Planting, planting, planting and a little bit of accosting

Today is supposed to be the bank holiday's only day of sun so I have been fairly busy trying to make the most of it. This morning I planted out the masses of plants we were given by OH's very lovely grandparents, re-potted the strawberry sweetcorn and planted the tomato plants in the final garden veg bed; they are slightly overcrowded and I have 3 more which were never going to fit, so they will be going into a growbag at the bottom of the crappy greenhouse.

This afternoon I ventured down to the allotment to plant out my sweetcorn, unfortunately due to the extreme wind I ended up having to stake them and since I only had 5 canes with me I couldn't finish planting them out. I did manage to plant both courgette plants though. Each of the sweetcorns will have a pea plant next to them, today's lot get the pre-germinated ones and the rest will have to make do with a seed after a few pea disasters along the way.

I also bumped into one of the potential council complainers but after accosting them with my fork it turns out to not be them, this means it was definitely Mr he who got the council to clear him plot and then just sprayed chemicals all over it before planting it up with lots of nice seedlings from the garden centre. Nothing against anyone who chooses not to clear their own plot, or grow their own plants but I really don't think you can then go complaining about people who do!

Things are progressing well on the allotment, all the asparagus crowns now have a spear each so hopefully will gain strength over the summer to produce plenty more next year. The peas which I sowed but the wonky twigs are germinating. The sweat peas are growing well and I even have some carrot seedlings in the fleece tunnel! Not all the carrots have germinated but in the spaces where they have, there are a couple of seedlings so I should have enough to replant into the gaps.

Anti-social neetles

I arrived home last night to a mini crisis; one of the councilors had been around to report a complaint about my weeds. Apparently one of my plot neighbours, not quite established which side yet, has made a complaint to the council about the amount of weeds on my plot and then affecting him etc etc. So much for that community aspect of having an allotment.

Very worryingly the council was suggesting I move to another plot further down, no idea what this would achieve apart from moving me away from Mr Complainer but it certainly doesn't fit into my planting plan! So OH nobly joined me last night for a frantic weeding session, the ground was like iron but we managed to clear a large part of the boundary weeds and I also relented and spread some weedkiller around; The prospect of losing my plot after almost a year or digging up nettles suddenly squashed my organic principles.

After a very sleepless night I finally got up again at 5 to return to the weeding and franticly hoed over the root bed which is actually completely dug but slightly weedy due to the delay in sowing things. luckily when I did finally catch up with the councilor again she was very apologetic and couldn't understand why he was complaining, I think she had originally though I never went down there but OH was very convincing when he said he never saw me because I was always down there, shouldn't be hard to make that convincing though because it is totally true!

Anyway after a lot of worry and weeding the matter seems settled but I am feeling the pressure to clear the weeds now. The original plan for the bank holiday was to get lots planted and sowed but now I will be making the plot look pretty, hopefully there will still be time to plant the sweetcorn and courgettes....

Another successful weekend

This weekend was another scorcher so I hot-footed it down to the allotment where I was greeted by the first potato sprouts, not bad considering they only went into the ground at the end of April, unfortunately the ground was baked solid after all the wonderful weather so it took some time to scrape together enough clods to create mounds. I think the finished result is quite impressive, all things considering...

The Sweat Peas are still alive, and despite the heat, and lack of watering, all are still green and climbing. I took confidence from this and sowed a row of peas, not sure anything will come of them due to mice but there were loads in the pack so worth a try. The real pea area will be with the sweetcorn so they can climb the stems rather than my wonky tree cuttings. Behind the wonky twigs you can see the Sweat Peas and their canes, the raspberries and finally the asparagus. Ignore the wilderness behind that :)

All the raspberry canes are now growing, which is a relief, only half of them were sprouting last week and I was starting to get concerned but all this sun has got them going. If I can get the fruit cage (or maybe just netting) sorted then there should be plenty of raspberries to look forward to. The dandelion was removed shortly after this picture was taken...

The asparagus is growing like no tomorrow, here is one of the spears which was just emerging a week ago. So far I have got 1 spear from all but 3 of the 11 crowns, so things are going ok. I have sowed parsley in the bed to try and prevent asparagus beetles so hopefully they will get through the year unscathed.

After all the rain and then the sun I was thrilled to see the blackcurrant bush has loads of currants forming. They are already a fair size so if the weather stays nice they should be very successful. I haven't ever eaten a blackcurrant before due to the fact that they are almost impossible to buy so I am very excited about the first harvest.

Finally, for those of you who have made it this far I was thrilled to see the first 2 tubes in the Red Mason bee nest are filled. I even managed to see the bee flying into one of the tubes which was pretty good timing. Bees are fantastic pollinators and the Red Mason bee is completely docile, interestingly this is because they have nothing to defend unlike the Bumblebee which will defend the nest, therefore they are very welcome in my garden.

Rainy bank holiday?

The weather forecast for the bank holiday was rain, rain and then some more rain but, not wanting to tempt fate or anything, the weather so far has been lovely. Yesterday was sunny and then a little cloudy but still hot, and today has been very cloudy but very warm and both days have been almost completely dry.

So of course I have been busy at the plot and also in the garden, my veg beds at the back of the garden have finally become too much of any eyesore, I think it was the fleece which finally broke the camel's back as it were, anyway we have now erected a rather fetching reed screen to hide said eyesore. Actually I am rather pleased by the result because what was previously some veg beds at the back of the garden is now a fully fledged veg garden :)

The allotment has had some attention too, the sweet peas are planted around my new rustic (homemade) pea support and the first row of carrots has been sow under fleece. I have spent about 4 hours fighting the nettles and ever spreading grass so things look generally tidier but the most exciting part of teh whole weekend was discovering the first asparagus spears...

Of course I can't crop them for several years yet but at least I know they are alive and kicking!

Hardening off

Normally I give hardening off a skip and just leave the poor plants to suffer the shock of the great outdoors, but with the weather being so changeable (read shit) and with my entire collection of globe artichokes having come courtesy of mum (read cannot be re-sow), this year I have been attentively hardening off the sweet peas and globes.

Every morning I trudge between the crappy greenhouse and the patio moving the 15 or so pots of sweet peas and similar number of globes to a sunny position, later than night, usually after they have experienced some torrential rain, I trudge back and forth again to move them under cover. It would, of course, be easier if I had bought some more gravel trays to put all the pots into so that I could move them in one go but there you go. Live and learn and all that.

According to books this should go on for 2 weeks, the sweet peas have been moving for a week and the globes for 5 days but I have decided that enough is enough, everything is still alive so if the weather is reasonable at the weekend they are all going out for good!

Sun!

The sun has finally managed to coincide with the weekend. I spent most of the day at the allotment and have finally managed to get all the potatoes planted out, no small task when you include the actual digging of the bed first!

Elsewhere spring seems to be here, the plum tree is in blossom, as are the 2 apple trees in my garden, and the raspberries are starting to sprout. I have starting hardening off the sweet peas and globe artichokes so with a bit of luck they will be ready to be planted out over the bank holiday. I just need to get the rest of the seeds sown and I will be ready for the growing to begin.

Gardeners World Seed Trial 2008

I am very excited to have been chosen to join in the Gardeners World Seed Trial 2008! I have now been sent a packet of sunflower Mezzulah F1 to try and grow, it is a poll free semi-dwarf variety so it should complement my normal sunflowers which I am planning to sow this weekend.

I decided to apply for the sunflowers rather than the tomatoes because I am already planning on growing quite a few tomato plants this year whereas sunflowers will be good in the garden and on the allotment to attract bees. Fingers crossed all goes well!

Fruitastic

Over the last couple of weeks I have come to the conclusion that I have not killed the raspberry canes or the plum tree that I planted out last year, in fact all seem to be slowly coming to life as the weather improves. Buoyant by the arrival of the first baby raspberry leaves I have turned slightly fruit mad, it started with the new strawberry plants, 6 'Hapil' and 6 'Cambridge Favourite'. Last year I grew some strawberries in a pot but after the nightmare of trying to keep them watered, even last year, has convinced me to make some space in the raised beds. Foolishly I choose 2 last summer varieties so I think I am heading straight into a Strawberry glut and I don't think strawberry soup is going to be the solution...

Last year I claimed a free blueberry plant from Gardener's World but sadly the twiggy little thing died over winter so I have finally replaced it with a slightly more robust looking sample, due to blueberry plants loving acid conditions I have it in a pot on the patio. The variety is 'Bluecrop' which is a apparently a vigorous upright grower and hopefully also a prolific fruiter. It already has some buds on it so hopefully there will be blossom soon.

Finally I surrendered to a Blackcurrent bush to go on the allotment, after reading that 90% of all blackcurrents are turned into juice I was overcome by a desire to actually eat the little things. The variety 'Ben Sarek' is a compact bush but heavy yielding and according to Ken Muir the berries are unusually large, which sounds alright to me.

Free seeds

The Guardian newspaper is giving away free seeds with today's newspaper, well you get the coupon to use to send off for the seeds in the paper. They are giving away cabbage seeds 'Guardian' which I think is a summer cabbage but as there doesn't seem to be much info on the web I will have the wait for the seeds to arrive before I know the full details. Still I have completely omitted to buy any cabbage seeds this year so I think that for the price of a newspaper this is a pretty nice offer.

Almost spring

Today was almost a spring day, if it just hadn't been raining and snowing then it would have been lovely. All week has been dry and yesterday, whilst I was at work of course, was a beautiful day so I had high hopes for today.

As it is now spring (in my mind I mean) I was determined to get some seeds into the ground, everything which has been grown in pots inside is doing amazingly well, even the peppers have germinated, but it simply isn't the same as actually putting seed into the ground. So today I set off to the allotment to enjoy some surprisingly warm sunshine, as I forked over the bed, marked lines and hoed the drills all was good, as I started to sow the seeds the snow arrived. As I determinedly continued the rain arrived, and wouldn't stop.

Anyway Seeds are in and covered with some bubble wrap on account of all my fleece having been commandeered by OH for germinating grass seed, apparently grass is more important than carrots, heres hoping that the seeds germinate.

Luckily I am not too upset about the poor weather because I have received a rather great book: 'The Allotment Book: Seasonal Planner and Cookbook', for those of you who have read 'The Allotment Book' then this is the follow up, if you haven't read either then they are highly recommended. I am now salivating over all the tasty recipes that I will be able to cook using my own crops!