With the help of volunteer slave labour, we now a strawberry bed with matching cage. Planted beetroot, carrots, dwarf beans and more sunflowers, and some pak choi. Fed the plum trees with sulphate of potash and worked blood fish and bone into the garlic.

So much achieved yesterday with a friend and six sunny hours down there. But despite the cracked dry earth, the peas are just starting.

To the allotment this evening, to tackle the long list of jobs to do. Firstly, though, the soil. Where we turned over the soil roughly, without raking it, for the potatoes, it has now baked dry, with cracks. It’s desperate for a good drenching of rain, and is drying out quite deeply now. I’m concerned that the potatoes haven’t shown any signs of life yet and the lack of rain must be contributing to this. But I’m not going to start watering them properly yet, with only conserved water at the site it’s too precious to waste on hundreds of potatoes.

Anyway, got quite abut of weeding done this evening, where the ground wasn’t so dry it was impossible to get a trowel in. Finally gave up on my over wintered brocolli to put some carrots in underneath the covered net. I also sowed some climbing borlotti beans, wigwam style. No signs of the peas, second lot of broad beans or beetroot, but they did get a good dose of water.

Harvested rhubarb-there’s a lot of rhubarb this year, apparently I divided the crowns successfully last autumn. I’m trying to pick it regularly to avoid the monster flowering stuff we got last year. And we’re nearly at the end of the leeks-just about to plant some for next year now.

Finally, there’s just the start of buds on the gooseberries. Which I’m not going to lose to the birds this year, I hope.

Have you noticed? Spring seems to have happened. And this is a very good thing.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve dug over lots of the allotment and got the potatoes in (Charlotte for the second earlies, Maris Piper for the maincrop). A bit of horse manure and mushroom compost has been spread around the beds and we’re hopefully improving the ground.

I planted peas in a gutter a few weeks ago, and sneak peak has shown that they are germinating, even if they haven’t peaked through yet. Squash and tomato seeds are on the windowsill and the broadbeans are poking through at the allotment. And on Saturday, beetroot seeds went in. More beetroot chocolate cake then…

An early morning trip on a frosty Sunday morning to start thinking about planting. Two bargain blackcurrant bushes planted- if they’re not successful then the £4 they cost isn’t too much of a risk. Also sowed some broad beans, the autumn ones never survived. And finally, because the ground for the peas was too frozen. I experimented by sowing some in a piece of guttering, left by the windown in the shed.

Stretches muscles.

Checks weather forecast. (eebygum its cold out there).

Buys new spade and fork to replace ones we broke last year. (hmmm).

Senses that there’s //just// about enough light to go to the allotment after work.

Ah yes, that there plot of land is ours, and its been badly neglected for the past two months. Time to start growing again, me thinks.

A busy weekend at the allotment. After two weeks away the weeds have grown wild and autumn is making itself felt. Next door-who took on their allotment at the same time as us-have quit so we helped ourselves (with the secretary’s permission) to some of their onions and squash. Yesterday we harvested the end of our potatoes-more than we expected, certainly enough to get us through the next couple of months.

Some more carrots and the first leeks also helped the produce pile this morning.

We also got hold of some horse maniure, so (with a two week check to check it’s not got herbicide likely to kill my plants) we’llbe spreading that soon.

Made some more progress with the end wilderness section-cleared much of the dead grass and cut two of the four plum trees which were two close together to provide anything. The two left are still two foot away from each other, but I will give them a year’s grace and tlc before completely condemning them.

So: jobs for the next month.
-clear weeds, dig in manure, cover most beds in preparation for spring
-make path to shed ( now with guttering) and plant daffs up them
- make strawberry bed, transplanting strawberries from back garden ahead of conservatory work

That’s the biggies, of course there will be much more to do, all as the evenings are almost unusable, the weekends are full. But as these photos show, at least we’re getting something for our hard work!

Well, apart from forgetting to pick some sweetcorn, I came home with courgettes, borlotti beans, a sunflower and rhubarb today. Not bad for a qiuck job there! Laid some weed suppressing fabric down on a bit of our wilderness section – I might try potatoes there next year.

Talking about potatoes, the ‘Christmas potatoes’ I planted just six weeks ago are about to flower. VERY quick. I wonder if there’s anything underneath any of them?

Things still doing well on the allotment: leeks (we’re going to have LOADS of leeks) parsnips (including the row I forgot I planted, come up through the pumpkins), squash, pumpkins (only two fruit, but they’re pumpkin sized ), green beans (I don’t like them enough though) carrots, sprouts – needed to raise the ‘cage’ today using a couple of borrowed bricks, cabbage and brocolli I planted a few weeks ago.

Need to plant: onions and garlic. I’ve ordered a garlic lovers kit from the garlic farm on the Isle of Wight, I think we’re going to have A LOT of garlic (but I’m not really bothered by that ).

Not going to palnt ever again: courgettes. Of course, I will plant them again, but at the moment I think I’ve had my fill…

September and suddely the weather has turned. The shortening days are now accompanied by a nip in the early morning air. Went down to the plot today to inspect the seedling bricolli and cabbage plants, planted on Wednesday and with netting over the top. So far, so good, they’re looking happy.

One of my just-about-dead-so-I-bought-a-tray-for-50p purple brocollis has sprouted already, several months too early, but just enoughfor tonights dinner. The Christmas potaros are thriving, the question will be weather this far south they will be warm enough but we have fleece, and probably more importantly, confidence. What with the leeks, brAssicas, parsnips, as yet unplanted onions and garlic, the plot is going to be quite busy over the autumn and winter. Hooray