A field journal from the allotments
Garden
Plot 19
One small patch of borrowed ground, kept as a written record — what I grow to eat, what I give back to the soil, and the herbs I dry for the medicine shelf.
What grows here
Growing what we eat
Real food, picked the same day it's cooked. I plan the beds around a year of dinners rather than a tidy diagram — so something is always ready.
Giving more than I take
Run the plot so almost nothing leaves it. Scraps to the compost bays, water off the shed roof, and a few more seeds saved every year.
A small medicine garden
A narrow strip of herbs I can actually use — dried for teas, infused into oils, or turned into simple salves on the kitchen stove.
From the journal
Making a calendula salve on the kitchen stove
Last summer's dried petals, infused in oil and set with a little beeswax. The whole batch cost almost nothing.
Read entry →Turning bay two, and what worms taught me
Six months of scraps had quietly become dark, sweet-smelling soil. A note on the three-bay rhythm.
Read entry →Why I stopped digging the beds
Three seasons of no-dig and the soil has never looked better. Less work, fewer weeds, better structure.
Read entry →This month in the plot
The almanacJune
- SowFrench beans, beetroot and a last run of salad leaves straight into warm soil.
- Plant outTomatoes, courgettes and squash now the nights have softened.
- PickThe first broad beans, chard and early new potatoes for the kitchen.
- Harvest herbsCut calendula and chamomile flowers in the morning and lay them out to dry.
- TendWater deeply but less often, and keep the compost bays moist as they cook.
The plot, day to day
About the gardener
Half a working plot, kept by hand and written down.
I took on Plot 19 in 2019 with no real idea what I was doing — just a fork and a patch of compacted clay. This journal is the honest record of figuring it out since: the gluts and the failures, the soil and the seasons.