1st July 2006

Tim, Michelle, Suey and I had all decided to go to my dad's house in Cornwall for the weekend. We left the allotment to it's own devices and had a gander at my father's plot. He was growing some similar things such as peas, beans and spuds. His potatoes hadn't done that well, apparently but the Mayan Gold potatoes I had sent him had all grown. I couldn't believe that ours hadn't! It all looked rather nice.

The next day we went to have a look at his friend's smallholding. They had three polytunnels and a huge load of land that was completely devoid of weeds! Tim and I were in heaven as we wandered around the onions and carrots. There was a polytunnel filled with tomato plants – this really was the dream! A smallholding that was five minutes from the beach – heavenly!

8th July 2006

We had decided to dig up all of the early potatoes today. We had planted around 7lbs of Arran Pilots as they had been in since the 19th March. As we dug them up it was like finding treasure! You don't know what's underneath but when you pull up one potato plant and find 10 spuds underneath it's like magic! We found little ones like little marbles and large ones the size of baking potatoes. Also, because we are so used to how picky supermarkets are in terms of selling "perfect veg", we found all manner of strange shaped potatoes. It was really satisfying. This was something I hadn't expected to enjoy because I usually get really frustrated with not being able to see what's growing underground.

Two hessian sacks of spuds later, we harvested some courgettes as well and decided to also pull up all of the garlic we had planted. They were really plump and smelt strongly like... garlic. We dug the ground over again, pulling out more weeds than I thought possible. I was under the illusion that we had dug the ground and weeded really well. How wrong I was! I had managed to get a load of onion sets from Hyper Value for 50p a bag so we had a few of rows of Stuttgarter and Red Baron onions along with rows of carrots too.

Tim used Nigel's dibber to make 250 holes in the ground so that we could plant 250 leeks. I couldn't believe we had enough seedlings. We were really chuffed with our work although we had wanted to do some weeding and thinning as well. Oh well, maybe next week!

15th July 2006

My morning was taken up trying to find a disposable barbeque so that we could have some burgers and hot dogs for lunch. It didn't work out very well and I turned up at the plot by around 10:30pm. Suey and I had done some weeding during the week on the second patch and discovered that we did have some vegetables growing amongst the weeds afterall. I continued weeding the second patch while Tim weeded the first patch amongst the onions and carrots.

It always takes a lot longer than you expect it to, especially when we were distracted by being able to borrow some weed suppressing material to put on our second plot. We hadn't been able to start digging the new plot yet because we were still trying to keep up with the first one. Nigel had a fire going and he got some foil trays from his house so that we could cook the burgers and sausages. It was fabulous as we all sat down for a feast during the afternoon.

Tim managed to get the weeding done on his patch before I had finished the swede and beetroot patch. We picked all of the shallots and Tim sowed some more peas in their place. He also planted up some purple sprouting and cauliflower that Nigel had given us. We had planted up some white sprouting over a month ago but it was pecked to death by the pigeons. We still needed to weed the squashes, beans and tomatoes but the day was nearly over and we had to meet up for a meal using all of our own veg!

22nd July 2006

It was Tim's birthday today! Hooray! As a special treat we thought that we would go up to the allotment and do some weeding. We know how to party!

Certain areas of the plot needed weeding while others just needed digging up. We had Suey to help today so she picked all the peas that we had been growing and then cut the plants down because it was dying off. The peas tasted a little bitter now so we may just save them as seeds for next year. Suey then dug the roots into the ground because Tim had read somewhere that the roots were a good source of nitrogen for the soil. Isn't he wise for a *# year old!?

I weeded my beloved tomato patch while Tim hoed the fruit patch and the other tomatoes. It was a hot day on and off and we certainly needed to keep drinking so that we didn't faint like a bunch of pansies. My dwarf tomato varieties had spread themselves out quite a bit because we hadn't been pinching out sideshoots (you aren't meant to, are you?). I tied them to the canes a little bit more and they seemed to look tidier.

We had a barbecue up on the plot and Michelle turned up as well. It was lovely. I'm sure we could have come up with a better location for Tim's *# birthday but he was around the people who love him (just for the record, I just like him). We harvested some beans as well and trotted off home with our heads held high and our stomachs full!

29th July 2006

Well, it's the end of the month and what happens? It piddles down with rain! We couldn't believe it seeing as our working week had such beautiful sunshine. Still, we shouldn't complain because we haven't had a bad Saturday in ages.

We still found time to do some work, however, as we sowed more seeds. I got a package through this morning from Moles Seeds and we were able to sow some freshly delivered carrot seeds in the way of Autumn King 2 and Paris Market Atlas, which are funny little spherical carrots. Tim had also brought some broad beans seeds which we sowed where the peas had been up until last week.

We harvested our Sturon onions which we had planted as sets all the way back in April and they were huge. We filled an Ikea bag full of the onion plants and also grabbed a load of Early Nantes 2 carrots. In the place of the onions we sowed some green and purple kohl rabi. We had no idea whether it would grow or what time to sow it or even what it tastes like. I've read it tastes a bit like cauliflower but it looks much more interesting.

Tim propped up the new peas he had sown with sticks and I sowed some sprouts (ugh!), cabbage (double ugh!) and broccoli in seed trays. We harvested two trombone courgettes and found that we had missed a yellow courgette that had reached marrow-hood. We also picked three aubergines that were around 10cm long and some Cherokee Trail-of-Tears beans. By 2pm the rain started to fall quite heavily so we called it a day.

Oh well, maybe next month we can get on with some digging!

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JULY 2006 PART ONE

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JULY 2006 PART ONE

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JULY 2006 PART TWO

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JULY 2006 PART TWO

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JULY 2006 PART THREE

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JULY 2006 PART THREE