Tales from the allotment

courtesy of my pal Moira

Just over a year ago, I made a new friend called Moira. Moira and I met through our mutual beekeeping association, at a honey bottling event. It was a fun day, where a group of us came together to bottle the season's honey. You can see a reel I made of the day here.

I shared that reel with my beekeeper WhatsApp group (getting into a bit of trouble for the cat in the background, not very health & safety!) but Moira reached out to say how much she enjoyed it. She was taken with my online handle of Craft & Thrift, saying she was also into crafting, and inviting me round for cake and knitting.

I've got other Moira stories to share, specifically about vintage kimono fabric, but this post is about her allotment. Long term followers will know that one of my lifelong dreams has been my own outdoor space. We've been very lucky to live in beautiful flats over the years, but never anywhere with our own private green area. Our next house move will definitely involve a garden of some description, but that's probably at least a year or two away, potentially longer.

Moira, on the other hand, has been an allotment tenant since the 90s. When she heard of my gardening dreams, she very kindly pressed her spare allotment gate key into the palm of my hand and told me to come and go as I please. It was all I could do not to burst into tears right then and there. We're probably not at the ‘random outbursts of emotion’ stage of our friendship yet, and I didn't want to scare her off. So, as of July 2023, I've been lucky enough to have access to an allotment, which is just round the corner from my flat. In Edinburgh, where the allotment waiting lists can run into the decades (I've been on the list for 3 different allotments for 8 years now), this is a dream come true.

It's been a nice, gentle introduction to gardening, given that the allotment is well tended and in generally good order. From what I've read, a lot of people who inherit an allotment tend to get a tangled, overgrown patch of grass and weeds. Moira, on the other hand, has been tending this plot for 30 years. The soil is rich, the veggies are plentiful. Moira is definitely more on the gently chaotic end of the spectrum than I am, and in turn, I've had to rein in some of my more ill judged, poorly thought out schemes. I tend to learn by making mistakes, which is fine when it only impacts me, but harder when someone else is involved and you’re trying to be a polite guest. Especially when that someone else is doing you a massive favour and you're disrupting their decades-long routines. I’m a person who enjoys organising their environment in their preferred way, and it can be hard for me to let go of those tendencies and just enjoy what I have in the moment. I want to plan 6 months, a year, 3 years in advance, which is not possible when you’re sharing someone else’s space. It’s a good lesson for me in being present and mindful.

It's been a lovely experience so far, and I'm excited to experience a full year of allotmenting in 2024. I've learned to make pesto and jam, both of which feel like real cooking achievements unlocked. Moira has been a supportive and endlessly tolerant allotment partner, looking on in bemusement as I excitedly outline my plans and gently steering my Labrador tendencies in the right direction.

As a way to celebrate and record my first 6 months of allotmenting, I’ve rounded up some of my favourite moments and highlights.

July

Celebrating my new allotment with a thermos of coffee. I planted some mint in a rusty bucket and put in a bin-lid pond. Fingers crossed for frogspawn this season.

August

Moira grows nasturtiums all over this section of her plot and they are beautiful. They spread rampantly all over, climbing up the bean poles and across the pumpkin patch. I will definitely be growing nasturtiums in my future garden.

September

I grew radishes ‘Bright Lights’ and they were successful! This was my first veg to grow and harvest entirely myself (rather than hanging on Moira’s vegetable coat tails). I ate these in salads throughout the autumn and felt very pleased with myself.

October

I planted onions and garlic, using Moira’s sheep fleeces to keep the birds from interfering, suppress weeds and warm the soil. The fleeces are direct from a local farmer and are the parts of the fleece discarded during the shearing process. These fleeces are soiled or too small to be economically productive, so the farmer donated them to Moira to use on the allotment. This is another brilliant idea I’ll definitely be using in the future, on my own land.

I also foraged a bouquet of flowers from the allotment in October, and thoroughly enjoyed bringing the colours of the season inside. I would like to do more of this in 2024, making the most of what the hedgerow provides.

November

This was the season I made the jam above, plus collected windfall apples for apple compote for the freezer. I literally just fried the last of the windfalls the other day, in cinnamon, vegan butter and brown sugar. It makes for a delicious porridge topping. I roasted the pumpkin you can see growing in August, and turned it into soup, complete with sourdough bread and homemade hummus.

December

I roasted allotment potatoes to have with our Hogmanay dinner and they were all the more satisfying for having been involved in their production. I didn’t plant them, since I joined Moira’s allotment too late in the year for that, but I’m excited to be a part of next year’s potato growing efforts. I’ve already got broad bean sowing in the diary for next week, I’m just waiting on a warm day in January to get them in the ground.

Thank you for joining me on my first 6 months in the allotment! If you've made it this far, enjoy some silent clippies of the allotment, mostly of my pollinator pals, and perhaps consider subscribing to future posts or sharing my work with a friend who loves nature.