to their site if you would like to take a look yourself, http://www.toucanenvironmental.co.uk.

From the image above you can see the basic layout of the plot in its current state, this is the arrangement of the plot when I first got my hands on the plot. The orientation of the plot compared to the way the sun travels over means that the shed is in completely the wrong location to me, it should be down in the bottom left corner and the greenhouse should be where the shed is. This way the plot is more open to sun throughout more of the day and won’t be shadowed as much as before, I also need to remove some of the branches off the tress out the back of the plot. They over shadow the plot during some points off the day which means they need to be trimmed a little, unfortunately they do not belong to me and are technically on national railway land which could be a problem. I don’t want to get in trouble for going on to their land as that’s a £1000 fine (which I don’t have) but I need them to be trimmed a little, so watch this space to see if we can work anything out.

The plot needs a lot of work to get it to how we would like it to be and in doing so we have set ourselves out a big challenge to get it to how we would like it, the plan you see below is what we have come up with.

It isn’t the most complicated of plans but there was a more adventurous one in the works, it was one in which we hid and IBC under the shed. Yes I did say under the shed, it would involve digging a hole big enough to sink the IBC into the ground and run all the pipe work needed to get the rain water down into the IBC. Then there would be needed space for the pipe work and pump to get the water back up the surface, then have a floor placed over it strong enough to hold the shed and all its contents above it. Yes it would have freed up more space on the plot for raised beds or fruit tress but it would have been so much work involved in digging the hole and running the pipes, so we decided together to put the IBC to the side of the shed instead of underneath it. Maybe in a few years when we are more established on the plot, we might look into it again or maybe just leave it how it is. Time will tell in this circumstance.

Anyways back to the plan above, as you can see I have moved the shed and greenhouse like previously mentioned. Then we have placed an IBC to the side of the shed and one behind the greenhouse (if we decide to go for two over IBCs over one), our the front of the shed I will make a patio area so when Dawn goes up the plot in the day she has someone safe to sit with our newly acquired camping chairs. Running off from the patio area there will be a path running up to the back of the plot going in front of the greenhouse, then splitting off between the raised beds and splitting off to the composting bin at the back of the plot. We are planning to have three composting. Bins in the plot in total, one for making leave mulch and the other two for normal composting.

It will probably take many years to get the plot to how we have it planned, it will be a slow process as it is a very dramatic change from the its original state. 

This is the end of this post which means we are now up to date with the blog posts and all blog posts from now on will be weekly, informing you all about our highs & lows on the plot. So keep checking back or even subscribe to the blog if you would like (there is no obligation to)

Michael & Dawn

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Getting The Plot In Order

As I said in our previous post, we started renting out allotment at the end of September 2018. It was in a right state when I first walked onto the plot with weeds as high as me and I stand at 5’9. 

There was some benefits to the plot tho, she (yes I do refer to the plot as a women) came with a shed and greenhouse. The shed has discoloured windows and needs a lick of paint but it’s a shed, having a shed already on the plot is a god send. They are not cheap to buy new and also even if I did get a second hand one I wouldn’t be able to get it from it’s previous location to the plot as I don’t drive, I do really need to get round to sorting that out.

The greenhouse is amazing to have on the plot already as well. It has a few broken panes of glass broken and it was full to the brim on the inside with weeds, as they have broken through the concrete floor. But it is still a green house and with a little hard work it will be ready for us to use this year.

So it was time to tackle the weeds, I wanted to find out what I was dealing with before I went hacking away at it all and it turned out I have the dreaded mares tail / horses tail. 

“Horsetail (Equisetum arvense), often called mare’s tail, is an invasive, deep-rooted perennial weed that will spread quickly to form a dense carpet of foliage, crowding out less vigorous plants in beds and borders.”

This is a real pain of a weed to deal with due to it being a fast-growing rhizomes (underground stems) kind of weed and they have taken over the whole plot. I can even see them sneaking into my neighbouring plot which will be a pain for them. There is many ways of getting rid of it and there is none that get rid of it 100% as if one root is left that is the size of a finger nail, it can grow back and create more deep stemmed root systems all over again.

Because of this I had a massive decision to make, do I go down the chemical route and buy a very very strong weed killer that is special designed for taking out mares tail. The only concern about doing it that way is the chemical is not selective at all, it kills everything it comes into contact with so if by bad luck I get a gust of wind that takes it off down the plots. I could be killing off someone else’s plants or crops, I don’t really want to be doing that as I haven’t been on my plot that long at this point and I don’t want to be removed from it for killing off other owners crops. Also with this chemical it has to be sprayed on to the plants between the middle of March and the end of September, which means everyone will be planting out there seedlings and I don’t want to potentially kill off there planned crop.

The other route I can go down is clearing the whole plot with garden sheers and a rake, it would be a long process and means that I wouldn’t be tackling the root system at all. So the mares tail will grow back over time but hopefully if I keep cutting it back every time it shows it’s little head, I will be about to kill off the root system over time. 

So I sat down one afternoon and did as much research on both methods of removing the mares tail and I finally came to a decision on what I will do, I decided (with the help of not having that much money) to go down the route of doing it by hand and moving it into one big pile.

I cut it all back in one day, with my garden sheers and raked it all into one big pile in the middle of the plot. I didn’t want to remove it off the plot by putting it into my green bin for the council to remove, as they put all the green waste into a communal type of compost heap and this would just spread the mares tail. So I started a lovely warm fire in my incinerator at the plot and slowly worked my way through the pile burning all the mares tail that was on the plot. This way I know it won’t be spread as I am burning off it all and every mares tail that sprout up this year, I will cut away (hopefully) killing the root system over time. I know I have said this twice now but it is really for me to make a mental note to watch out for shoots this year.

After I cleared all the mares tail on the plot I can see and burning it all, I moved onto removing the well rotten raised beds that were left by the previous plot owner. There was 4 beds in total spread out across the plot, I don’t know what was grown on the plot before and I wish I did to be honest. Knowing what was previously grown means I can plan my crop rotation, as each different type of plant / crop removes different nutrients and you don’t want to remove to much from one place on the plot. Anyways I will get into crop rotation and nutrients more in the my post about my plot planning, that one should be next unless I get side tracked at all.

Because the raised beds where in a very well rooted condition, I placed them inside the greenhouse to keep them out of the elements. This way they can dry over time and eventually burn them down and maybe use the corner brackets for my new raised beds, but I am not 100% sure how I am going to make my new raised beds. 

Now that the plot is clear from all the sky high weeds and rotting raised beds, I covered the half the plot with cardboard and plastic sheeting. My reasoning for doing this is to suppress any weed growth, stop the soil from freezing over winter and also to just make it look like myself that I have achieved a lot.

Having an allotment is a slow process and I am not the kind of person who likes slow process, I prefer to get things done quickly right and be able to use it to it’s fall potential. I will get it all done in time and not having that much money means, I need to think of more creative ways to do stuff on the plot and save money at the same time.

Michael

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Introducing Ourselves

Hello all and thank you for taking the time to take a few minutes out of your day to read our first ever blog post.

I think it might be best if we introduce ourselves first so you know who we are and a little about ourselves.

My name is Michael and my beautiful partner is Dawn, we are both in our early 30’s and to be completely honest we both have never been into gardening or growing our own vegetables. I am a massive video gamer to the point I used to have a mild addiction (Dawn would say a heavy addiction), but I now only play in the mornings on weekends but that will change when the mornings become lighter and the weather warms up a lot. I have never been a person big into vegetables and healthy eating but recently I have been noticing my waist increasing more then I would like it to, so I have started to eat healthier with chicken and rice most lunches and trying to cut down heavily on my meal portions (which I am really struggling with). My reasoning for wanting an allotment is to get the exercise for working the plot, get a lovely supply of healthy food and to have an outside space I can go to as I live in a flat with no garden for my own use.

Dawn is a massive pet person, should would honestly choice to be around animals all day instead of people. Her obsession is that bad that at one time we had four cats in a one bedroom flat and then decided to look after a friends chocolate lab for a week while they are on holiday. It was a fun but very demanding time as the lab was so scared of the cats that he would rather go up over the back of the sofa then get down in front of the cats. All of the cats are now up in cat heaven and we have a little long haired chi called Kiki D.

We got our allotment back in the end of September 2018, it isn’t like a conventional allotment as it isn’t long and thin like most allotments you see on allotment sites. They allotment is a square in shape and is 10 meters by 10 meters, which is very large for an allotment. The allotments go side by side down a nice path overlooked by some lovely houses, on the other side of the plot s is a railway track which runs along the back of all 70 plots. It is in such a nice secluded place that I completely forget that I am in the town I live in, every dog walker who walks past says hello and a few stop and chat to say how well we are doing as they can remember the tall weeds that used to be on the plot.

We have some quite big plans for the plot but we know it isn’t all going to happen overnight, having an allotment isn’t a rush to get it all done as it’s a place to enjoy and de-stress. I will go into more details in another post of our plans for the plot and what we have gotten done so far.

If you have gotten this far, thank you very much for reading the whole thing. This blog is going to be a little thing that we would like to keep updating with our process on the plot from our ups & downs, highs & lows and the little victories along the way.

Michael & Dawn

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