Allotment Sunday

A day at the allotment beckoned, I hadn't been up there for a while so was pleased to get up there to see how things were. Expecting masses of weeds, but was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't that bad, although Alex went up before Imogen and I so had cleared some.

So, planted out some more seedlings of Swiss Chard, rocket and beetroot for succession growing.
Imogen enjoyed helping here with her dibber.


I started planting up the herb spiral - better late than never. I had hoped to plant these up before but other things took priority. This was a bit of an afterthought so I only took up a few herbs that I could carry along with some tools and a flask of coffee, etc as well as holding Imogens hand across the road. So I have so far planted in the herb spiral:

Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Corsican Mint
Chocolate Mint
Alpine Strawberries
Welsh Onions
more to follow ...

And it looks like this. The herbs were placed around the spiral in an area that provides the conditions they thrive in.

Some update pictures of how the plot is looking, Broad Beans planted last November are looking good and so far black fly free. The potatoes are coming up good, including the ones Alex planted last week in the tyre stacks.

The Pear tree looks great and I'm hoping for a bumper crop this year as we can give it more TLC than it has had in may years.

This bed is in need of some nutrients so we are growing a green manure - Buckwheat here - for a while and the tyre stacks are growing potatoes and have added manure so when they are dug out the whole bed can be dug over and it will be ready for the next crop after about 3 weeks.


And finally we inherited a new water butt. Alex had fetched a couple of large plastic cans of water to water the seedlings in as the existing water butt was empty and a neighbouring plot holder had noticed him. He was clearing some things as he was being evicted next week so offered his butt to us which needed emptying first and then moving over.