Today really has had a mix of feelings, highs and lows. We (and literally every other allotmenteer at our site) were unfortunately victims of a mass shed break in. The photo above shows the damage caused as they ripped the hasp off the shed door. Our neighbour called Dave at 6am to let him know and he went straight there on the way home from work. We had a very lucky escape-if you can call it that-and as far as we can tell didn’t lose anything. Our generator was taken from the shed and dumped by the roadway, it seems they were after things that were easy to sell like lawn mowers and strimmers. I don’t want to taint my blog with any more unpleasantness, so all I will say is that I hope karma catches up with the vile creatures that think this a way to make a living.

Continuing with the vile creatures theme though we decided to test out slug traps in the raised bed. We have grapefruit skins and beer traps, I wonder which will win? William really liked the idea of having a slug ‘house’ in the grapefruit skin and was bugging me all day to cut the little doors out! Dave ‘helped’ me with the beer trap, though I think his approach lacked a little in effort. (He’s better at building sheds.)

Slug trap Mk2 is a jam jar buried in the ground and filled with out of date beer. Dave is calling in to the allotment in the morning to see what has happened-hopefully I will be able to post an exciting update about a jam jar full of drunken slugs, though that is best case scenario!

A little house for slugs (sleep there and die little guys)!

Spot the jam jar!

There is a really weird looking weed appearing all over our plot; apparently it is all over the allotments and is some kind of prehistoric looking weed that needs to be burned when it has been dug up. We are tackling it as we go and gradually getting rid of it. I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s so weird the way it grows. I took a photo of one I had dug up so you can see how it grows-almost like it has needles rather than leaves.

Apart from weeds we are actually growing some real fruit and veg-here are our first redcurrants! I was so excited when I saw them, and lots more things are springing to life after the fairly warm and wet weather we’ve had recently. Other things (mainly veg) are also progressing nicely and the seeds which I planted several weeks ago have realised it’s time to grow and sprouted up all over the place. The onions from last weekend are even starting to grow already!

Last but not least we are still nurturing a few things at home to take to the allotment later on, and I couldn’t resist using my new pyrography kit and some lolly sticks which I acquired from William’s craft box to make plant labels. They were only my second and third pyrography projects and I think they look quite ‘rustic’ in the pots. If I ever get round to making a fairy garden there will definitely be some wood burning projects involved!

I am hoping that there are many more ups than downs as we progress with the allotment. We certainly aren’t going to let last night’s events stop us from enjoying our plot but it did feel a little unnerving to be in our shed today knowing that last night someone else was in there without our permission, trying to take things which we have worked for to use for their own gain.