Preparing for the allotment competition

A long day on the plot. It's been raining a lot, and there's still the odd shower blowing through. The plot has been soaking it up gratefully, but as usual, the weeds are out of the block first, and practically every bed needs doing. What's more: the local horticultural society AND the local council will be sending people round to judge everyone's plot and reward newcomers. We know our plot is a proper first-timers' one: scruffy, manky, underweeded. There's that lidless chest freezer still standing incongruously next to the entrance – we've moved all the rubbish and broken glass but the freezer floors us as it is so heavy and too large for our tiny car. We are the polar opposite of the couple from down the path who have invested huge amounts of money and time into getting their allotment into something that looks almost Teutonic in its garden-gnomy tidiness. I feel so inferior. We've had our allotment since December and while we do have a riot of stuff growing on it now, it is all very... haphazard and unfinished. No prizes for us, that's for sure.

But we're sufficiently motivated to at least demonstrate to the council people, cash-strapped, cuts-bruised and probably sharking for a good reason to strip us allotmenteers of our land, that we're bona fide lottie holders and are trying our best. So the front gets tidied up and the path levelled. OH clears the bit in front of the trellis and we shove most plasticky things into the doorless shed but at least out of sight. Everything that's been parked around old laundry baskets now gets planted out – 3 butternut squashes, some accidental tomatoes, one stray cuke that didn't get the memo, the odd bean and, oh wonder!, the celeriacs that, even though I'd written them off as prissy little seedlings that'll never do anything, suddenly, with moisture and warmth in the air, sprouted and grew in strength, so now I'm hoping, by planting them near the carrots which the pigeons have so far ignored, that I'll actually get 5, maybe 6,

OH and I weed and plant furiously. The front bed gets more parsley and coriander plants. The two chamomiles finally get into the soil. The currant branch I accidentally broke off and stuck into the ground is sprouting. The Halloween pumpkins are filling out nicely, vigorously throwing out new fruit.

I keep an eye out for the papaver seedpods. The neighbours must think we're running an opium operation: we're not deadheading the poppies! I am hoping to get at least one German poppyseed crumble cake out of the current harvest.

Of course we don't win anything.