Time to start sowing and planting

We've spent a lot of time on the allotment over the last few weeks, with all the good weather that's been around it was best to make the most of it.

The winter jobs are now done and beds are ready for sowing and planting. The first things to plant were the onion sets and it was so good to see veg growing at last. 

The first early potatoes (Rocket) were planted in bags and soon I will be planting the second earlies (Charlotte). Broad beans which I had started off indoors in cardboard tubes were planted last week followed by a double row sowed straight into the ground.

There are a lot of weed seedlings from the sycamore tree all over the allotment and what a nuisance they are. I am constantly pulling them out. I've been taking the weed membrane off the beds which I covered in the winter and what did I find underneath? More of these weeds! So much for weed membrane. 

As I've taken off the membrane I've been gradually hoeing off these weeds. Last week after clearing what is going to be the salad bed I sowed lettuce, radish and spring onion.

The greenhouse is filling up with trays of seedlings. I cleaned out the two cold frames so they are now ready for hardening off plants. 

We bought some wood chippings a few weeks ago from a local log supplier for a very reasonable price. We often get them dumped at the allotment site for everyone to help themselves to, but there hadn't been any for a while, of course after we had bought some they started being dumped again! Never mind at least we didn't have to share ours and they were good quality. So we have managed to cover most of the areas on our plot which needed them with chippings and it looks really tidy now. 

Richard has been busy dismantling the little greenhouse which we decided to move to our garden. It's quite small and will fit in a small corner of the patio. It will make it easier for me having a greenhouse at home as well as the allotment so I can pop out to water seedlings without having to keep going down to the allotment. I will also be able to grow two or three tomato plants there.

There's a nice big space left where it was which we have covered with wood chippings. I think it will become a storage area and perhaps a place for pots of flowers and potato bags.

This rusty old wheelbarrow was on the allotment when we took over and I've been wanting to use it as a planter but never had enough room. It's been propped up under the hedge for years. I think I will be able to use it at last. I'm going to grow flowers in it.

Sunny days

The days are getting more spring like now, it's lovely to be outside in the sunshine. It's only a few weeks since I was enjoying the snowdrops in the garden and now they have gone over making way for the daffodils.  The tulips are starting to flower in their pots on the patio, in fact only last week the first ones burst into flower, an amazing orange which made me stop in my tracks to admire them. 

And this week these tulips started flowering. I planted them last autumn,  I don't know the name of them but they are amazing.

The garden is looking lovely at the moment. The borders have been cleared of all the debris from the dead flowers and most of them have now been mulched. I have been putting ornamental bark down on the stumpery area in the back garden and the hosta bed in the front. All the hostas are grown in pots which seems to help keep the slugs away although not completely.

I love to see the garden looking like this at the start of spring, like it's ready and waiting for the explosion of flowers in the next few weeks.

As I walk around I can see how clumps of flowers are getting bigger. At this stage I have to be careful not to plant anything where I think there is a space, because that space is likely to get filled up soon with plants as they start to grow bigger