The Allotment!

Our neighbours aren't able to garden anymore. They have someone who comes and cuts the grass for them and maintains their flower beds, but nature has reclaimed the rest of it. On Friday they offered us the use of their old vegetable garden, so I've been there ever since!

In the undergrowth I found there were stones outlining two beds so I cut back everything round the edges so I could see what I was dealing with. Lots of brambles and rosa rugosa, both with wicked thorns, in the middle of the patch. I've cut them down but the roots will need to come out eventually!

It is so sheltered in here, surrounded by willows and sycamores, with a hebe hedge on one side and a little garden area between it and the sea. It is overgrown too, but full of buddleia, NZ flax, fuchsias and dominated by the huge cordylines!

Still on the hunt for a hen coop/ark. I ordered one on line, put in our postcode, no postage charge, hooray! Next morning an email from them saying £35 delivery to mainland Scotland and an extra £20 to Orkney!!! I have an advert in the local paper tomorrow, so hopefully that will be more successful! Normally Mike would have just made one but he is busy building the greenhouse over the back door and can't abandon it mid way through! I've learnt never to take a man away from a job mid way through!