Leek weeding commences

No photo today, I'm afraid. Just a quick line to record that the leek weeding has started (painfully slowly) the plum tree was pruned and wound paint slapped onto the fresh wood where the branches were cut. I also picked a good pile of beans, runners and french, two artichokes, spinach, raspberries, salad leaves, rocket and another little orange pumpkin.

While I was there I met an allotment neighbour who tells me she is giving up after 48 years. 48 years! For the whole of her life in Bristol she's been climbing up the hill to her allotment, tending the ground, harvesting her crops and looking out over the city. How things must have changed since 1960. The city has grown immensely in that time, spreading out across the surrounding fields. But almost more of a threat is the way green places inside the city are disappearing so quickly under new buildings . Back garden development is rife. There's a new secondary school rearing up behind us instead of playing fields. Urban allotments, once seen as an important food producer for the country, became unpopular and were used as building land. With the current allotment revival we must take the opportunity to make sure that these oases aren't swallowed up in the inexorable expansion of the city. Thank goodness for people like Margaret, who just kept on growing her vegetables, keeping her allotment going for all those years.

Happy gardening (for as long as you can)