The AGM

This weekend we went to our first annual general meeting for the allotment society. Assuming it would be quite quick and eventless we got quite the opposite when some proper drama kicked off... A French lady basically accused the committee of not being straight with the finances and that money had disappeared back in 2001. It was something about the council not getting the rents for all the allotments that year that the committee had collected... She had actually gone to the council but as they only keep records 6 years back they had no documentation for 2001 to prove if it had been paid or not. The committee aware of the situation could actually provide a receipt they had received from the council in 2001 acknowledging that it had been paid! Still that was not good enough for the French lady. She was mostly just shouting out loud and not waiting for her turn to speak causing several people to shout out 'Shut Up!'. It was quite comical to be honest.

Next thing the French lady started to go off about was how the committee exploits the people that volunteer to work in the shop on the site. It is open 2 hours/week during the warm season and no one seems to do more than 2 hours every 2-3 months so not really sure it can be called exploiting. Also, if someone does not want to volunteer, then they can stop doing so.

In conclusion, we survived the first AGM and are pleased that there is a whole year before the next one...

Will now enjoy some of our produce... sweet peas, chard, onions and strawberries.

Onions and Broad Beans

It has been the day of planting onion sets and broad beens on the allotment. We took 6 year old Myles down there for the first time and he really got right in to it and did most of the planting. We planted Red Onions, Yellow Onions, Shallots and some Broad Beans. With the team effort, all onion sets were rapidly planted and Myles got a bit annoyed that there was nothing else to plant right now. We have promised to take him down there again in March when the potatoes will be ready to go in and some of the other seeds we have purchased.

We have also bought some asparagus crowns that are to be planted later in the week. If anyone has any advise on planting asparagus crowns, do let us know!

Propagating

Started propagating a few things today... Leeks, cabbages, the first few early tomatoes and some herbs. Created propagating trays out of old fruit and vegetable containers from the supermarket, and used old toilet rolls as individual pots for the soon to be seedlings. Bought more seeds today but most of the rest are either to be started propagating in March or April or planted outside in April or May. Also bought some red onion sets and shallot sets that are to go into the ground next weekend. It will be the first things to be planted in our newly prepared allotment. It is very exciting! The picture below was taken yesterday! It is unbelievable that this is the same as the completely overgrown plot that we only took over 2 months ago.