Sunday, February 20, 2011

First seeds in the ground

It's probably a touch too early but today I finished off the seed bed and planted the first few rows of seeds. There are leeks under the cloches and a few rows of parsnip at the front of the bed. The kids had a go with their new child-sized fork and spade, Jess weeded her plot a little and raked it down, Jake dug holes. Little else was done, the second bed needs double digging to finish and forking over to remove couch grass roots and the parsnips could do with covering with a bit of fleece as it's still pretty cold. We met Martin from the plot next door, his large pile of muck was 60 quid delivered so I think I will be picking more up in Jon's trailer as that's a shedload of money for shite...

At home we planted a tray of tomatoes-yellow tumbling toms, red Sweet Millions (cherry), Moneymakers and Super Marmelades (beefsteaks), mainly for the greenhouse. I planted a tray of chillis too, so the invasion of the windowsills has finally begun. In the greenhouse Jake and I planted 50 odd broad beans for the allotment as the bed they're going into isn't ready yet.

Next job..digging. Must get the second bed ready for the broad beans within the next three weeks.



Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Another hard day at the allotment

Double dug about half of the second bed, stripped out a few raspberries amd leveled the end of the first bed to become a seed bed.


I dug in all the compost we picked up last weekend so we're going to need another load, ideally delivered unless I can get hold of a larger trailer.
The garlic is coming up quite well and a few onions are sprouting too, first signs of new crops, exciting. We will be planting leeks in the new seed bed this weekend once we've been to Norcuts to buy the kids some child-size tools.

Friday, February 04, 2011

Last week's visit

Jees and I went down on Saturday afternoon, planting red onions and shallots to fill the first bed. I also knocked up a very dubious compost heap out of three pallets. The heap is pretty badly constructed and will need rebuilding.

We were only there for an hour and a half, not really long enough to do much.