You can't beat mother nature...

We had a letter yesterday from the council to say that all of the allotments had been visited and assessed, and given a level, from 'green' - brilliant, wonderful, fabulous, to 'red' - this is pathetic, we're going to take it off you if you don't sort it out. Ours scored 'orange' - you've done some work, now pull your finger out and get it looking neater!

I went to look at it. To be honest, I think they have a point...
Oh dear. We haven't been and done any work on it in months, and it seems that we're rather better at growing grass, nettles and thistles than vegetables. Oops. I think we'd better have a go at sorting it out. Just to rub salt into the wound, this is what the allotment right next to ours looks like:
Call me crazy, but I see here a picture of a man with a LOT of time on his hands.
I should point out that when we got our allotment, it did not look like this perfect one. It looked a lot worse than it is now, three-quarters covered in brambles, and four people above us on the waiting list had already refused it as too much hard work. That said, I was hoping it wouldn't revert to it's natural state quite so quickly! You can't tell now, but we have had that thing back to bare turned-over earth twice in the last year. Damn couch grass - you just can't get rid of it! One tiny little piece of root left in the ground and it comes back like wildfire.

Heigh ho - better go and get my wellies on!