The herb garden on the plot is going crazy!

Sage is enormous, thyme flowing everywhere, chives have seeded all over the place and the applemint that we thought had been dug up is also popping up where it shouldn’t!

This is great, but we need to find a way to use or preserve them asap…

The most popular, and possibly easiest, way to preserve herbs seems to be to dry them, so that’ll do for us to start with!  First one we’re trying out is sage… we’ll let you know how it all goes

We’ve also had some tips on oven-drying and freezing which we will certainly try out in the coming weeks.

Please let us know how you like to preserve your herbs… we have never done this before so need all the help we get!

Had to string-up some of the tomatoes – as they were donated to us we’re not sure of the varieties, but some look as though they should have found a home in a hanging basket as they’re trailing for miles! Did our best to get them off the ground.

Cut back the applemint completely as it had gone mad…

New allotmentgirl, Sallie, ‘helps’ by chomping grass around the compost bin!

When we planted it last year we were planning to plant it in a pot, but we forgot the pot and in our eagerness to plant everything we decided not to worry about it – “surely it won’t get that big” – ooops!

Thank goodness it’s Pimms season! Oh, good in gin too

We decided it was time to get up early and do some exercise… after much debating about going running we convinced ourselves that morning allotment sessions instead would be best as we’d get the exercise and the allotment would become lovely again!!

No-one told us it was dark at 7am!

So Lisa traipsed through the streets – looking guilty with a muddy spade and a blanket! – to pick up a sleepy Siobhan, who struggled putting on wellies – firstly on the wrong feet and then one of Lisa’s wellies! Maybe the early mornings were not such a good idea!

But we did ok, a good half an hour spent feeding the darlek (moving the unruly compost heap into the proper compost bin) and tidying up the bed that we’re preparing for garlic, onions and leeks.

We picked some of the Applemint for a healthy first drink when we got into the office… very tasty actually, everyone should try it! Back to the tea and biscuits now though… until Thursday morning.

First part of our ‘allotment girl’ uniform also arrived – some rather fetching overalls that I am sure we will be modelling on the site soon.

There was much hilarity gained from the discovery of the term ‘growing position’ on the instructions of some of the seeds. I think we are developing ‘allotment humour’ – should we be worried?

Planted today:

Applemint
Marigolds
Beans (two types)
Radishes (two types)