1st May 21014

Ive been lucky enough to have two spare mornings this week so I took myself of to the allotment.
On Monday I took down some more broad beans and more peas to plant out, I've sown them a couple of weeks apart so they aren't all ready at once. I'm pleased I left blue pellet food out for the slugs and snails, I had caught a few that thought it was ok to just help themselves to my crops, well it isn't ok slimy trail creatures!! I do think this year will be a bad year for them in fact all pests due to the mild winter ... slugs and snails aren't the only things ready to eat anything I plant ...I noticed semi circle marks all over the edges of the pea and broad bean plants ...the pea and bean weevil  have been busy too they don't normally do any damage to the plant just the edge of the leaves .
After that I covered up the potatoes as best I could but they are too high now luckily I didn't plant the whole lot at once so I only have 3 rows to worry about as the temperature dips tomorrow night .... I was lucky enough to bump into another plot holder last week who is also head gardener for the council he was dropping of grass cuttings at his plot and kindly gave me a couple of bags I'm going to use the clippings to cover up the potatoes tomorrow.
Tuesday morning was another nice day I edged my plot a bit as the grass path was creeping and trying to take over ...... I took down some beetroot which I squashed between the salsify and my strawberries I will regret doing this when it comes to picking my strawberries they are under a mini ploy tunnel until this cold snap goes.
Before I planted them I had to do some major weeding around the parsnip and salsify seedlings ..it was hand weeding too as there so may tiny seedlings being swamped by lots of tiny weeds I must remember to take the salsify seeds down I have some gaps in the row where they haven't germinated
It took me ages i picked some more purple sprouting broccoli and decided to head home.
Tomorrow will be a flying visit just to cover up the potatoes and fleece the pine berries as some are in flower.

2nd January 2014

Here I am at the beginning of my 3rd growing year at the allotment telling myself how I must keep this blog up to date .... I said the same last year ;)
Its useful to look back at the previous year on here month by month see how the weather was and what I had sown and harvested I keep a written diary too but that seems to fizzle out around the summer time too ...I must try harder!!

I finally made it to my plot today and made a good start with my son digging it over he did one end the digging whilst I tackled lots of chickweed at the other it was fairly easy going my sandy soil is easier to dig and weed when its wet

I cleared some space by digging up the last of the swedes and carrots , I still have half a row of parsnips and about 4 leeks left and at the end of the plot a few spring cabbages that look really good and seem to be growing well

I dug up one of my blackcurrant bushes I had far too many last year, I had two that another plot holder gave me and two I bought I kept the largest of the ones he gave me and removed the other as it wasn't doing as well. The ones I had bought should fruit this year as they had just started to produce fruit last year , I did notice they all need a good prune to sort out the shape and I need to move the redcurrant bushes too to give them more room

We spent almost 2 hours there but half an hour of that was used up as two other plot holders came down and across to see us which was nice :)  we did experience frozen toes though and decided to pack up and come home for some warm soup