Weekend At Lottington

Did I forget To Mention

I knew that after a long day at lotty on Saturday I would forget a few things. The first was not so important, which was weeding behind the peas. As much as weedings frustrating by just the very fact of having to do it, I have found that you can lose yourself whilst in doing it. The second thing I missed out was chicken man. After a few weeks of trying to catch him in, John finally spotted him and called him into Lotty. He invited us up to see his chickens and give us a bit of advice. He has about 15 chickens, a few of them are older and nearly ready for the chop, but there are alot more younger ones ready to take their places. We were told where to get them and how to ensure we had a constant supply of eggs by buying three hens at 10 week intervals. The whole top of his allotment is a dedicated chicken run. This has given us a renewed energy to finish our hen house.

Not only did we look at the chickens, be we had a bit of a nosey around his plot. He's been gardening for pretty much fifty years, soo needless to say we were paying attention to what he had done. One of the ideas we picked up was to grow potatoes and onions in bags. His greenhouse is full of massive tomato and cucumber plants. John says he is one of the nicest men in the allotment and is always willing to give a bit of advice.

Sundays Quick Visits

John popped in on Sunday morning before work, and came back with a short update. Then whilst I was cooking our beef John went up again to fix the lawn mower ad finish doing the grass. I had planned on being ready earlier on Sunday so I could rush off to lotty and do more than just pick potatoes for dinner. It wasnt to be and once again it was a quick in and out. Eventually after our dinner and a bit of hedge trimming at home we were off to get a proper look. It still amazes me how much difference a night can make in lotty.

There was the usual walk around, and I had a very good look at everything. John cut off some of the old courgette leaves, and now one of them looks like a totem pole. John also did a bit of weeding around the onions while I read the onion pages in a book to him.

We got around to talking about what we have to do in winter and where we are going to put everything next year. It was decided a few weeks ago that we would create raised beds and they are to be alond the side fance of lotty, with more sweetcorn further down. With the potatoes in bags we are going to keep them in the bottom greenhouse over winter and then use six of our beds to plant potatoes periodically so as to have a constant supply.

One of the conversations we had yesterday afternoon was about how some people pick and try things, and others dont. Both John and the Blur pick peas, apples, grapes and anything else thats ready and eat them around lotty. Whereas I will wait until they are big enough to be used properly.

It was a really nice day to just sit and look out over lotty, with everything growing. It wont be long before the cooking apples are ready and i'll be treating John and the Blur to an apple and