An Hour On The Plot

I've been exceptionally busy at work this last week, and will continue to be so next week too. I'm writing this from down South, where I'm visiting my parents and attending a meeting on Monday before three days in London.

The net result is that I only managed to get to the plot once in the first week of Frankie's absence, and that was only for an hour before it got dark.

The good news was that the beans seem to be flourishing after transplanting out - I think they're half as big again as they were when we put them in last weekend.

I think there may even be a hint of pea-sign. There are some tiny seed leaves poking up through the ground under the pea cloches and in the area where Frankie sowed them without cloches. I'm hoping it is actually the peas and not just some insidious weed, but there's only really one way to find out.

Talking of insidious weeds I had to hoike out a few deep-rooted dock plants that had escaped the digging and weeding of the beds. Their massive taproots where a real swine to get out as I couldn't get a very good grip on them.

I'm not going to get a chance to get down the plot until a week on Tuesday as I'm not at home, but I'm off work that week so I hope to get over a few times and make a decent amount of progress.

I'm In Charge (uh-oh!)

Frankie has gone to Europe for a month and left me in charge of the plot and the wealth of things she planted indoors before she left. Was this wise? Probably not. Especially as I'm very busy at work over the next couple of weeks and not around much. Still I've remembered to water the indoor plants a couple of times this week and the leeks in particular seem to be flourishing. In preparation for this posting I went to get the crap camera (Frankie has taken the good one), and at that point I realised she has taken all the batteries with her. So until I get a chance to buy some more you're going to have to put up with plain text, I'm afraid - sorry!

So how's it going? I've not been down the plot since she left, but I have been attending to the plants indoors. We have leeks, rocket, watercress, parsley and potatoes.

• Leeks - The leeks are doing really well, we must have over a hundred seedlings most of which are now about 5cm high and starting to unfold.


• Rocket - The rocket is still looking a bit weedy, long stems and a couple of seed leaves only.


• Watercress - I'm not sure the watercress is going to work, it's also very long stems and seed leaves and the seed leaves are tiny - just a couple of millimetres across.


• Parlsey - The parsley is also in the seed leaf stage, looking strangely similar to the rocket. It looks like weedy cress.


• Potatoes - The potatoes continue to 'chit'. They all have several sproutings on them, the sprouting bits are a dark purple and some are over 2cm long. Some of the potatoes are starting to shrivel - I'm not sure if this is a good thing?

I'm hoping to get down the plot for an hour after work tomorrow, to do a bit of digging and maybe a little weeding if it's required. I won't be down there again until a week on Tuesday as I'm away. But that week I'm off work so I hope to get a few couple of hour sessions in - get a load of digging done.

In other news: Snow! I heard on the radio that there was a risk of snow this weekend. I'm not actually going to be here - I'll be down South visiting my parents and helping out on their plot. Hopefully it won't happen, but I fear those early peas that Frankie put in may be goners.

A New Home for the Broad Beans

While I left Bonzo digging (so much digging left to do!) I pottered around doing the fun stuff like planting out the broad beans we started off indoors. Someone at work said the pigeons love the young shoots so we rigged a temporary cover for them with netting and sticks.



Seeing as we were making this cover up as we went along I think we did pretty well. I'm guessing that the shoots will only be this vulnerable when they're short (Bonzo reckons pigeons will be too lazy to nibble them on the wing) so as they grow we'll use the netting for the new peas. Mind you, I might have been a bit too over eager when I sowed the peas. Maybe we should sow a few more...

I also sowed a line of carrots the length of one bed and either side sowed a line of bedfordshire onions on one side and on the other, garlic (hope it isn't too late to sow garlic!) and red onions.

Now, we seem to be the only people sowing onions, everyone else is using sets. This worries me. Is growing bulb onions from seeds just impossible? I might buy some sets too just to be on the safe side.

I'm off (away, not off from work unfortunately) now for a month which I know is bad timing as it feels like the allotment is just getting gowing now. Bonzo Baby has promised to dig the last beds while I'm gone and I'm hoping he'll sow the rest of the carrots, the parsnips and leeks. Crikey, I've left him with a lot of work! We haven't even started on the spud beds!

So, I hand you over to the 'King of Spades': Bonzo.

Three Beds Good

We made it down the plot today (Saturday) for a good few hours and got enough done to be pleased with ourselves without our backs hurting too much.

We started and finished the third raised bed. We are now a happy three bed allotment family.



The top two beds will be for the legumes and I started them off by (possibly rashly) sowing peas today.

We've still plenty more digging to do... But I feel like we're getting there. Especially as Bonzo goes down tomorrow (I have to work, sulk sulk).



I also thought I'd show you the finished compost bins too (we finished them last week when it was too wet to dig- but also too wet for photos).



I like Bonzo's design. He sank the bottom of the pallets into the ground for extra stability and uses sawn off pallet sections for the adjustable front. We have one bin for filling now and one to fill next year while the first lot rots down. I don't think we'll get that much compost from the bins to use in the allotment (there are only 2 of us filling it) but it feels so much better than sending it all to landfill and that's more the point to us.