Sow Far Sow Good

We didn't expect it to be so hot today but it was lovely and mostly sunny. A great day for getting a lot of our seeds sown...Here goes...

Scarlet Empire runner beans, Oarsman leeks and Revenge sprouts in modules.

Best of All swede direct into the ground.

Albion Parsnips and 3 varieties of carrot (Purple Sun, Eskimo & Primo) direct into the ground. The parsnips have bottle cloches for protection and, as usual, are sown 3 per station - we'll only keep the best seedlings. The carrots are in 2 rows under enviromesh.

American cress (like watercress, but doesn't need running water (apparently)) into a pot, which will stay behind the greenhouse, as it likes a bit of shade.

Some Empress of India Nasturtium  and Radish Rats Tails in an empty spot near the compost bins.

Paris Silverskin onions in the raised bed with the beets. And, the beets I planted out last week are Cylindria, not Boltardy as I've been thinking!

Tenerife spuds

Here's a timelapse of part of our day ...

Wrap Up Warm

Tonight it would seem we're going to get a frost. The sky is completely clear and it does feel a bit nippy, so, better to be safe than sorry...
That's our potatoes completely earthed up. The little Tenerife ones have an additional fleece covering - we could hear them shivering already :-{

We had some more fleece so covered the strawberry plants which have the most flowers. The other plants may get frosted, but it's only the flowers that will be affected at this stage.

Aw, and my poor little lettuces - not sure that this cloche will help. But surely it won't be a harsh frost...

Hopefully the seedlings in the greenhouse will be ok...


 

Know Your Enemies

I got screeched at by a couple of jackdaws! They weren't happy when I stopped them jumping along behind the frog which was trying to hop away in the long grass - poor froggy was only a little fella. Anyway, he got away safe. I wish the jackdaws would concentrate on slugs and snails, not the good guys!
We did a lot of weeding, tidying and feeding today - our strawberries have had a bit of tomato feed and are now netted as tiny strawberries are just beginning to develop.

This is the site after it's been tidied

Jamie completely dug and weeded the quarter where our parsnips and carrots are going - alongside our onions. I planted my purple-podded mangetout outside. I'm growing them up an obelisk. They're well-protected at present otherwise the pigeons wouldn't be able to resist. I don't intend to leave the bottle cloches on once they've got a bit bigger. I've planted all 11 plants, so the obelisk may get a bit overcrowded if they all survive. I'm hoping I'll be able to get at the pods...I'm guessing the flowers grow on the outside facing the sun so that's where I'm hoping the pods will end up!

I also planted out some of the Little Gem and Tom Thumb lettuce outside. I'm not protecting them as we have plenty, but may have to take action if pigeons, pheasants or slugs step up...

All the Boltardy beetroot are planted out now too - this is a part of allotment life that I love; filling in the gaps with tiny plants and watching them grow into food - hopefully mostly for me and Jamie! They're under cover, but only because they're going to share the small raised bed with Silverskin onions, which should be sowed soon.

Our Tenerife spuds are emerging in the bags! Not showing enough for a photo yet, but tell-tale humps in the soil. They obviously prefer the warmth of the bags more than in the ground at the moment.

And here are our bell pepper and chilli pepper. They've grown a lot since we bought them in Wilko a few weeks ago. They're staying at home for the timebeing...

Rhubarb Rhubarb!

Don't worry, I'm not talking about the bloomin' election media! I've had quite enough of that! But here are our two huge rhubarb plants providing us with our first food from the allotment this year (not counting salad and herbs).

I 'lomo-ish'ed the photo in Picasa

The slugs and snails have discovered our greenhouse. A snail nibbled three of the gherkin seedlings - he got winged over the hedge! I'll be re-sowing the remaining seeds soon.

Adding slug pellets too late

As you can see, I'm not risking my lovely little Florence fennel seedlings and have put slug pellets in the trays.

I also put slug pellets in the raised bed around the salad crops yesterday because I saw a few leaves had been eaten. Today I found about 10 dead slugs and snails :-( Not nice. At least they're leaving some seedlings alone at the moment...these are Cornells Bush Delicata squash

and beets.

The beetroot really ought to be planted out this weekend, but I'll transplant the squashes into larger pots and let them grow on in the greenhouse for a while yet.

We cut the grass and cleared some of the edges as that's where the slugs and snails love to hide - that is the trouble with having grassed paths, although they do look good.

Ooh! The Pain!

Ah, I needed that bath! After about 6 hours on the allotment - on the new plot. Phew, digging is hard work again! I'd like to show an 'After' shot but it's so insignificant you'd barely notice the difference! So, here's a picture of the one and only flower on the plot - a calendula left over from last year. It shines out like a beacon. Jamie transplanted it from the edge on Saturday.

Of course, when I say 6 hours on the allotment - the digging didn't quite fill that time. We had the good idea of taking wine and olives to have lunch on the little table and chairs that were left by the previous tenant. It was a great idea - but didn't make the digging any easier..!

We've just about finished digging the first 1/2 metre in from the path; so much couch grass! So much tree/hedge root! So much work! Lucky it's Jamie's plot ;-)

Nice to see the site from a different perspective

I have a panorama photo Google app on my iPad, so I took that to the site and made a 360° panorama of Plot 7/8 which you can see if you click here.

I then made another of the whole site  which captures a few of the plotholders too. 

I should have taken photos into the sky a bit so that it wouldn't have this curved letterbox look.. I still rather like them.

The garlic is growing well on Plot 8. It was looking a little yellow, so I watered it with Epsom Salts yesterday - the salts add magnesium to the soil which allows the plants to take in the nutrients they need and improves photosynthesis (so the leaves should 'green up' a bit).

These are my transplanted lettuces from yesterday. I was pleased the ones outside the wire survived the night, I thought the pigeons or other birds may find them too irresistible.