As I said in my last post, I bought a lot of seed potatoes. I was having a wander locally in February when I realised I didn’t know where I was. In the next moment it turned out I had just come a different way to a useful provisions store in town, but such a new route that I didn’t realise where I was until it popped up in from of me. I went inside and there was a big display of all kinds of varieties of seed potatoes. I laughed at how my higher self could be bring me there without my lower self having a clue what was in the flow. I chose quite a few varieties and was really excited about comparing them when they were ready for tasting.

Once bought you have to leave them to “chit”. This means they grow little sprouts, and then they’re ready to put in the ground. I realised I had so many, plus quite a lot of onions, that it was looking like I would fill my allotment with those alone. Yet there were so many other things I was feeling to plant! Some time before that I was getting my hair cut and mentioned my new allotment to the hairdresser, who said, “Oh, you should have asked me, you could have had mine!”. At the time it didn’t seem relevant, but now it was springing right back to mind. So I went round and spoke to Anita, who showed me a little row of three tiny allotments behind her row of cottages. Hers is watched over by a magnificent old fig tree. She said she didn’t use it and I was welcome to do whatever I like with the patch of land. Perfect! Now I have the Openhand garden, my allotment and Anita’s patch - plenty of room to grow all sorts of yummie veggies!

The great thing about growing is you can ask interested friends to help. Lei helps me a lot by gathering horse manure from some local rescued ponies and Dale helped get my first potatoes in. Ben said he was up for helping get my second batch of spuds into the earth. (Spuds = colloquial English term for potatoes). *smile* So we went down to Anita’s patch together. Ben dug up loads of dandelion roots, (which I will turn into dandelion coffee - delicious) and I followed behind digging trenches for the potatoes. I’m sure Ben’s going to help out with the taste tests in a few months time!

It feels really good to be growing food on what would otherwise be a neglected piece of town centre land.