Easy Peasy

Had a chance to get to the allotment lately so got some pea netting up (by a happy accident had exactly the right amount) and some of our pea plants planted -

We dug a little trench and filled this with shop bought compost, to give the peas some chance of getting established. Other than that generally quiet up at the plot - got some more edging to get installed but currently the ground is like granite as we've had no rain for a few weeks. No sign of any spuds coming through yet, but some of the soft fruit is doing OK:

Black currants on the left, strawberries on the right, black membrane around to keep the weeds down. The frame around the strawberries will have blue tubing and netting added to keep the birds out once some fruit has set. We have raspberries around the place which are starting to come back to life as well, but way too early to have anything to see at the moment. Beginning to worry about lack of space on the plot already!

Spuds II - Revenge of the Estima

Went up to the allotment this afternoon to plant second early (Estima) and main crop (Scarpo Mira and Pink Fir Apple) usual drill - dig trench, place chitted potatoes in, cover and earth up:

You can see the two previous rows of first earlies next to the newly turned soil. Onions also going OK:

And you can see from the shadow that the sun was out - though also windy mind :o) - when I got home also covered our little out-the-front-of-the-house polytunnel with Enviromesh:

This is to grow some salad under, to keep the critters from munching on it before we do. Staple-gun-tastic :o)

Spuds

Two weeks back went to plant the first early potatoes (Lady Christl and Pentland Javelin) - we dug a narrow trench:

Filled the bottom with grass clippings then sat spuds therein:

One row for each variety:

It started to rain while we were doing this but here are the first two rows all earthed up:

And taken a few days later when the sun came out and we were digging the ground for the next two rows:

During which I found a shoe!

Spring in our garden

So it turns out that our garden is not immune to Graeme's constructions. Here is one he made earlier:

Nicknamed the "nano-tunnel" it is 1m square and will house some oriental salads once I have bought some enviromesh to staple to the frame. Possibly a little unconventional for a border right by the front door but I like it anyway!

We have given our front lawn a haircut too:

The daffodils that have sprung up in the middle of the lawn are not meant to be there ... I will move them to the flower borders in the next week. We have saved the grass clippings to line the trenches for the potatoes (as suggested on the RHS web-site). The daffodils are beginning to bloom now. Here's a pic of the border the other side of the path:

Looking very spring-like! We have a lovely display of cyclamen and pulmonaria at the end of the front garden:

The black grasses (no idea what variety) were iridescent in the sunshine. In the back garden there is much less to see except a hellebore which has flowered its socks off and is going over now:

And a hyacinth in full bloom:

Note to self: Need more spring flowering bulbs in back garden!

Finally, this is where all the seed action is taking place for the allotment:

The green buckets house my dahlia tubers which I am hoping to bring on under cover until the frosts are over.

Little post - done some digging

Last post, continued, in a nutshell - cleared some of the leek patch (this is going to be a leeky week) now mostly there - one decent session and the potato bed will be ready. Got room for the two rows of first earlies to go in:

Fantastic weather here this weekend - if it stays like this for a few weeks the allotment will be done and dusted by the end of May. Also had the good fortune to step outside on Friday morning and see a pretty good partial eclipse:

Photo taken from phone, really not the best tool for astronomical photography :o)

A bit of digging & sowing

Since we will be planting our seed potatoes in a few weeks time, we need to clear the bed containing the leeks (adjacent to the onions). I made a bit of a start today:

Conditions for digging were quite good as we have had some rain in the last few days so the soil is quite malleable. Lots of bindweed though, making it slow going. I think it will take a few weeks to get the leek patch dug over. The allotment is looking quite nice now. Here's another view from the compost bin:

Our new neighbours are also making good progress turning their patch. The frame in the foreground is going to be a little patch for our daughter to grow flowers and veg (location yet to be decided!).

In other news, I planted lots of flower seeds last weekend given to me for my birthday (see this post). The dill and cosmos were planted in Feb and are doing well in the utility.

All my seedlings are doing well, below are a few pics.

Here's the cayenne chillis in the (unheated) propagator:

The tray of alpine strawberries have proved disappointing... I only have 4 or 5 plants.

The tomatoes are getting too big for their pots so will need potting on soon:

Garlic chives can be seen in the pot to the left of the toms.

The first batch of leeks are doing well:

And the second batch of leeks are now germinating:

They seem to germinate better on a windowsill rather than in the propagator.

Digging clay and planting onions

Went to the allotment this morning to get some more digging done and plant some onions. The onions are "Sturon" we had grown from sets, from RHS: "Sturon AGM: A popular and reliable onion with excellent flavour and medium-sized bulbs that store well over winter." We grew these before & they do indeed keep very well. Due perhaps to rather generous spacing these are now covering some 20% or so of the plot:

Lots of work from Helen & Emily doing this, happy I think to have it done:

While they were busy with this I was trying to dig the other side of the plot which is an interesting composite material made from heavy clay and bindweed roots:

However after an hour or so more digging am starting to run out of clay to dig - gutted:

Think much later in the year will need to get a lot of organic material mixed in to try and break this down some.

In other news, we now have neighbours on the plot just south of us 17B - have yet to meet them but they appear to have made a good start on clearing. Hopefully this will help to keep weeds down on this side of the plot...