Kitchen Garden Forum

Ian White wrote::D

Guys,it all went very well i now have a 8.5 pole allotment,sorry but i have no idea what that is in feet and inches , i am like a 10 year old at Xmas carnt wait to get started

Off to Argos at the Weekend need an Petrol Strimmer

All the best,Ian

Each pole is about 30 square yards, or 25 square metres.

If it is really overgrown you might get on better with a disc rather than a line for the first cut particularly at this wet time of year.

Hi Geoff

Went out today with the new strimmer,used the disk as you said,so now i have a nice strimmed plot when i can mange to re size the photos i'll put up a before and after photo ,the next question will be what do i do now i think i will only use half of the plot to start and then cover the rest ,untill i get time to dig it over

All the best,Ian

Afternoon Ian, there's something quite satisfying about getting an overgrown plot cleared, i think it might just be the anticipation of things to come.

There is another way to resize if you have a recent version of Microsoft Office.
If you find your photo file and right click on it and select "Open with" one of the options may be "Microsoft Office Picture Manager".
When you have got it loaded into MOPM you can drop down a Picture menu from the bar at the top. You can adjust brightness, contrast and colour if you want but you can also select "Compress Pictures". You can choose three levels of compression:
Documents - gives 1024x768 works on the forum at full screen width
Web Pages - gives 448x336 this would be OK but a bit small for general view
eMail Message - gives 160x160 which is very small

When you have tweaked your picture and resized it you can do "File, Save As" and give it a new name so you retain your original large file off the camera.

Ok Chaps,Before

And After

Evening Ian, you could have gone thatching with that lot.

Well done, Ian.

It´s a wonderful feeling, isn´t it, when you´ve made such a big difference?

I bet if you´d taken a wide-angle shot, we´d be able to see all the other plot holders stood in little groups watching, tut-tutting, head-shaking etc. I think it´s traditional to watch the newbie, disapprove, and lay bets on how long they´ll last!

I'm only joking (I think!!!).

Now you've made a start, it's only a matter of time before you'll be harvesting your own veg and really reaping the rewards of all your hard work.

Keep the photos coming - it's always nice to see how people are doing on their plots.

Ian
You may be interested in how we tamed our last allotment plot.

If so I have some photos on my webpage here http://glallotments.co.uk/PlottersClearingplot41.aspx

Wow, Glallotments, you had your work cut out there.
From scrap yard to market garden (in one press of a button )!

Is it just me that loves to see what other people's allotments are like, or are all veg gardeners the same?
Even if I'm on a bus or a train and I spot some allotments, I can't help but have a good look.

When I first started to get the Kitchen Garden magazine, it was always the articles showing people's allotments or veg gardens that I went to first, and now, over ten years on, I'm still the same, so I really enjoyed looking at your photos.

The Mouse wrote:Wow, Glallotments, you had your work cut out there.
From scrap yard to market garden (in one press of a button )!

Is it just me that loves to see what other people's allotments are like, or are all veg gardeners the same?
Even if I'm on a bus or a train and I spot some allotments, I can't help but have a good look.

When I first started to get the Kitchen Garden magazine, it was always the articles showing people's allotments or veg gardens that I went to first, and now, over ten years on, I'm still the same, so I really enjoyed looking at your photos.

Oh I wish it had been as easy as a press of a button!
If you are interested I pop a photo album of our allotment on my website every month along with a diary of what we have been up to.

Last year I used to do a photoshoot of the whole site but haven't done that this year but the older photos are still there. They are all under the My diary pages that can be accessed from the sidebar of from here

http://glallotments.co.uk/diary.aspx if you like. Some bits of video too.