Saturday Afternoon at the Allotment

Saturday morning, as I was getting myself ready with no particular plans for the day in mind, OH

asked me whether I wanted to get the edging of the beds at the allotment done this weekend. I was a bit taken aback to be honest, firstly, because he rarely offers to go to the allotment, and secondly, I hadn't really got my head around the idea of when I was going to actually finish this job, other than putting it on the eternal 'to do list'.

Little Bird was going to the mall with her friends that afternoon, so I hastily grabbed the opportunity with both hands, in the hope that it would finally help get this item crossed off my to do list for the next few years at least.

Later that morning, he helped me cut up some timber to make the posts for the bed edging.  After cutting them to the appropriate length and then cutting them to a point, I dipped the ends in some preservative and left them to dry in the sun, ready to take to the allotment later that day.

I still hadn't taken proper measurements of all the beds at the allotment, so we took the timber for the sides of the beds uncut, along with a saw and some preservative, so that we could cut it on site.  We also took a drill and plenty of screws and nails to secure the posts to the timber sides.  In addition to taking the timber, I also took some weed suppressing fabric to re-lay the paths, or at least one of them, as I didn't have enough to do them all. I also took my staple gun to secure these to the back of the bed edges to prevent weeds growing down the edges of the path, which they have a tendency to do. Doing it this way also meant that I didn't need any pegs to secure the fabric (I didn't have any). Having loaded up the car, we set off.

I hadn't been to the allotment since before Easter, when I planted some onions, potatoes, beans and sowed some salad seeds.  It was interesting to see the progress. The broad beans, which I had planted very late, were making good progress, some salad seedlings had sprouted, as had the onions and some of the potatoes. Here's what the plot looked like before we started work on the beds. (You might have noticed that we took the dog too!)

OH started work on the first path. He did encounter a few problems at first, mainly because he forgot to bring the lump hammer, but he got resourceful with a smaller one which did the job albeit with OH grumbling quite a bit.  (I don't blame him really as working on the allotment is his very least favourite thing to do!)  Here's path one completed.

I then went along and staple gunned the fabric to the inside of the timber along the length of the path and then did the same with the other side. We didn't actually get time to fill the paths with chippings, as Little Bird called to say she was on her way home, but I was so pleased to get the brunt of the work done. The rest I can definitely do myself on my next visit.  It now looks so much better and will make my life so much easier in the coming years.

The only casualty of the task was my staple gun, which gave up the ghost on the last stretch and which I have now thrown in the tip bag.  I will need to replace it at some point, as it is really useful for upholstery and other projects.

Here's a couple of pictures of the almost finished results.

Thank you OH. A great day's teamwork and the best bit is that we can all now enjoy sitting out in our garden, now that the wood for the allotment has been removed.