Whats that coming over the hill? Is it an Onion?

Hi all, and I hope you all had a fantastic start to the new year.

With the snow just melted away I wanted to see what state the allotment was, Imagine my delight to find that the garlic & onions are already poking their heads up despite the frozen ground and smothering of snow they had.

Returning home to a warm cup of soup I have taken a look at last years plans and started to draw up this years planting !

Birr Vember !

Down the plot yesterday and I note that the first frosts have hit here in Caterham, quite late in the year I though until I was corrected by the old hats on the plot.

The green manure has spurted up and appears to give a decent cover to the empty spaces, fingers crossed this will mean less weeds come spring !

The onions and garlic have all ready started to sprout, and the leeks are well underway developing nice thick stalks.

I have finished moving the strawberries and raspberry canes, and a number of flower bulbs have been set in the borders to brighten up the plot for next year.  A further job completed was the cutting down of the artichoke stalks so the winter winds don't pull up the tubers like last year. All in all not a bad days work.

Blubs & holes

Well,  I had a spare hour today before the boss got home so I ducked down to the plot and got 50 garlic cloves in. They came from this years harvest , so fingers crossed. I hope they do well with the 50 red onion and 50 shallots that are neighbours. I plan to have rows of marigolds between them in the new year. I really like all the plots I have seen with them this year and they can't harm keeping the bugs and weeds down! I also removed the last if the sweetcorn and I placed the shafts in next years bean trench for added composting, hopefully this should give an added boost that the beans didn't have this time. On Sunday I finished putting down a small decked area at the front of the shed. I plan to have the boss sit here during the summer months to supervise, I was told to make it nice with a chair and pimms on tap !!!

Garlic

 

Marrows

 

Beans

 

Lifted the garlic yesterday and they have spent the day drying in the brilliant sunshine, I have taken them home today to string up and dry further, the Marrows have started to "fatten" and the Beans are still climbing and I have taken some harvest all ready from them. Yum !