Quick Links: Allotments, Allot'a Snowdrops, Allot'a Apps
Some recent discoveries to share
Sharing beds - Did you guys know about AllotMe? I had no idea this was a thing. I was looking around for creative ways to have more space for gardening and came across it. SUCH a brilliant idea. I do regret that it is only for food growing, but still. It brings together those with gardening space who don’t garden with those longing to garden but with no garden space. Exactly what the internet should be for. What a brilliant thing.
The only acceptable white carpet - Looking around for gardens to visit in the coming weeks I came across Colebourne Gardens near Cheltenham, which - for one month of weekends each year - opens their 10 acres of snowdrop walks to the public. No need to book, turn up on an open day and pay £10.
A calendar I absolutely do not need - I am trying hard to resist buying the fabulous Gardener’s Journal for 2025. I do. not. need. more. paper. goods. And yet…
Four first class stamps cost £6.60 - as a result, I will be writing my thank you letters on my iPad using Procreate. I love Procreate. You don’t have to be a proper artist to find it useful. Obviously don’t buy an iPad and Apple Pencil especially for this, that would be even less economical, but if you already have them you can still send a hand-written thank you letter to your great aunt or whatever but as a JPEG.
Also, while you’re downloading Procreate on your iPad also download Readly. I absolutely love magazines, and especially hard copy magazines, but I’m a hoarder and never want to throw them away. Enter Readly. You can carry around the latest House and Gardens, Gardens Illustrated, and World of Interiors etc - plus lots of archive issues - on your iPad or iPhone and always have something to read that isn’t a Reddit post about people being toxic at restaurants or a BBC News article about horrible ways people died today. That said, Readly does also have newspapers, Time, The Week, New York Magazine, Newsweek etc if that’s more your thing. Probably reads like spon con, but actually is just an app I really like… Admittedly it was better value a few months ago when it was £9.99 and now instead of a rolling subscription I’ll probably just pay for the months when magazine reading is on the cards (e.g. this week. Is there a better week to flip through a magazine or ten or twelve than the Between Times?)
Lots of great suggestions here, thanks!