In the words of Maria.......

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...

I was sat watching tv one day, River Cottage and Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall to be exact and there he was telling me, his loyal viewer all about Landshare and grow your own, and honestly as I was watching I envisioned both myself and the husband becoming Tom and Barbara off of the good life - only with broadband and a slightly better dress sense.  Before the end of River Cottage I'd signed up to landshare, contacted a local advert for allotment and eagerly awaited the phone call.  I told the husband of our plans and how we were going to become self sufficient and grow all our own food etc....we would save money, we would eat our own delicious crops, we wouldnt give any more of our money to the devil that is asda, and the kids would know where their food came from. As I was saying this to him I could actually hear royal brittania in my head, there was no doubt about it, i could actually save the nation (well maybe that's an exaggeration).  My husband it seems did not share the same view as me his words, and I quote 'I want nothing to do with the effing place, this is ridiculous idea and asda is just up the road' still ring true to this day, he indeed wants nothing to do with the effing place and only comes to help me when absolute necessary.  After about 6 weeks I finally got the phone call, now I'll be honest, when they rang me I had no idea what they were talking about because I had forgotten completely about signing up for this and had moved onto some other hare-brain idea about how we were going to save the world (fostering russian children anyone?).  But i eagerly went to look at my allotment, the place where I would spend many a day in my shed in the peace and tranquility in the company of myself and nature, picking veg for tea.......I was faced with a big reedy plot of land.  Cue the husband, we hired a strimmer and his first task was to strim the whole lot 50x50 feet.  he didn't appreciate it.  What i didn't appreciate was how quickly the little blighters grew back!!  However, i really did try, i knew this wasn't going to be an overnight process I  didn't think it would be a three year process!), so i made the best of what i could.  I started by putting weed control fabric down and marking out beds - but the fabric was quickly pushed up by the ever growing reeds.  I bought a 'weatherproof' self assemble greenhouse - but the wind blew it over the next day. I hammered in 20 or so fence posts and built a gate for my new plot - they are actually all still standing.  But honestly,  my first year was pretty much a wash out (quite literally) nothing was grown or planted.  Not only was the allotment flooded in the winter the path upto the allotment was knee deep in mud, a word to the wise, if your plot of land has reeds on it (and potential bulrushes) it doesn't have good drainage. Not being able to grow anything on there (i should say now, that i'd never grown anything at this point)  and it not being an enjoyable experience, well it was pointless having it, but luckily after speaking to the allotment owner, I was moved to a brand new plot - covered in reeds, cue the husband and the strimmer!!