Life up the Allotment
It’s time to draw the winner of my handmade journal give-away and I just wanted to say thank you to all the 116 people that entered. I’m so grateful for all your support and interest in this journal and I’m sorry to those that didn’t win, but if I ever source any leather then I will definately be making them to sell!
So the Winner is…. Vicky Neish!
Congratulations to Vicky! I will contact you shortly 
x
For Christmas I made my Dad one of these little A5 journals so that he could write any notes, ideas and lists down whilst on his allotment. Of course I just had to make myself one and so far it has proved very useful indeed, it has my seed list in, my plan, my to-do lists and I’m sure by the end of the year it will be jam packed!
Spring is just around the corner and I am giving you the chance to win your very own allotment notebook so you can get planning for the year ahead. It’s made from real leather with ‘Allotment Notes’ stamped on the front and there is a grey cord to keep the book shut. There is a pen holder inside as well as some handy little pockets.The best thing about this journal is that the notebook is removable so it can be used every year, just simple replace the A5 notebook once it is full to the brim with all those important notes!
All you have to do is simply comment below with your full name and one reason why you are excited for Springtime to arrive.
I will draw the winner at random on the 1st of February 2015.
Good luck everyone! xx
Spring has officially arrived with the presence of my first ever allotment tulip (the rest became victims to the deers hungry bellies!) The sun has been shining a lot over the past week but it seems those April showers have finally caught up with us and now they are simply just getting in the way. Why is it always sunny during the working week and then when the weekend comes it decides to pour down with rain? It’s like the weather knows that I am planning a weekend of gardening!
However, my allotment is coming along nicely and I must say that it looks particularly beautiful in the morning sunshine. It has been freshly weeded and things are starting to grow, even the gooseberry bushes and strawberry plants have some little flowers appearing. There are, however, lots more jobs to be completed down on Plot 15C. I need to build two cages for my strawberry raised beds and the fruit cage needs to be completed. I also want to build a cold frame, make an archway and plant supports out of hazel, put the corrugated tin roofing on my shed, buy some guttering, make a bug hotel, put bunting around the fence and sow some more seeds (…and breath!)
Then theres the matter of planting out all my little seedlings that have been busy growing inside the house. Theres sunflowers, cosmos, scabious, dill, sweet peas, pumpkins, gherkins, brussel sprouts, red cabbages, broccolli, basil, chives, tomatoes, french beans and borlotto beans… To be honest I’m looking foreward to getting all the windowsills back!
This is my first Springtime on my allotment and I love being kept busy (which is lucky!) The weather however is simply becoming a nuisance, as well as stopping me from gardening it is also delaying my Youtube videos. If it keeps up like this then I will have to grab the waterproofs and head out, there is simply just too much to do and it’s nearly May already!
On the plus side I turned 25 years old today and was spoilt with some lovely gifts including a rose bush called ‘Katies Rose’ a new sieve and a beautiful tamper set handmade by my amazingly talented Dad (which I will write a post about soon!)
I love taking photographs, It’s an addiction which can also be a curse (especially when I should be weeding instead of taking photographs!) I do believe however, that everyone needs to take photographs, they don’t have to be brilliant, in focus or even straight, but cameras are there to capture life in all its glory. How else are we going to remember holidays, faces of friends and relatives, pets and those childhood years. You can always delete but you can never go back in time and capture after all!
My allotment is my happy place, a place to escape and simply do what I love. I spend half of my time there and I must say that I enjoy every second of it. It’s not neccessarily what a ‘normal’ 24 year old would be doing during the weekends but I love it, and thats more than enough for me.
I have to admit that I get very distracted with photography (and cups of tea for that matter) I often find myself weeding and at the same time finding a new viewpoint of my allotment that I had never seen before! I like to photograph my favourite things as well as self portraits and I may even dig my macro lens out for some close-ups. Maybe it’s the curse of being a blogger or having a creative Dad, or maybe it’s because I like making scrapbooks so much? I do know however that in years to come, when I’m sitting with the grandchildren I can tell them stories and show them photographs of my little lottie which will hopefully inspire another generation of gardeners.
I must admit I am a bit of a notebook freak, I love making sketchbooks and you will find atleast 20 notebooks sitting in my room which haven’t been written in yet (I probably brought them because they were so pretty!) I love documenting things so when it came down to finding a suitable gardening journal it took me a while to find one I liked. Now I know there are a few allotment diaries around but I found that most of them contained a fair amount of pages telling you how to grow things instead of including valuable writing space. I was after a diary which was a diary and not a reference book, a diary which would allow me space to record my first year on my allotment so I could later look back on it for references and tips.
I found this particular journal one night when searching the internet and it is simply called ‘Gardener’s Journal’, by Sophie Conran for Burgon and Ball (it points this out on the front cover which I’m tempted to make my own label to stick over it) It is A5 in size and has a lovely print on the front and back along with an elasticated strap to secure the book closed. It was the inside of the book which interested me however and it didn’t dissapoint, it even had a lovely quote inside the cover which reads ‘A journal is one of the most helpful tools a gardener can have’.
It has dividers down the side for each month of the year, handy for future reference and the pages in each month are the same, just simply repeated. Some of the months share the same divider, including Jan/Feb and Nov/Dec, simply due to these months being rather quiet on the gardening front. One of my favourite pages is a double spread for attaching small photographs too, I am obssessed with taking photographs so this is perfect for me, I also think its great to look back throughout the year and see your progress in photographs aswell as writing.
There is also a monthly to-do list at the start of each month aswell as a weekly planner and doodle area. You get to check each to-do item off the list which makes it extremely helpful, especially when your someone like me who forgets to do things without being reminded! You can treat the little weekly calender as a diary, writing down important dates or when you plant certain things. Another double page consists of a weather log where you can record the date, the highest and lowest temperature, the wind speed, sunlight and the rainfall. At the end of each month are 2 pages of lined paper for notes so you can write down other important information like which seeds you purchased, any advice and tips etc.
After all the monthly dividers have ended, which takes up around two thirds of the journal, is a section called ‘Planning and Documenting’. This section has 4 double pages called ‘Planting Diary’ where you can record the variety, when is was sown, when it germinated, when it was planted out, fertilized and when it flowered or fruited. It also has 12 double pages called ‘Special Plant notes’, pages of grid paper and plain paper for planning and doodles. And last but not least is a small ‘Snippets’ expanding page which is attached to the back cover for holding plant labels or seed packets etc.
Overall I am chuffed with my new little allotment journal, it does exactly what I need it to do and this is simply to record my successes and my failures during my first year. This way I can look back and change certain areas, try different techniques and most of all learn by my mistakes and celebrate my triumphs. Now all I need to do it fill it up!