Saturday 7th April 2007

After taking a week off from digging the plot last week, Tim and I returned today with refreshed vigour. Actually, Tim had been up the plot yesterday digging the plot and I had spent yesterday putting together a chicken house. We were both feeling pretty knackered already. Tim had also become a fully-fledged member of the allotment committee, so congratulations to him. I just hope he doesn't want to forge a career in politics or I will have to file for an allotment divorce.

The day was really sunny and we had a quick look around our plot to make sure everything was in order. The sweetcorn had sprouted, the courgettes hadn't, the broad beans were growing really well, the lettuce were looking a little frazzled by the hot weather and some asparagus spears had sprouted through. It had only been three weeks since we planted the crowns and already we have asparagus... which we can't eat for two years. So tempting... must resist... the delicious superfood... The Red Duke of York and Arran Pilot first early spuds had sprouted too.

                       
 
                                             
Tim and I got on with maincrop potatoes. Hurrah! Potatoes really are fabulous and to prove our devotion to the potato gods, we have many varieties; Pink Fir Apple, Desiree, Mayan Gold, Marfona, Vivaldi, King Edward heritage varieties such as Salad Blue, Highland Burgundy Red, Shetland Black and Yukon Gold. The ground wasn't ideal as although it had loads of horse manure dug in, the ground was just like baked clay. We had both brought six bags of sharp sand each to the plot and we emptied eight of them on the potato patch alone.
                                             
 

Tim dug the first two varieties of potatoes in while I forked the sand into the ground. The ground seemed much more manageable after adding the sand. We switched roles and then I got to plant some seed potatoes. We then both worked together to plant the remainder of the potatoes. We didn't get to plant all of the varieties as we ran out of dug earth. We started to dig a bit more of the ground but it was like slicing through concrete. We opted to water the veg that were growing in the ground. We packed up at 4pm and went home with a suntan.
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
Saturday 14th April 2007

It was another scorcher and it's only the middle of April. This time last year it wasn't this hot. Then again, last year the first few months weren't as wet as it has been this year. Tim and I arrived up on the plot at around 10:30pm. I had brought some petrol for the tiller and Tim had brought some bags of sand to condition the soil that we were about to dig over.
                                             
 
                                             

Because it was so hot today, working on the plot seemed even harder than usual. The sun seems to drain your energy a little bit more, especially as when Tim and I work we go crazy flat out. Instead of collapsing of exhaustion we dug one of our 6ft x 20ft beds. It was quite small but it took a lot of effort to dig the six bags of sand in. The soil really was like clay. Strangely, with all the sun drying out most of the plot, the horse manure that we had put down had acted as a mulch and the earth was still moist. We broke the clay soil up with brute strength (and garden forks) then revved the tiller up to mix the sand and manure into the soil. It worked brilliantly. We of course had a few cups of tea, to soothe the throat and to give us a break here and there.

Because we spent so much time last year weeding we had decided to try and avoid this as much as possible. Tim had bought some weed suppressing material and we lay it down on the freshly rotavated soil. We put up a wigwam at one end of the bed and cut some holes in the material to plant some runner beans that Tim had grown from seeds we saved last year.

  
                       
 
                                             

How exciting it all was to be growing veg again. The only concern we had was that compared to last year we were planting the beans out one month early. There's still a risk of frost, but with global warming there's also a risk of tornadoes so we'll have to run the risk.

After this we cut lots and lots of holes in the material 30cm apart. We then planted Green Acre cabbages, Red Drum cabbages and some cauliflowers. The sun made the cabbages wilt a little because it must have quite a shock for them to be planted up from their comfortable seed trays. It's probably like getting upto go to work on a Monday morning for us.
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
The asparagus had grown to gigantic proportions but looked all thin and rubbish. I still cannot believe we have to wait so long to eat them. We earthed them up because they had grown so tall. We watered all the veg that was growing because there had been no rainfall for a few weeks. Tim left at 4:45pm and I stayed on to weed the over-wintering onions. The weeds had seemed to overshadow the onions and therefore must be stealing the onions share of water. Although it wasn't perfect it was definitely noticeably better. I left at 5:20pm and we had both left feeling absolutely shattered. Not a bad day's work then!
                                             
 

Saturday 21st April 2007

Tim and I got to the plot at around 10:30am and we decided to have a good old look around. Everything seemed to be coming to life and we were really impressed with the progress of certain things such as the plum tree, which seems to be inundated with tiny little plumlets. Considering we only had a very small amount of plums last year this was very exciting.

The Little Gem lettuce were also doing extremely well, growing ever larger and also fending off the slugs and snails; perhaps because the weather has been so dry of late. The peas that we had planted out from seedlings had also taken kindly to being replanted. I thought that peas didn't like to have their roots disturbed but these seemed to be fine about it. They were even latching their little tendrils on to the string above them.

There was much more growing on than this such as the Polka raspberry plants growing bigger and more numerous and even the strawberry plants beginning to flower.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
Our first task of the day was to dig and weed the next bed. It had been very dry so the ground was not the easiest of digging experiences. However, it was certainly a lot better than the potato patch - there weren't as many weeds for a start. As soon as the entire patch had been dug we added some sharp sand, then some compost. Tim had brought our tiller up to the plot and we rotavated the earth until it represented something that looked a little more like compost rather than baked clay. The soil looked fantastic by the end of it. We were really pleased with the result.
                                             
 
                                             
 

We planted out the parsnips that Tim had grown in toilet tubes. They were looking pretty healthy (unfortunately) and after planting these out we sowed a few more rows of parsnips. Our girlfriends like parsnips but we don't, so they do feel a bit like a waste of time for us. We moved on to beetroot seeds as we had two different types, Boltardy (bolt hardy) and Cylindra (cylindrical type). We then had two different types of swede seeds in the way of Invitation (which had a purple coating) and Magres. We also sowed some chard seeds to see if we can do any better this year than we did last year. We didn't tend to thin our seedlings out last year so it restricted their growth. We shall make sure we do it all properly in 2007!

The purple sprouting was beginning to go over so we ended up pulling them up to make way for some more peas beside the little gem lettuces. Tim got called away for committee purposes and I did the rotavating of this patch in his absence. The time drew on and we needed to water the plot so we didn't manage to sow any pea seeds today. We had got a lot done and the plot was looking fantastic.