Down at the allotment

After heavy rain and gales during the week and with more rain forecast for the weekend,  I wasn't expecting to be able to get much done at the allotment. But Saturday turned out fine and I managed to plant kale, red cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli. I was disappointed to find that some of the brussels sprouts and cauliflower which I had planted 2 weeks ago had disappeared. I'm thinking it was slugs. Fortunately I still had some cauliflower plants left over at home so I replaced the missing ones. I sowed some seed of brussels sprouts, hoping its not too late, as I had no spare plants there.  The cabbage were looking fine. I also planted some celery plants which I bought as the ones I grew from seed didn't do well. I've never grown celery before so anything can happen!

Last weekend my daughter sowed  peas, carrots, beetroot and  parsnip. The beetroot and parsnips were sown using seed strips. We have not used this before so we will be interested to see how well it works.

My husband, who is not a gardener, but is always happy to embark on any building project, was busy building a netting frame for the brassica bed to protect against caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies which can cause immense damage. He throws himself into any project with great enthusiasm and I always know that any job he does will be a good job, even if it takes weeks to complete. The frame was finally finished this weekend and I think many of our fellow allotment holders have been following its progress with great interest. It's made so that we can lift panels off easily for access to the bed for weeding, planting or picking.

 
Last week there was some damage to the boundary fence of the allotments caused by fire which also damaged someones storage box and compost bin. We were pleased to see when we went on Saturday that the council had started to repair the fence. They had also done some weeding and cutting down of conifer branches but had put all these perennial weeds and tree branches on ours and other people's compost heaps, much to our dismay. So we now have some work to do sorting out the compost bin and getting rid of the unwanted stuff.

Everything else seems to be growing well and looking like a vegetable garden should look.