Sowing seeds and planting out

 

We had some lovely days down at the allotment recently.  The weather has been fine, dry and sunny.  It was surprisingly quiet over Easter, I thought there would be more people down there working on their plots.  Although I like to chat to our neighbours, it was good to have that time of peace and quiet. I could have stayed there just listening to the birdsong and enjoying the tranquillity.  But there was work to be done. 

My daughter Helen and I have done lots of seed sowing and transplanting of seedlings. It's a job which I find really relaxing and on warm days I set the trays out on the outside table to work in the sunshine. The polytunnel and new growhouse are filling up with seed trays and each time I go down to the allotment I excitedly check for signs of new growth. The early sowings of brassicas which I started off at home were a bit disappointing so I've done another lot in the polytunnel which are growing well now. The salad bowl lettuce are nearly ready for planting out. I must not make the same mistake as last year by planting too many. We had some tomato plants given to us a few weeks back--Roma and Golden Sunrise. I have also sown some seeds myself. These are Moneymaker, Ailsa Craig,  Sweet million and Red Cherry.

We've planted and sown out in the ground too--broad beans, peas, parsnip, radish and lettuce.  The onions are all planted and most of the potatoes are now in their containers.  There's so much to do now, making sure everything is planted and sown at the right time, it can be hard to keep up. But gardening is to be enjoyed so that's what I'm doing.

We seem to have been adopted by a robin on plot 8. He's a very happy robin who follows us around as we work. We're keeping him supplied with plenty of worms. As long as he leaves some for the soil we don't mind sharing.

A big pile of weeds

On Friday afternoon I left Richard in charge of the new kitchen fitters and went to the allotment. I needed to escape from all the dust and mess of the building work even though it was to see more mess at the allotment on plot 8.

Looking around the plot I did feel a bit despondent. The weeds are starting to grow in abundance now the weather is improving and we are going to have a hard job to keep on top of them. The raised beds which Helen and I had weeded and prepared  for planting a week or two ago had weeds growing in them, and there was a great big pile of rubbish from when Richard had dismantled the old compost bins. This rubbish was covering an area of land which I had wanted to start digging over. But we have only had this second plot for 11 weeks, and it did come with its fair share of problems.  I think I am in too much of a hurry to get it looking perfect--that could take years!

Well, standing looking at it all would not get the work done so I got stuck in and cut back some of the hedge at the front of the plot, a lot of it is just dead wood which snapped off as I worked at it. It has left some gaps which will take away some of our privacy, so I am going to plant some cotoneaster cuttings taken from our garden which will be good for the wildlife too. I managed to dig over one small patch of ground and cleared some of the weeds along by the fence.  The dominant weed on the plot is himalayan balsam which is quite shallow rooting and pulls up quite easily, there are nettles too. I managed to dig up a few trugs full of weeds and debris.

A robin appeared as I worked away and followed me around keeping me company, probably looking for worms amongst the soil I had dug over.  It was very peaceful and good to escape from all the chaos back home.