With work so scarce at the moment, I have had the opportunity to keep on top of the allotment more so this year.

I usually don’t have a clear out until the winter, but there were a few jobs that I had just kept putting off. The decision to get rid of all my strawberry plants and start afresh was one that I had not relished. Although I had split them each year, the plants just had not produced anywhere near what they used to; so they are now part of the compost heap. The same applied to my one remaining gooseberry bush. It simply outgrew it’s location and didn’t really produce last season, or this. So the gooseberry bush is no longer either.

I have also removed the whole row of early raspberries (Malling Minerva) which have not performed for years, I should have replaced them some time ago.

So this coming winter I will put planting a new strawberry bed, a whole new row of early raspberries, and will also add six new canes to my main crop raspberries (Glen Ample), along with two new gooseberry bushes in a different raised bed next year.