Scaling back

So I’ve decided to give up a half plot at the end of this year scaling back to one whole plot. This last two years it’s been hard work given my full time job and the amount of travelling I have to do I simply don’t have the energy to keep it all going.
So the plot I am giving up has my soft fruit on which I will leave behind has an  apple tree, a pear  tree and green gauge tree all of which I’m going to transplant onto the ground I am keeping. I also have a large fruit cage to take down and re site so loads to do in the autumn early winter period.

Good luck with moving the trees etc, Offwego. It all feels like hard work as we get older, sadly.

Christine, I know how you feel, I gave up mine earlier this year and my garden really is enough work for me, nowadays.

I don't quite know the design of your fruit cage or the distance between your plots, but couldn't you gather up a few chums and move it still erected?

Cheers,  Tony.

When we gave up our last allotment, it seemed like we were giving away a whole life experience, but the truth was that we really couldn't cope with all the work to grow so much stuff, which we then gave away to all our chums!

Now we just have about ten square yards of vegetables and soft fruit at home, a full greenhouse, a place for sweet peas and runner beans and my pride and joy, a 'desktop' garden, which is really just a raised wooden platform, waist-height, on which I grow all the carrots, spring onions, beetroot, lettuce leaves etc., that we need! Watering is a doddle, weeding is non-existent and picking the stuff just means a quick trip out the back and in the kitchen within a minute!

I do miss the joy of seeing a newly-dug patch, the first earlies peeping though, five yards of runner beans and some rarer stuff like artichokes coming along, but something has to give really...

I’m afraid I neglect our garden spending more time cultivating my allotment.
I’ve just renewed for the next season but we are under threat of being moved for housing which may spur me to refocus on home. My plot neighbour is stopping this year as he is too old to contemplate moving to a new allotment. Some of my wife’s friends have installed fancy raised beds at home so I may go the same way. Only thing is I would miss the exercise and banter down at the allotments.

Regarding banter, when I started on our patch back in the eighties, on a Sunday, there was a gaggle of old boys who met at the top and spent at least an hour or two yarning, laughing etc...

As I was a new boy - ahem - I never really joined in, and also, I had far too much to do on one of the only days I could get down there!

I did notice, however, that when we rejoined the 'clan' down there a few years ago, the plots weren't half as tidy as when we were 'ordered' by the council way back then! Our PC got a bit lazy about tidiness, cultivation areas and weeds which was a shame, as several old chaps used to be meticulous in hoeing and growing back then, and used to look down their noses at others who didn't keep a clean patch going! The lovely elderly lady next to us also used to moan because the PC would write to her about cutting her grass edges, for goodness sakes...!