It starts with a dig...

So today I officially took ownership of Plot 18, I've been fairly lucky as the man who had it before me has moved to another plot to be closer to his new girlfriends plot.  It still has vegetables on it, although the majority are Caterpillar riddled cabbages, it is fairly well cleared.  My neighbour told me that he moved partly to do with the Dock problem he has on it.  There are a fair few Docks on there, more than your average plot, but that's something I'm not too concerned about for the moment.

 

 

 

These two photos show you two different angles of my new plot.  I have plans to change the layout a bit.  I want to add a composting area at the back.  The paths are crumbling with wood chip spreading allover the soil so that needs a re-think. The shed needs some fixing and it all needs a real good dig, but other than that I think Ive landed pretty lucky really.

This is my latest addition to my ever expanding garden.  I first put a small vegetable patch in the back garden when i moved in 3 years ago.  This has slowly crept its way up the garden and recently, I added 4 chickens to the mix, thats where most the cabbages will go one thinks.  I had no-where else to go, so an allotment was the obvious next step.

My aim is to be as self sufficient as possible with vegetables.  Easier said than done I know, but if i could get 80% of my produce from my garden and allotment, I would be satisfied.  I would love to make it 100%, but we'll see how I get on. I also have an idea for raising meat birds, but thats still in it's early stage. You may also know that Bob, my fellow blogger, is keen on his show vegetables, so I may even try my luck with that.  I'll need some serious mentoring though.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress on all my many quests. I would like to explore a few topics along the way and hopefully publish a good arguement on all sorts of debates.  I'm already trying to decide what kind of gardener I want to be. Should I go chemical? Organic? Can there be a happy medium?  I'm looking at this now and weighing it all up, so watch this space....  Thanks for reading. Andrew.