BUILDING A WILDLIFE POND

One of the first things I did on my allotment plot was the dig out a wildlife pond! I enjoyed it all the more because we had just gone into the first ever lockdown, so the hard work was a welcome distraction. My wildlife pond has since been through many changes, but alas, no frogs yet. 

I used a pond liner and made sure one end was deeper and one shallow. Then I placed rocks around the edge to keep the liner in place and to give creatures a good habitat. I've since planted lots of pond plants and flowers around the edge and it looks beautiful. 

PLANTING BULBS

During my first year on the allotment plot, I was obsessed with having flowers. I planted so many summer flowering bulbs and they bloomed beautifully. Now, I have a bed dedicated to my flowers including Dahlias, Gladiolis, Sweet peas and Calendulas. It's so beautiful and also, so great for the pollinators too. I would definitely recommend having flowers at your allotment plot! 

The first onions ever at my allotment plot! Did they work? No. They got infected by some kind of worm, which seems to be a common theme among my veg these days! 

Busy at the plot

The second my shed was up, I painted it. I was so excited to have the shed exactly as I had planned in my head, and that was very much pink! The colour is Sweetpea Pink by Cuprinol and I love it. Inside I painted the walls white in an attempt to keep the spiders out! Haha! Hasn't worked so far, but I did my best!

For the flooring I've just stapled some ground sheet down. I wanted to keep the wood dry as well as easy to maintain and sweep and wash. It's probably not the best thing I could have put down, but it works for now. I have bought our old Ikea dining table to the plot and now use it as a potting bench which is brilliant. And I found an old chair in a skip one day on my way to the allotment and managed to save it for myself! 

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE

 

The annual Bailey family Christmas tree farm trip! And yes, we did get inspired by the Family Vacation movie which has become one of our all time favourites to watch on Christmas Eve! How do you feel about family Christmas traditions? When the kids were small I was obsessed with them. I think having our own little rituals to complete each year made me feel more like a "real" family. I was desperate for that big, cosy family Christmas and for the kids to look back and remember all the things we did together. maybe even replicate them with their own kids one day. 

Well fast forward 5 years and I feel differently. With the cost of living crisis, energy bills rising and general state of the world, I don't feel like we need to keep up with these traditions to be a "real" family. They just don't feel as important as they did before. 

I don't mean we don't do any of them. I just don't place the same kind of significant on them as I used to. If I don't feel like making gingerbread men on Saturday morning, I wont. I'll buy them from a shop and let the kids decorate them instead. Or if I can't be bothered to drive an hour to the Christmas tree farm, we'll buy one from the local garden centre instead. 

I'm all about making Christmas easy on all of us. No longer will we plan things weeks in advance and then force ourselves to complete them, even if we'd prefer to be curled up on the sofa watching Elf. 

Maybe that's our new Christmas tradition. To be slow, to be honest with ourselves and to not get hung up on what we 'should' be doing. 

SNOW DAY

 

Bit of a photo dump today. Snow! The was the last time we had snow in the UK and I couldn't help but share a few photos! 

Some photos of the plot in July