I LOVE working our allotment but to say that gardening on my plot is a challenge has got to be an understatement. Thus far I’ve been faced with a variety of obstacles including gardening on a slope, extremely rocky soil, battles with invading grass, various critters munching on my harvest and now winter bogginess.

I knew when we took the plot that it had been labelled ‘BOGGY’ but at the time we thought someone had got it wrong since the soil wasn’t wet. But over the last few months, we’ve discovered that whenever there’s a heavy winter rain the runoff flows straight down the allotment hill and steadily seeps into our plot.

I suppose it doesn’t help that the empty plot above us, also ‘BOGGY’, seems to have an underground spring that gurgles and spits out a creeping flood from time to time.

So about a month ago on a sunny January afternoon I spent a couple of hours digging a trench along the west side of my plot. It’s not perfect but from the moment I began digging it became apparent that it was desperately needed.

Barely had I dug a few feet before my little trench became the River Rhein! So today when I went to go check on my plot I was pleased to see the little river still flowing nicely and sparing my globe artichokes from most of the wet. And soon the spring sunshine will be out in all its glory and my little bog on the hill will completely dry out as it must have done last year before we took it over.

Other than monitoring my raising water table I’ve also managed to get quite a bit of digging done on the plot. There were a good few dry weeks in January and I took advantage of that time to turn over the soil a bit and work in some organic cow manure kindly given to us by a local farmer.

I’m happy to see that quite a few of the other allotmenteers have had the same idea and cheerful patches of freshly dug earth can be seen peppered throughout the site. After I’ve finished digging over my last bed, and if it’s dry enough, I’m going to head over to a different ‘BOGGY’ plot and get digging there.

Though this one is properly boggy and can’t be given out to anyone to garden, we have marked it out for use as a wildflower meadow. This year our plan is to dig the plot over, remove as much dock as possible and then grow some potatoes to help pull some of the nutrients and water from the soil.

Then in the autumn we’ll plant it up with flower seeds sourced from the Wildflowers of Mann project which we’re told will thrive in the nutrient deprived soil. Instead of leaving land unsuitable for gardening fallow and rife with weeds, we hope to give the land new life as a space where Manx wildflowers can flourish and where bees can find an oasis of nectar and pollen.

Since last month I and several other members of the allotment have also been enrolled in a beekeeping course given by the Isle of Man Beekeepers. It has been fantastic in introducing us beginners to the art of keeping bees as well as the special blessing we have on the Island of being Varroa-free.

I’m planning on introducing my own hive to the allotment around May and hopefully we may even have others who wish to do the same. Not only are bees excellent pollinators of fruit and vegetables and will increase our yields but they also produce lovely honey and beeswax which will be most welcome in our home.

On top of this, we will also be helping protect and care for Manx honey-bees – a legacy we should all be proud of. Our Varroa-free bees may in the future be one of the only hopes for restocking parts of the world challenged by mass die-offs of their own local bee populations.

I haven’t begun planting direct in the allotment yet but I have a handful of pots in the conservatory sitting pretty in today’s sun. Only sown last week, it’s just early purple sprouting broccoli and chilli peppers so far.

I can’t wait until they decide to send up their little green shoots though – it’s always a magic moment to see the green of your first veg of the year. But back on the plot my rhubarb is swelling nicely and luscious pink stems are visible under tightly curled leaves.

While I do have gardening challenges, they certainly don’t have a run on my blessings. Early spring sunshine, plants that have survived the winter and the promise of new growth and life. And though we might have another month or so of wet and chilly weather, the rhubarb has certainly let the cat out of the bag – Spring is almost here!