Topic: What was your best allotment related memories of this year?

[Bagpuss74]

Best memories have to be:

1) Finding a lottie near to me in July having recently moved back up North
2) Becoming  member of A4A and soaking up all the advice and comments alongside the occasional post  ;)
3) Clearing plot
4) Finding some plants in stock at a local nursery and having reasonable success with Cauli, Red cabbage, leeks and sprouts
5) Growing turnips from seed and dealing with the resulting turnip mountain
6) Scrounging rhubarb and strawberry plants from new friends
7) Building compost bin
8) Getting wires and raspberry canes in (December 22nd   ;))
9) Planting apple tree, cherry tree, 200 overwinter onionsn  :P, garlic and blackcurrant bushes.

and 10) Feeling part of something really special - mainly thanks to A4A.


Doing differently/plans for next year include sorting out some proper beds, keeping weeds down, spending more time on the plot, getting the shed down to the plot and generally growing lots more stuff  ;D

[ellkebe]

I'm with Wardy here - the fact that anything (edible!) grew at all.
Plus first meal that included stuff I'd grown.
Oh, and trying Romanesco for the first time - now one of my favourite vegetables.
And watching my son watching a monstrously huge dragonfly patrolling its territory over our plot and catching bees and butterflies on the wing, then devouring them on one of our raspberry posts. (The dragonfly obviously, not my son!)
List just goes on once you get started  :)

[Annadl]

Noticing my snow peas for the first time when they had fully grown :o  I wasn't expecting it at all & so soon.

Harvesting my first salad. Pulling out my first beetroot...

The rest of my family can't understand this affair I am having with my vege patch.

Looking forward to my sweet potatoes that have finally emerged after planting 5 months ago!!  That was the reason I started gardening and most challenging as what I have read sweet potatoes are not suited to my climate here.

Anna

[grawrc]

Getting the letter to say there was a plot available. (February)
Inheriting a really well tended plot.
Getting accepted by all the recalcitrant male plot-holders as they grudgingly admitted I was getting some things right.
Persuading my 2 lads, their cousin and his wife to help with the digging and the planting.
Watching my 4 year old granddaughter dancing with butterflies.
The tomatoes, the courgettes, the broccoli, the raspberries, the brambles (from untended plot nearby), the swiss chard, the turnips, the onions, the garlic, the spinach, the parsnips, the joy ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
The planning how to change and develop.
Getting a plot with 2 sheds and a greenhouse on it.
Feeling able to take on a new unkempt, overgrown, untouched for 8 years plot just beside our fabby one.
Peter (OH) deciding to take up scything again.
The downside: I've been too busy to take photos. :( That is about to be remedied however ... ;) ;D ;D

[daveandtara]

hey baggy,
what about the day when bexley, dartford and all around was flooded, but your lottie survived?  ;D
that was a happy one for us over in abbeywood.
other happy memories include, coming home from glastonbury festival to find lottie key arrived and work could begin!
the day i looked up to find sophie (age 3) chatting happily to not one but TWO foxes!  :o
wandering home with filthy, tired kids clutching (more like swordfighting with) their veggies for tea.

ooooh, roll on spring, i can't wait to get started again.

Tara xxx

[dandelion]

I got my plot in late November and haven't planted anything yet. But I've enjoyed visiting the site with my daughters on those crisp frosty days we had a few weeks back. They said lifting the ice from troughs was the most fun ever! I also saw a fox one sunny frosty morning. :)

[Zippy Seale]

I think the best moment of the yr was when I got my plot, and as a stop gap, taken the shed from my sister in law's and getting to the plot.  erecting it. and then having my father in law, come to have a look and recognizing the shed he put up 30+yrs ago...lol

worst memory.  after starting work on the plot.  finding out that I needed a operation and haven't done no work in 5 months. but on the mend and even went up there today.

wishes for 2006. hope to finish getting the plot ready.  green house up.  and looking forward to some tasty veg and a bumper crop.

[carloso]

Picking strawberrys as the sun comes up

[joji]

Wow  :o

You all seem to have achieved so much.

I just hope that we can acheeve as much as you all have when we start this spiring. Already got the tomato seeds growing. ;D

[BAGGY]

d&t - cant remember the flood.   Head like a seive me.  Must have been too tied up with the gas main fiasco.  Still onto spring when I am moving plots.

[Icyberjunkie]

Probbaly should now be last year!    This year though was a massive bonfire at the weekend after pruning my new apple trees, finally collecting together the cut down asparagus and pulling up some of the old rotten bed runners from the previous occupant.

I loves a good fire me!   Wifey not impressed by the smokey smell and ash deposited on the sofa when I got home though..oops ::)

[Merry Tiller]

My best memory from last year was last summer when I was bending over pulling weeds from my onion bed when I heard the most glorious sound, I looked up into the sky and watched a Spitfire circle round for a bit & then head off in a northerly direction, a RR Merlin always gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing up

[Robert_Brenchley]

I once heard an incredible noise, it was awful. I looked up and there was a Concorde going over. Not a plane I remember with any fondness; it used to rattle the windows every night when I was in Cornwall.

[mat]

I once heard an incredible noise, it was awful. I looked up and there was a Concorde going over. Not a plane I remember with any fondness; it used to rattle the windows every night when I was in Cornwall.

I have to admit I missed concorde when it stopped flying over me on an evening walk I sometimes do.  Sadly it was quite conforting that at the exact same time in the evening, it would fly over the ridgeway... on its way to America, but then again it didn't rattle any windows as it was too high  ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

It used to go supersonic down the Bristol Channel. There were so many complaints about the sonic boom that they re-routed it further out to sea, but it could still be as bad as ever, depending on the weather.

[Merry Tiller]

Quite agree about jet engine noise (after all I do work at an airport), but the sound of that V12 Merlin is wonderful

[Amazin]

The shock of the eight-foot high Mini Sweetcorn, the delight at the triffid-like Cape Gooseberries...

...but the best feeling of all was going out in the garden on Christmas day to pick my very own home-grown Brussels Sprouts for Christmas dinner.

Beat that, Santa!

(oh, and by the way, please can I have an allotment this year?)

[mitzzy]

1st year of allotment so growing anything and being able to say I grew this ! ;D

Mags