A day of sunshine and lots to do!

 As you can see from my trailer, I had lots to bring to the allotment!  3 bags of grass cutting, two bags of kitchen scraps, an unwanted wigwam thingy & last but not least my sweet potato slips!

I started by mulching the fruit trees with grass cuttings.

I then mulched the courgettes with some left over straw that I found in the shed from last year.

 Then in went the baby cucumbers "cucino" - I put these at the front of the brassica bedroom.  They look like they are standing on guard!

 Next I put in 4 "bedfordshire" cucumbers around the metal wigwam thingy, and planted a few Cherry & Roma tomatoes, as I didn't have room for all my tomatoes in the greenhouse.

 Of course, I labelled them all up!

I also sunk a small potting pot next to each tomato plant and companion planted with marigolds.

Then came the fun bit.  I had to crawl into the Sweet Potato Suite to plant the slips!

It was extremely hot in there and I was glad to get out once all 10 slips had been planted.  I had made the polytunnel just the right size as all 10 slips were planted 18inches apart as per the instrucutions!

I was glad to get out of there I can tell you!!

Bank Holiday Monday 5th - What Lovely Weather!

The sun has got his hat on - hip, hip, hip, hooray

I was singing that song all day today.

After a quick drive into the office this morning, I decided that an hour down the lotty would do me good. With the week I have got ahead of me, I deserved an hour in my favourite place. I spent the time chatting (ha, ha - you should have guessed that by now)

I started off with Olga, who was working hard once again. I told her about my sunflower dilema - oh! I haven't told you yet - I forgot to close up my cold frame last night because of the humidity, and when I went to inspect things this morning, some toerag slug or snail had eaten one of my sunflower babies in half and the other totally, leaving only a stump! so kind Olga brought me over 2 brand new home raised sunflower babies, which I put into the corners of bed 3.

I then went to see Nigel at the shop, but he wasn't there - however he had left a kindly note on the board to say that if anyone wanted anything, to go and see him at plot 47, so off I went as I needed some horse poo - ooops - sorry manure. After a little chat, I arranged to meet him at 1245 to collect 4 bags full. As I started to walk back towards 142 and whilst texting Hubby Ian with the news and to mak arrangements for him to come and collect me and horses manure in my car ( he wans't going to get that lot in the Porsche, so better to use the dump run vehicle) I then bumped into the lovely Perry & George, my Jamaician boys with the green shed just down the way. They are both so lovely and happy all the time. If I am ever going to feel down, I won't go to the docs, I will go and find one of them, or both and have a good laugh. You can hear them laughing all the way back to my plot sometimes!

Just after leaving them, Paul, the man with the greenhouse and the wonky shed that is going to be donated to me and Susan, came by. He commented on my Tattie and how his little girl always came by to say "hello" to him. He then gave me advice on my potatoes, which I was very grateful for, as I have had mixed opinions, so his sealed my mind in a particular direction.

Paul mentioned to me that I had a "web" thing going on, to which I blushed slightly, and as I did not have a pen and paper I told him to get the address off my by from Nigel as they had eachothers emails - another possible fan then!! I mentioned to Paul that I would be taking pictures of my seedlings for identification purposes, as none of the books seemed to have these, so here they are.......

Radish

Beetroot

Parsnips & Radishes

Rocket

It was then 1245 and I had to go and meet Hubby Ian and my car at the far gate. He backed the car in, and loaded her up with the 4 bags. With permission from Nigel, we left the car by the shop as I had to go and get my bag and stuff. On the way I introduced Ian to Olga (the sunflower lady from Russia) and her husband Julian, who incidently is putting together a shed out of pallets, and after that Ian went on to be introduced to Perry & George, who up until that point, I am sure, were not convinced I had a husband. We all stood there chatting with Carl for a long time. Incidently - this is Carl, who had started to chop down the trees on my new plot 144.....

How very kind of him to make a start. I was worried at one stage though as before letting him loose with his saw on my new plot, he was taking some "shading" branches from the tree next door. This in itself didn't concern me - the fact that he was climbing on unbalanced and unstable looking pallets of wood did! Can I also add, that I am intent on getting this pigstye of a plot cleaned up and I have booked in Derek the Bramble Fairy, Bonfire fairy and digging fairy (Sorry Derek but that was not my nickname for you but I believe Julians!!) for as soon as he has a moment free - probably around September then - I am in no rush!

And finally. I fininshed off my afternoon by aeriating and putting the 4 bags of manure down underneath the holly bushes which are situated at the front of the house. It took Ian and I around 2 hours to do altogether, but a job well done. I then went onto pottering around the garden, especially the decking, which incidently is up for sale on EbaY at the moment, all 330 sq.ft. of it, and watering the pots. I then made a lovely cup of Lady Grey and dozed in a garden chair before returning to the Lotty to water all my hard work so far.

And finally - this is a picture of the wheelbarrow graveyard which I came across today.

and finaly, finally.......

This week is forecast to be "lovely" so hopefully a few more trips down to my lotty in the next few days......

Toodle Pip for now

Making the most of todays' SUNSHINE

I left for the lotty on the sunny day of Saturday 26th April at around 10am, thinking I would only be there for about 2 hours. 4 hours later and I was still finding things to do!

Well, can you imagine my surprise when I spotted my first potato plant showing through? This is one of about 5 of my first earlies! At least I could now identify the difference between my potato plants and the brambles that were starting to rear their ugly heads again - they came out "extra quick" I can tell you!!

I went on to weed around one of my raised beds. I think Susan plans to phone a local timber company to see if we can get some free wood chips - I must remember to ask her about that!

My next job was planting the Dwarf French Beans, but first I stopped to chat to Perry. Soon 15 minutes had passed and as soon as Perry had gone - with his spinach in Sainsburys' plastic bag (recycling - the possibilities are endless) I realised that I had forgotton my courgettes and pumpkin plants.

Well I was not surprised really - the strain of the wheel barrow that morning was huge - it was so heavy because I had a full bag of mulch & the reason I had this mulch with me was because I had read over breakfast, that courgettes and pumpkins like to be mulched in (and are very thirsty too) so I was immediately on the phone to hubby, who said he was going to pop down to see me later, asking him to bring my forgotten plants.

Back to the Dwarf French Beans - these were grown in pots at home. I had, about 1 week ago, also directly sown some of the same at the base of the sweet pea wigwam, but nothing was showing from them yet, so inside the wigwam, went the Dwarf French Beans.

Next to go in were the Main Crop Potatoes - I put in 2 varieties, one of which is Vivaldi, the other I cant remember right now!! I put these into holes, using my bulb planter contraption, which is the method I used for my Earlies & Late Earlies, and as this method had worked so far, what was the point of digging a trench? I soon realised that I had enough space in that row to plant my 3rd variety, Mayan Gold, so I will go back there today and put those in & get the name of the other variety at the same time.

Following the potato planting came the Chilli plants and Peppers which had both been in the cold frame for the last couple of nights, so a row each of these in Bed 2 in front of the Sweet Pea Wigwam.......

As you can see, this bed is looking quite full up now, but there is still room for more - it's just my plan (above) that is looking full!

So, under the watchfull eye of Dibble, the Chilli plants and peppers were watered well and then covered with an open ended plastic polytunnel, which I will check later today (Sunday). Olga from Plot 138, kindly gave me some onion sets, so I put in a row of these. My other onions grown from seed and my onion sets which are interplanted with my carrots (bed 1) are both doing well, so another lot won't hurt!

Next to go in were the Courgettes (Zucchini) and Pumpkins which hubby Ian kindly brought down to the lotty for me. My fellow allotmenteers couldn't believe their eyes when he turned up in his Porsche Turbo and lifted the bonnet - as this is the boot (storage area) and brought the plants out!!!! Ha ha ha. Anyway, these went into the bottom of the potato plot (bed 4) which I had put some horse manure compost on. I put in 2 x pumpkins and 4 x courgettes, mulched them in and then covered them with plastic bell cloches.

So, nearly 4 hours later, 2 mugs of freshly brewed tea, a long chat with Mavis, a visit & delivery from Ian and having negotiated the old delapidated shed which is currently just about standing on Paul's Plot, I was ready for home. Once there however, I got stuck into washing out pots and seed trays etc. as the weather was so nice, it was actually a joy to do this outside.

I then looked at my "left over" carrots that were still sitting in modules. I decided to pot these remaining 4 plants into a patio pot to see what happened. As I was lifting one of the plants out, the compost fell away, and I was amazed to see a tiny baby carrot in my hand! I had to call hubby Ian quickly, to take a picture......

So, into the pot it has gone, along with the other 3 plants and I will let you know what happens!

Today is Sunday, and the weather forecast is not great, cloud cover is prominent, but it does look as though it is trying to "cheer" up a bit. I will go to the lotty later to check on my newly planted veggies and to put in the final lot of maincrops.