A recycled lifestyle…

I know, I know, I’ve been rather quiet for rather a long time… but I’ve been busy! I moaned to a friend that I don’t have any space to grow veg here at home; we grow a lot of fruit & herbs, not to mention being almost self-sufficient for eggs, but there’s no space left for veg. And the two Offspring left at home are both pescatarians, surviving mostly on vegetables. Turned out that she desperately needed help with her large kitchen garden, her Other Half having gone walkabout. So I volunteered to help, and got stuck in.

But I’d also sent my annual “any chance of an allotment?” email to the Powers That Be. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I actually got a reply, not as usual reminding me that there’s a 20-year waiting list, but in the affirmative. They were opening a new site in town at the end of the week… so I went & inspected a plot, and with my Other Half, agreed we’d like to take it on.

Two plots, separated by a couple of miles, neither of them very close to home, is too much. Other Half doesn’t want to help with my friend’s garden, as he thinks we might lose it all at a stroke of a lawyer’s pen. Added to which, my elderly mother has been unwell, necessitating lots of visits – not that these are begrudged! – and waiting in for doctor’s phone calls. And the usual day-to-day dramas of a busy household, and my attempts to declutter after 25 years of large-family life, and the necessity of earning some money…

So now I’m desperately behind with everything! And I can only apologise to my friend; the weeds are galloping away up there & I’m failing heroically to keep on top of all the things that need doing . But we are eating well; better than we have for years, and I have her to thank for that, as the allotment is only just coming into production. There’s a recycling story to tell in a day or two, but in the meantime, here’s a pic of our beans 6 weeks down the line…

And some of the gleanings from my friend’s kitchen garden…