Allotment Updates

Early in May I was still managing to get to the plot....

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06 - May - 2010

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Hubby was on annual leave so I got him to come with me and the girls to the plot, his job was to clear the last rubbish strewn area and to also clear that area of the nettle.

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I on the other hand got stuck into earthing up the potatoes, which was just as well as we were then hit (if you guys remember) with a late frost which knocked a few unprepared gardeners spuds back a bit.

When I was done with the spuds I got on with weeding and watering the beetroot and carrot seedlings.

Ah! here is my hubby working on that area I have air marked for some bush variety of squashes (I just need to manure the are now).

Jobs all done for the day, a found window box was filled with some soil and some flower seeds were added. The black drum to the left was filled with all the nettle foliage and topped up with water to make some liquid fertiliser tea for the plants later on in the season.

Saw many mini beasts that day:

Lots of slowworms both adults (2) and babies (6)
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A poor casualty.

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Butterfly: Common Blue - Polyommatus icarus. During the month of may i saw many of these both at the plot and at home in the garden but they seem to have disappeared again (which generally means the adults are probably all dead and the young are all in their caterpillar/ egg stage).
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17 - May - 2010

Carrots - Beetroots - Onions

Garlic - Reemerging Spuds

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This was just a visit to check on the seedlings, water what needed to be watered and I also earthed up the spuds again which fared well with those late frosts.

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Then life got in the way plus some wet weather days, and the plot didn't see me for 4 weeks!!!

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13 - June - 2010

This is the scene that greeted me yesterday, I was expecting weeds but lordy, I wasn't expecting this!!!

So what is a girl to do but to whip out her kneeling pad and get down on her hands and knees and get to weeding, which thankfully due to all the recent wet weather (which caused the mass of new weed growth in the first place) came out remarkably easy.

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On the left is what was cleared first and then I cleared the beetroot's bed next.

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So after about 4 and a half hours things were looking much better. To the back on the right which looks terribly over grown is the spuds so that area is actually OK and the back to the left where hubby cleared last time he visited is barely overgrown with no signs of nettle regrowth to be seen so I'll manure that in the next week or so and cover with some heavy cardboard and plant out my squash plants (which by the way are my only seed sowing success for the year, well besides the allotment beetroots and carrots).

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14 - June - 2010
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This evening after dropping the big kid off to her guiding group, i took the time to visit the plot and get some more weeding done, worked on the carrot bed and half of the allium bed was also done (the garlic side), just need to complete the onion side.

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Carrots - Garlic
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