The joy of a new allotment to grow vegetables and get in contact with Mother Nature

Since the COVID pandemic, allotments have been very popular in the UK, and I have always dreamt of having one of my own where I could go to plant my favourite vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately, in that period, I was living in Bristol, and I could not get one because there were long queues. Once I arrived in Newcastle, my life was so busy and concentrated on dealing with a new job and a new love story that, for a while, i forgot my ambitions about a new allotment.

Last year, my partner bought a new house in a horrible place called Welford Avenue, thinking of transforming the huge corner garden into an allotment. The project dropped down after a couple of months when we realised that the horrible house was situated on a main road full of cars and pollution, and the soil was really dry and not good for growing vegetables. Furthermore, we were surrounded by such rude and arrogant people that we thought to stop growing our vegetables because they could easily steel them .

I still remember when one of our jealous neighbours threw her plastic bottles into our elegant pond because she was jealous of our style of life and love.

New home

This year, we finally found a very nice house to buy with a private rear garden, full of mature plants and evergreens planted by the previous owner. It is an amazing garden, but there is not enough space to plant strawberries or salad, so we started straight away to ask around for an allotment. Also in Newcastle upon Tyne, you must wait up to three years to get a minute square of land if you decide to rent one of the allotments from the council .

Therefore, my husband and I started to look around for a private allotment. Even if the rent is slightly higher, the lots are larger, and the waiting list is shorter. After a few weeks, we discovered it was possible to rent a piece of land not too far from our new house, and immediately we showed our interest to the manager, and he accepted our proposal after a month.

The start

In June 2024, we finally got the keys, and immediately we went to see our future Eden garden.

Once we arrived, we discovered that the lot had not been cultivated for at least a year. It was full of grass and pieces of plastic left by the previous person while building a greenhouse. In my view, sometimes people can be very naive. They think that having an allotment is an easy thing, but once they start to dig the soil or cut the grass, they immediately realise that it is a hard job and abandon their project.

We have to deal with this at the moment, but both of us are enthusiastic because we have the freedom to plan our corner.

Cut the weed.

As soon as we arrived, we started to cut the weeds, in particular the nettles and my husband planted straight away the onions he had kept for weeks in a pot.

While cleaning the plot, we also had a great surprise because hidden under a huge group of weeds, we found mature strawberry plants with their delicious red fruits ready to be brought home and eaten with yoghurt.

Chickens

After our hard work, we decided to have a look at the three sheds at the end of the plot, and with surprise, we discovered there was a space for chickens!

I love their eggs, and right away I told my husband that we needed to quickly sort out that space for a couple of our new birds.