| Plot 17 – The Earthly Comforts Garden Assessing the Plot in Detail Part 3 |
| If you read yesterday’s episode of The Allotment Plotters – Assessing the Plot in Detail – Part 2 – you’ll recall how Suze and l nicknamed the various parts of the plot to identify them more quickly, especially when it would eventually come to make decisions on how the spaces are best used. Those areas are – Polly – Polytunnel, Runner [Chicken Run], Daisy [Wildflower/Wilding Orchard], The Strippers [Strips where fruit trees/bushes will be planted, Mucky Boyz [my compost and worm farming areas], The Rascals [raised beds] and Cottage Garden [the shed and the front plot to it] and all of them combined make The Earthly Comforts Garden. Episodes 2, 3 and 4 will and do look into the areas a little more closely – the final part to this mini-series will be this afternoon. This episode will look at the Cottage Garden area and the Strippers. The main image of this episode displays the garden shed area. [All photos 9th September] |
| Cottage Garden |
| The Cottage Garden comprises the shed and two raised beds as well as a slabbed area. One of the raised beds is broken and rotting whilst the other one is fully functional. The bed numbers are 16 and 01. There is a slabbed area just away from the windows to the shed. They have to be slabs only, as concreting is forbidden in any of the plots by the Sandwich council. I will need to lay them again on fresh sand, but for the time being, they are fine. As to whether this hard base will serve as an additional area for rainwater harvesting or as an area for some of our crockery pots just yet, l don’t know. However, this shed and, eventually, the chicken coop will be the only two areas on the plot that will gather rainwater. So this shed will be one of the initial prime areas for harvesting water. Guttering will have to be affixed to the roof to allow rainwater collection, and a series of good water butts will be attached to the water butt system. An additional eight to ten 80-litre scatter bins will be dotted around the entire plot, which will be utilised to have water transferred to them from the central water collection area. Next year, Suze and l will also construct a second rainwater harvesting system from the chicken coop. The Cottage Garden has two growing areas or two raised beds dedicated to it. These are the crumbling 16th and the intact 1st bed found right behind the shed itself. Growing in the front area of the garden in the 16th bed were several Gladioli which need to be dug up for their bulbs which will be saved, cleaned off and dried, ready for next year’s planting. Once it is all tidied up and fixed, it will be quite a nice relaxing area where we are thinking of having a table and chairs. What we decide to grow in the two raised bed areas we are unsure of at this moment in time but l think it will be common kitchen herbs and ornamental flowers and may well act as an extension to Daisy. I also suspect many of the plants that are set to leave Willow Garden will end up in the Cottage Garden area. Also as we are planning on encouraging birds to the garden we will have a water feature and a feeding area for them. Bird feeders will hung up in the hawthorne hedge. We will paint the shed in the same colours that we paint the gate. |
| The Strippers |
| In many ways, the Strippers is one of the minor areas of Plot 17, but together they make up a fair size of the allotment. But if you didn’t name them, you probably wouldn’t even consider mentioning them. There are three Strippers here. You have seen two already. What are they? Basically, they are strips of growing land holding fruit bushes/trees. Two of the areas are connected to two of the bare-ground plots – Daisy and Polly. With Daisy, the strip of land held the Knobbed Russet dwarf apple trees, and with Polly, the strip was home to red, white and blackcurrant bushes. The third strip of land is right at the back of Plot 17 and is home to raspberry and blackberry bushes. Part of it sits behind the shed and the first raised bed, whilst the bulk of it runs along the edge of the allotment behind the other raised beds. We plan to dig out the apple tree dwarf trees and plant a mixture of lavender along that strip next to Daisy, companioned by Alliums, Zinnias and Rosemary. Whilst with the Polly Stripper, the currant bushes are all poor performers and will be removed. A row of blueberry bushes will be planted and companioned with Borage and possibly trailing strawberries. The third Stripper will have the raspberry bushes trimmed, and they will stay, but the blackberry bush is wild and will be removed or thinned out and styled to a more manageable growing position. |
| So there we go –the Cottage Garden area and the Strippers of The Earthly Comforts Garden – Plot 17 Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all in the final part of this mini-series displaying Plot 17 on the 9th of September, which will be Mucky Boyz and The Rascals. Next Episode … Assessing the Plot in Detail Part 4 |
Earthly Comforts 
Sounds wonderful! You have such excellent work ethics, Rory – from the planning stages to the follow through! I have no doubt that the end result will be absolutely amazing!
PS: I’m already wondering about the chickens. If you will start with chicks or layers, what kind of hens you will get and if you and Suze will give them names. 😊
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Hey Betty it would be fairer to all concerned for Suze and l to buy point of lay chickens – the 18 – 20 weeks age group over that of chicks.
I had 50 chicks to raise many years ago when l was younger than l am today [2008] and vowed l would never do it ahain hahaha and it drove me insane with worry l was like a papa momma all in one!!
Will we name then ? You need to ask? Of course we will hahahaha 🙂
They will become our new dogs.
I used to have fifteen adult chickens three of which were young cockerels and they all had names and they all knew them too 🙂
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Yes, Rory, that was what I thought you and Suze would choose to do, too. 😊 It will be such fun to hear all about your chickens, as time goes on.
They do know their names. My all-time favorites were Henry and Henrietta. Not very original, but the names fit their personalities so well. 😉 And they tried their best to teach me to speak Poultriese, but I must admit I was a lost cause. 😊
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Haha yes, the beauty of chickens is they simply don’t understand why we don’t understand them at all 🙂
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Right!! But they never give up trying. I do admire that. 😊
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