Today was earmarked for strimming. I'd really hoped to clear the whole plot, but an hour's efforts managed to get rid of around a third of the long grass. I was slightly thwarted by the hired strimmer and my incompetence with it; the motor cut out if presented with anything more substantial than a blade of grass, and I only had the muscle power to start it successfully two or three times. An allotment neighbour took pity on me and started it for me once, but after an hour of wrestling with it I'd had enough. Plan B is to get the council to strim the rest; I need to get them to take away the shed in any case.
I did get the chance to get better acquainted with my plot. It's quite uneven, which I think might put paid to my plans for raised beds, and towards the back the ground slopes very steeply away. There is a patch of brambles here, which I will keep for the fruit, but I think a good way of using this part of the pot might be to plant lavender, rosemary and similarly shrubby herbs. I spotted this pretty flower, while exploring; I wonder if it's an early purple orchid (Orchis mascula); the flower head is very like the picture in my wild flowers guide, but the leaves don't look quite right. I will go up to move it out of strimming range in a few days.
I begin to see why everyone has told me the allotment will get me fit. I ache profoundly from my rather feeble efforts with the strimmer today. What will the digging do to me?
The site is looking very pretty at the moment. A lot of people have flowers as well as plants, and one plot has a large area given over entirely to flowers. There's a practical point to this, I suppose, as it attracts pollinating insects, but I like the way it softens and brightens what could be a very plain, pragmatic place. Growing flowers for cutting on my plot would save me about as much money as growing vegetables will - more food for thought.
