The last week on the allotment had us pondering mortality – the cycle of life, decay, death and rebirth. We did some hard pruning of trees and shrubs, some much-needed weeding and a little bit of seed planting.

This beautiful flagstone fencing was ubiquitous in the local area once upon a time. It’s made of the local millstone grit and borders one edge of our allotment. It’s such a shame that it tends to get broken, removed or demolished in favour of indeterminate brick or concrete walls or wood panel fencing. It’s all higgledy-piggledy like a mouthful of teeth in dire need of a good orthodontist – but we like them like that. A perfect Hollywood smile would look completely out of place! We think it may have originally been part of a vaccary wall – to keep herds of cows in check!

We posted a photo of Mr Robin in last week’s allotment post, but not all the allotment dwellers are our friends. These snails, along with the army of slugs, are definitely our foes – needless to say they came to a sticky end! Having said that, they have a beauty of their own

This 10-foot length of green chain link fence was already on the plot when we took it over. We though it might be a nice spot to run a few climbers up.

We turned over and weeded about a foot on each side of the fence and sowed a few garden peas and sunflower seeds.

In a few months time if all goes to plan, they’ll germinate, flower and provide us with seeds to both eat and resow for next year.