Having finally got WordPress to work on my phone, I can post the pics I took on New Years Day. You know you’re getting old when NYD is spent on an allotment.

Down on the allotment at just after 9am this morning, to make the most of the forecast mild morning (just as well, as the hail started this afternoon) and to finish off the jobs from last week. First of all, there was enough charge in the drill to finish off the bed in front of the shed. This is about 2m x 2m, and I think I’ll grow squash & sweet corn, a modified three sisters approach to planting. Note: get some manure before then! The photo on the right is almost the area that the new bed lies on  and what it looks like 3 years ago, which just goes to show that perserverance and digging and time will get you to.

I’ve also started preparing for the potatoes – I know, can it really be nearly that time already? You can’t really see, but the pile of earth in this picture is dug in trenches. Half of it had been covered over by the weed proof membrane, and underneath that the earth was beautiful to dig. Really ought to get more organised to do that to most of the plot in Autumn, makes such a difference come this time of year. The other half was more clay like, not surprising given how wet its been. Anyway, these trenches should get the sun into the earth a bit to warm it up (no idea if this is scientific or not, but feels right to me) ready for us to plant the first earlies in the next few weeks.

We spotted on a neighbouring allotment these ‘windmills’ made from drinks bottles which rotate round and round from the ‘wings’ cut into the edge. We’ve made two, I think with some ribbon tied to the wings they’ll be quite good at keeping birds from the seeds. For a second or two anyway.

The rhubarb -which has grown well over the past week – was looking a bit suffocated with straggly grass, so a bit of weeding down at the wilderness end of the allotment finished off this morning’s work. There are a lot of rhubarb crowns down there, but only two give us a lot of rhubarb, the others are more piddly. Now that you can see them a bit better, hopefully we’ll get even more of the delicious pink stuff from them. I also noticed that the gooseberry plants I transplanted last year (which originally come from cuttings from my Grandad’s garden) are doing OK, and have buds on them ahead of the more established plants. Good, really, as i’ve really enjoyed the stewed gooseberries I found in the freezer this week.

I love rhubarb, mostly you can just ignore it and it still comes back year after year,

OK, so even by my standards its been a very long time since we updated this blog. I took some photos on 1st January, as I did make it down in the afternoon of new years day, but i haven’t got the wordpress app on my phone to work properly yet. Suffice to say, the end of the growing year was complicated by a month’s holiday and another trip to italy where we happened to get married. But in between the snow, rain, and Christmas we did get around to the allotment to keep it vaguely in check.

We’re still eating last year’s garlic, and there are potatoes still under the stairs, although definitely past their best now (the large quantities of holes in them making them difficult to turn to for a ‘quick’ dinner).

But today was that rare combination – the second dry day in a row to coincide with a weekend. Within a couple of weeks it will be light enough to go after work, but the pain of being out 8-5 at least is that weekday trips to the allotment are difficult.

Still, today the ground was almost dry enough not to end up with masses amount caked to our boots, and time to get into some action.

First of all, Jen emptied the compost bin and lined it with some plastic bags we’d got our mushroom compost in earlier in the year. Hopefully this will make the compost heap a little warmer which will make it quicker acting… its been a bit dry and cold and although we got compost out of it, it wasn’t the rich dark that comes out of the plastic compost tub we have in the garden. The plastic is stapled to the wood, but its not tight in, so it will keep some air circulating in it, but its much better insulated than it was.

The rhubarb is starting to sprout – not quite enough for dinner, but maybe by early March our visitors might get rhubarb crumble for dinner.

Harvested quite a few leeks, but there are still lots left. Despite earthing up, they’re quite piddly, but still tasty. And its better to have smaller tasty ones than large not so tasty ones. Leeks are one of Jen’s favorite vegetables, though Adam’s not so keen, but that means more for Jen!

Meanwhile, underneath the netting, there are good signs of garlic and onions coming through. The onions – red ones in particular – a

re working theirselves out of the ground all the time, which is a bit annoying

, but with shoots, and roots in the ground, hopefully they will, with time, settle in.

Unfortunately, the building project (officially turning what was the overgrown section in front of the shed into a marked out bed) was put on hold as the drill ran out of charge.

Nevertheless, there are distinct signs of spring down here. The daffodils are out by the Luzborough roundabout (although the ones on the allotment are only just beginning to peek through). The crocus and irises are looking good, and there are buds on the blackcurrant bushes and roses.

Fingers crossed this is officially the end of the winter. I know, far too early to say that on 20 February, but we can only hope…