A new friend in Field B

During my wanderings at the weekend I came across a very hard working gentleman in Field B. Forgive me, as I have a head like a sieve - but I believe his name was Douglas. I somewhat crept up behind him in order to get my photo, not the nicest thing to do - I'd hate it if someone did it to me - but he heard me anyway and I got this lovely, smiley face welcoming me to its owner's plot.

Douglas' plot is excellent. He hadn't been down in a few weeks but the place looked great. Granted he had been working hard all day. Like us, he has gone fot the raised bed system and it's working well for him, though he also has indulged in a lovely patio area and an orchard is on the way in another section. This is a man with plans, with ideas and with passion - he exudes it.

Just before I arrived over there he had cleared out his potato bed, a job he hadn't been looking forward to - due to the blight we all got over the wet summer. I guess he was expecting some mushing, stinky crops, but like us he had cut off the foilage at the 1st signs of blight and thus had a wee surprise. Happy, healthy little potatoes to take home for dinner. (I laugh at the Tesco bag).

That wasn't all. He decided to lift some carrots to let me have a look at the difference between sowing in situ and planting out seedlings. My, the ones which had been moved were weird! All the roots had tangled up around each other and one carrot was actually 3 twisted together. The other ones however were glorious. Perfect. Funny though, just after lifting this one, Douglas noticed a beetroot, he'd forgotten about. Goodness lifting it was a very pleasant surprise - it was huge! Look at his face.

Being very much into eco-friendly allotmenteering I was intrigued my the little turf wall all around the plot. I thought it was covered in weeds, however it was actually lovely little alpines, planted into the overturned sods! They were all taking and some were even in flower, what a lovely idea - to look at and for insects to feed upon. In another corner there was an elorabate bug house - logs with many holes drilled in them and stacked under a thigh-high stone doorway, in front of which lay a little pool for (hopefully) frogs etc.

Well done Douglas. Inspirational, even with some very bad drainage issues around his field and in his own plot in one quarter. It's somewhere I'll be nosey-ing around again.