April pictures

Days of sun

After a fantastic fortnight of a spring / summer sunshine what a great start to the new growing year!
(Despite having to water every day!!) Nearly every seed bed is now planted out or has been 'seeded' in the allotment with spaces cleared and prepped for sweetcorn and late summer planting for winter crops , ( I know planning already !)

The boss managed to source a free broken down greenhouse on free cycle so that has been sent down but not yet stuck together with twine and spit ! :)

 The peas started to break the ground yesterday as have the runner beans! Everything else is also poking little green shoots of happiness up and starting to grow !

I love this part of the season just as everything kick starts up.

Saturday 27th

Is it spring ?

Got home with a few spare hours today and Mr Sun had come out to play , so the potato trenches have been dug, carrot and leek bays made ready and seeded plus an added bonus of the flower bulbs have burst out ! yay!

Grow grow grow.

Hey there, a quick update on some tomato,Chili and lettuce seedlings that I had in the guest bedroom that I left on the window above the radiator :!

Time to transfer them to their own little pots!

I hope they enjoy the new homes and flourish .

Digging the plot yesterday I realised that I will have to build some sort of wire cage tops for the beds as I noted local wildlife had attempted to dig little holes in the beds. I think some 3,1 bits of wood and wire netting stapled on top should do the trick

Dig dig dig dig

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

More groundwork.

Hi all,
With the roofing slates, I set some down as a path under the bean frame to allow access to the crop and help divide the allotment up.

I also had used the remainder to build a small raised bed section to try my hand at some Capsicums or Chillies.

While the rain may have stopped there was a very strong westerly wind today , in the past this was countered by a large old pigeon shed that was my neighbour but has since been taken down to provide better access and a new gated area. I will have to come up with a plan to reduce the effect this wind direction may have on the allotment in the coming months.

Freecycle fun!

Collected a load of concrete roofing tiles from freecycle at the weekend. I am using them as a temporary edging along the plot and a raised herb bed.

I will have to get some grass seed for the path and some more green manure seed for the recovered section of the plot.

The cabbage and garlic are going strong still.
Also a bit more work under the bean frame and dug in some fresh manure and shredded paper.

I am pleased with the work diving the allotment up in to sections before the new season starts !

Paper pot time !

Yes, it is that time of the year again and I have sat in front of the telly and made up my supply of paper pots for the pending seedlings.

So in no time at all, I whipped up this little batch for the tomato's,peas and beans to go into.

The paper pots are great as you can then just drop them into the allotment without having to disturb the roots and last year the sweetcorn really benefited from this method.

Next job, potatos !
PS - What do you think of the sites new look :D

2010 Seeds

The nice post person from royal mail attended today bearing a nice little box full of seeds!!!

This year I am going from seeds all from one company( whhoooooooo) as I had good results last year from them.

I also had picked up some really cheap runner beans from wilcos for the frame I built.

Worth having the day off work just for that alone, Maybe later today I will get down to the allotment.