Back to work on the allotment

There's a pattern to the work on the allotment. The same jobs are done at the same time of the year, which makes it difficult as I write my blog to find something different to say. It can become a bit boring. But I do like that repetition. I think 'oh here we go again, we did this last year'. It does make me feel good though and that I might be doing things right.

Three sessions on the plot last week made me feel good. I am making progress, but the weather at this time of year can put a stop to all that so I feel lucky that I was able to go three times in one week. Arriving on the site we saw that some wood chippings had been delivered and the path down to our plot was quite muddy as it often is at this time of year. As it's a job we often do at this time of year that was going to be Richard's job for the afternoon.  

Spreading chippings along the path is not actually working on our allotment but it does help if we get it done, it benefits some of our plot neighbours too. Unfortunately Richard ran out of time and energy to get the whole path done that afternoon, so  planned to carry on with it next time. Imagine our delight when we arrived a few days later to find that someone else had finished the job for us.

       
                                                   

I cleaned out the greenhouse, swilled the floor and left it to dry out. I have started sweeping up the leaves and scraping up moss from the paths. They get very slippy if the leaves and moss are not cleared. I didn't get them all done and realised it was a bigger job than I thought. So next time maybe.

Another job to do at this time of year is to sort all my seed packets out and order what I need for this year. So that has been done and the postman delivered  them this morning.

I also did a new allotment growing plan for this year. You can see it in the photo. It's not to scale and I might still change some things, but it's roughly what I will be doing this year.

Allotment plans for 2022

 My seed order arrived last week and was a reminder that I must soon start off some of the seeds--tomatoes especially. So in preparation for this I had a tidy up of the  potting bench in the shed at home where I will start my work.  I bought a new heated windowsill propagator recently and can't wait to start using it. So out have come the little seed trays and other propagators, cell trays for the onion sets and toilet roll inners for broad beans, peas and sweet peas. Soon the kitchen will be taken over by seed trays and pots.

Last week I bought seed potatoes--Charlotte, which is a lovely salad potato and very reliable. Also Rocket, a first early.  Some years we have had problems with scab on the potatoes, but we grew Rocket last year and it did really well, no scab. I start collecting egg cartons at this time of year to use for chitting the potatoes (as well as the toilet roll inners for seed sowing). The potatoes are now set out in a spare bedroom and should be ready for planting in a few weeks time.

Yesterday I started planting the onion sets in small pots and cell trays. I didn't finish as it was quite cold out, even in the shed. There are quite a lot to do. Two sorts of brown onion--Sturon and Turbo, red onions--Red Baron and shallots. I should be able to move them to the greenhouse on the allotment when they are all planted. I start them off like this so they get a root system going and once planted it's harder for the birds to pull them out of the soil.

I have finally done my allotment plan for this year (See below).  It might change a bit, but  basically the three big beds are my rotation beds and the two narrower ones in the middle are often used as overflow beds from the bigger beds if I run out of space. I also plant the veg which come under the 'other' category, like sweetcorn, courgettes, salad, squash in these two beds. Any other spare areas are used for flower growing. If you click on the picture you should be able to see it in more detail.

The  picture below was taken last year and shows most of the plot. On the middle right of the picture you can just see the corner of the third big bed.  Beyond the greenhouses is the asparagus bed with a small area next to it for flower growing.

This picture below is looking the other way down the plot and you can see the compost bins. 

I usually plant French Marigold and calendula amongst the cabbage and kale as companion plants, nasturtium around the broad beans. In the greenhouses I have pots of marigolds and basil. I grow annual flowers which are good for cutting--mainly Cosmos, Asters, Zinnias, Rudbekia, Larkspur, Ammi. And  Sunflowers just because  I love watching them grow tall and towering over the plot. Some of them produce side shoots which are good to cut.

So there's plenty of work to be getting on with now if I want to see more sunflowers again this year.

Looking forward to Spring

 

I love this time of year on the allotment. It's a time of tidying up, preparation, planning for the new growing season. and looking forward to what's to come.  As time goes on there are signs that Spring isn't far away. Under the big Sycamore tree the bulbs are starting to emerge and flower. I have planted up a few pots with crocuses and tete a tete narcissus to give some colour. Soon the birds will be nesting and frog spawn will be appearing in the pond.

When I wasn't well before Christmas I thought I might have to give up with my allotment, but one of the things I was told about managing my pain was not to give up doing the activities that I enjoy, just don't overdo things and take regular rests.  Since I've been feeling better I've really looked forward to getting down to the allotment and have really enjoyed the time spent there. 

So we have been making plans for this year, knowing that I might have flare ups and will need to take it easy sometimes. It's quiet at the moment, we've managed to get down to the plot regularly and do some work. We don't have to rush the jobs, but as the year progresses and we get into Spring and Summer there could be lots more to do. We have been putting lots of bark chippings down on the paths and non growing areas.  This helps to keep the weeds down and makes it easier to keep the plot tidy. From a growing point of view I have decided that I will only grow the vegetables which we like and eat a lot of and those which grow well for me.  

For years I have tried to grow carrots--I sow the seeds, they grow, produce what look like lovely carrots, but on closer inspection I find they are riddled with carrot root fly. I have tried different ways of growing them, but they are always affected. So I'm not going to waste my time this year and I won't be growing them again.  Cauliflowers are always a disappointment, Brussels sprouts are hit and miss.  So this year I will just be growing all our favourites--peas, broad beans, climbing beans, cabbage, kale, beetroot, sweetcorn, courgettes, onions, shallots and leeks.  Lettuce, radish and spring onions will be squeezed in amongst them. We'll continue to grow potatoes in bags, but not as many.  In the greenhouses I will still grow tomatoes and cucumbers. I won't be growing chillies again as we don't eat many and sweet peppers have never done well for me. I will continue to grow annual flowers for cutting and sweet peas

So with all this in mind, last week I went through my seed boxes and ordered new seeds for this year. It's always an exciting time as I look forward to a new growing year. I just have to remember not to get carried away and do too much.

Time to get seed sowing

 

 March has arrived and in just a couple of weeks we have had a mix of snow, sunshine and showers. But in the last few days the weather has become drier and we have had some lovely sunny and warmer days. These sunny days make me want to just be outside as much as possible and after a fairly quiet January and February pottering around the allotment, suddenly I am aware that there is plenty to be getting on with. I won't be planting anything outside yet as the soil will be too cold, but now that we have two new greenhouses on the plot I can't wait to get to work with some seed sowing indoors.

The potatoes are now chitting in trays and egg boxes and the onion sets have been planted in module trays.In February I started off seeds of leek, broad beans, sweet peas and lettuce. Now that March is here there are so many more seeds I can be sowing, the list has got longer.

 

It's good to see the greenhouses filling up with seed trays.  At the weekend I sowed some pea seeds in a length of guttering and put these in the bigger greenhouse.  These will get an early start and when they are ready I will be able to ease them gently out of the gutter and into the soil.

 I have also sown, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and cucumber, and with a list as long as my arm, every time we go to the allotment there's still more to be done.

What are you growing in your greenhouse at the moment?

Seedy jobs

The weather is showing no signs of improvement and I wonder if it will ever stop raining. As the wind was howling outside and the rain battering against the windows at the weekend I decided a good rainy day activity would be to sort out my very untidy box of seed packets. It took nearly all day, but I now have a neatly filed box, a seed list on computer and a long list of new seeds to buy for this year. Very organised, I thought!

Holly was keen to stop me from working

 I will need to be starting off seeds very soon and I am so pleased that our allotment greenhouse is now fully assembled and it looks great. I couldn't wait to get something in there and before Richard had cleared away all his tools, I had put in some trays of spring cabbage seedlings which I started off late summer and seemed a bit slow to grow. They had been living in the shed.  I'm  sure that before long I will be running out of greenhouse space.  This little greenhouse will not be big enough for all the growing we will be doing, so Richard's next project is to build a bigger growhouse type of structure next to it. This is what he was planning to do all along.

My next job is to go shopping for vegetable seeds and get some seed trays washed.

Little helpers

 

 We've had a bit of help at the allotment recently from the grandchildren. It's not often it happens so we make the most of it--enjoy it and hope they do too.

 I have found that with my own children and now my grandchildren that as they got older they lost that interest in gardening which in the early years was so full of enthusiasm, everything was new and interesting to them.  Now there are other things to interest them and a visit to the allotment is not always welcome. We have found that we need to really work at stimulating some interest whether it is den building, sowing seeds or watering the plants. And although they might moan and groan about having to go to the allotment, they usually enjoy themselves once they are there. Sometimes they just want to run around and play, but other times they like to help, it might slow us down a bit with our work, but it's worth it knowing that they have probably learnt something by being involved.

On their most recent visits to the allotment they have been sowing purple sprouting broccolli and beetroot seeds, planting cabbages, sweet corn, french beans and sunflowers. It helps to talk about what they are planting and explain how it will grow. For example, beetroot grows below the ground, sweetcorn above and beans wind themselves around a post and some things need more space to grow than others. These things might be obvious to us who've been growing vegetables for years, but not to children who are still learning.

My own children who lost interest in gardening as they got older, I am pleased to say, rekindled this interest when they got gardens of their own so there's hope for the grandchildren yet.

Growing

With the coming of Spring and warmer weather everything is coming to life at the allotment.  The weeds are growing fast now, those little sycamore seed pods which fell on the plot in the autumn are now sprouting all over the place, the Himalayan balsam which grows all over the lane and explodes its seed pods everywhere is now germinating all over the plot.  They're all easy to pull out but they are a nuisance and it means I have to spend a lot of time on my hands and knees or worse still I'm constantly bending down to pull them out. No wonder I have back problems!   The sight of these weeds seeds tells me that the soil is warming up and I can now start planting some things outdoors.

We planted the first early potatoes last weekend--in bags and pots.  The onion sets which we started off in cell modules weeks ago have now been planted out. I sowed broad beans direct into the ground a couple of weeks ago and this week planted out some which I'd started off in the polytunnel in cardboard tubes.  We also sowed salad leaves, radish and spring onion last weekend.

I've been sowing seeds under cover for weeks now and I'm watching them carefully every time I go to the plot to see if any have germinated. Some take weeks to come through and when I've  almost given up hope there they are with their little green shoots emerging.

I never fail to get excited over seeing things grow, this is such a lovely time of year.

A summer of flowers

I've always liked to grow flowers in the garden which are good for cutting, but quite often don't have enough blooms to cut without spoiling the display. My garden also has a lot of shade so some flowers don't do well. So now we have the allotments I decided this year that I would try having a cut flower bed.

We decided to use  two beds, one on each plot which weren't going to be used for growing vegetables this year. I ordered seeds from Higgledy Garden, then I rummaged through my seed box and found a few packets of seeds which had been given free with gardening magazines. Also, tempted by the pictures on seed packets in the garden centre I bought more.

On Plot 8 the prepared bed is  triangular in shape and has a bit of shade from a big sycamore tree late in the day. Here I sowed calendula, ammi majus, escholzia, poppies, cornflower, lavatera and nigella. The bed on plot 10b  is in full sun. Here I grew, echium, larkspur, bupleurum and sweet peas. All of these were annuals and could be sown directly into the ground. I started off some half hardy annuals in the growhouse, some of these were a bit temperamental and had poor germination. I didn't have the time to give them any special attention, plants have to be tough to grow up here in the north. But the ones which did grow were zinnia, cosmos, aster, rudbekia and candytuft. Everything had to be easy to grow because I have two allotments of vegetables to look after too. I also bought some dahlia plants from a plant fair, no labels so I had no idea of colour, height, type. Surprise dahlias!

My enthusiasm for flowers took over and eventually we had more flowers to plant than we knew what to do with. So some got planted amongst the vegetables. The flowers grew and grew and the triangular bed became a tangle of colour. I forgot to support the flowers early on so I stuck in some twiggy sticks which helped a bit. We hadn't expected the sweet peas to do well as they looked a bit weak and weary when we first planted them, but they really took off in the sunny bed. We had put in a cane and netting support for them but they outgrew that and toppled over.  We rescued them by shoving in more canes and hoisting them up. Some of  the flowers planted amongst the vegetables took over a bit causing some shade. The dahlias were amazing, they were planted in a separate bed and I remembered to stake them! The zinnias were stars, standing upright, needing no support and such variety of colour. 

 I made some mistakes--getting carried away and sowing too much, not staking, but generally I was pleased with the results.  Next year though, I will probably not grow as many, I spent a lot of time on the flower growing when I needed to have been doing other things on the allotments.


So here we are in September, the flowers are still in bloom and  I have had a constant supply of cut flowers for the house all through the summer.

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.

Flower love

For as long as I can remember I have had a love of flowers. The village where I grew up, before it got taken over by housing estates was surrounded by fields. I have memories of fields full of buttercups, buzzing with bees. I loved the buttercups but not the bees, I thought they would sting me.

My mother owned a shop--an ironmongers-- we lived at the back of it. It was one of a row of little shops in the village.  We didn't have gardens, just backyards.  I remember one year when we had seeds for sale in the shop and  my two brothers and I sowed flowers seeds in two small beds in the yard.  There were Virginia stock, candytuft and cornflowers.  I loved the flowers. At the back of our house was some land, it was known as 'the spare ground'.  I don't know why it was called this, but I used to play there with my friends. Sometimes I played there on my own and I used to wander around picking the wild flowers which grew there. There were foxgloves, the bees used to hide in the bell shaped flowers, I wasn't keen on that.

I remember my mum taking me to visit someone nearby and it had a beautiful cottage garden. I felt quite overwhelmed by all the lovely flowers. At the back of the  row of shops  where we lived there was another house with a lovely garden.  One day my friend and I were playing nearby and noticed that the garden had a beautiful display of lupins. I can still remember now how colourful they were. My friend and I decided that we would pick some of these lupins for our mums.  We each took our bunches of lupins home thinking how pleased our mums would be, only to be shouted at and made to take them back to the owner.  We were only about 4 or 5 years old I think.  I love lupins and always try to have a few growing in my garden, they still remind me of my childhood and I often think of the time I stole those lupins.

I have my own garden now and my love of flowers has not waned. I have difficulty coming out of a garden centre without buying any plants and I have reached the stage where if I want to plant something new I have to dig another plant up first to make some space.

I particularly like flowers that I can cut to bring in the house. For a year or two now I have been promising myself I will have a cut flower border either in the garden or down at the allotment.  I have decided that this year I really will do it. We have more space at the allotment now that we have two plots, I also have a spare
raised bed in the garden where we used to grow vegetables before we got the allotments.

I have bought a selection of annual seeds from Higgledy Garden and I also have various packets of flower seeds which have come free with gardening magazines. I'm dreaming of a patch filled with colour, butterflies flitting around and the gentle hum of bees. I'm all ready to start sowing as soon as the soil warms up.
Fortunately I've overcome my fear of bees.

Growing plans

My daughter Helen and I have been thinking about what we want to grow on our allotments this year. When making our plans we thought about what mistakes were made last year, what didn't do well and why, what we thought was a waste of time or what we didn't like.

We had a few gluts last year, so we want to make sure we don't grow too much of some things. We get a bit greedy sometimes faced with a tray of seedlings and instead of planting just the healthiest ones we always want to plant them all. That's our downfall. Like the many little gem lettuces which went to seed in the hot weather. The kale grew well and still is doing, but again we put too many plants in. And the chard, well that grew enormous and once more there were too many planted. We couldn't keep up with it. Beetroot was another which we couldn't keep up with, as well as turnips which grew absolutely massive in a short space of time. I should have picked them as baby turnips.

We definitely won't be growing runner beans again. It was my 7 year old grandson who insisted that was what he wanted to grow. They grew up into the sky, he was really pleased, but we prefer the stringless French beans which we also grew. So as you can imagine we were overrun with beans. I know we could have frozen them, but we ran out of freezer space, it was full of allotment fruit. We'll have to steer him towards growing something different this year.

Other mistakes were the purple podded peas. It wasn't a mistake to grow them, we loved the taste and colour of them, but we didn't realise how tall they grow. They were flopping about all over the place. So this year we will put up a better support frame. The cabbages were great, given to us by an allotment neighbour. But I forgot to sow more for the autumn and winter. We need to think ahead and grow more at intervals.

So for our first proper year of allotment growing we made a few mistakes. This year we will grow less of  some things but maybe try some new types of vegetables. I'd like to try celeriac again, I grew it when we had our starter plot a few years ago, but it didn't do well. We thought we might also try growing some baby sweet corn.

Our seeds, ordered through the allotment society,  have arrived and I can't wait to get sowing them. As for the spare seedlings, well we can always give them away or put them on the compost heap.

What's growing in the polytunnel?

We've finally got to the stage of growing things in our polytunnel.  Over the last couple of weeks it's gradually been filling up with seed trays and pots. We've had to find staging to put it all on and being into recycling, well that's resulted in a real hotch potch of different sorts of ways to support all these seed trays and pots. We've got staging from old abandoned grow houses, bricks supporting planks of wood or wire trays. But we love seeing all those pots and trays of things growing. 

How exciting it is to go into the polytunnel and check up on the seedlings and see how they have grown. We've got our onions and garlic growing in cell trays, they will soon be ready to plant outside. We have a big pot of carrot seeds just germinated, we struggle growing carrots in the ground because of root fly so thought we'd start some off early in pots in the warmth of the polytunnel.  Then there are brassicas--cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprout, calabrese. There are  beetroot, broad beans, courgette, leeks, lettuce, sweet peas and sunflowers.  We also have a length of guttering  planted up with pea seeds.  That's a new way of planting for us, but we're trying it out. A lot of the seedlings are covered in fleece for extra protection against the cold nights.

I went the allotment this week, I hadn't been for two days, the lettuce, beetroot and peas were all starting to come through, the brassicas had grown about an inch in height and the onions were looking ready to plant out as soon as the soil warms up. It's amazing what a few days of warmth and sunshine can do.

Not completely useless

Here I am recovering from a broken wrist. I'll try not  to dwell on it too much, but sometimes I feel useless. I'm trying to get back to normal, I'm told to do things to exercise my wrist but then I suffer with pain and I'm told I'm doing too much. What I really want to do is dig the allotment, but I know that's a long way off. The very thought of digging makes me want to squeal in pain.

So, longing to get out in the garden and do things, I've been thinking about what I can do in the garden, gentle things which don't overtax my wrist. I 've been able to do a little bit of tidying up in the borders, clearing away dead foliage and a bit of hand weeding. I enjoyed that. I  chitted the potatoes. That was an easy job. At the allotment my daughter Helen and I planted onion and garlic sets in modules. That was a nice gentle job, it didn't hurt.

At home I have been sowing salad seeds for micro greens and baby leaves. I can manage that. I sowed pea seeds for pea shoots, rocket, radish, mustard, mixed leaves, kale, cabbage, beetroot. All these can be sown at this time of year for baby salad leaves. They grow quickly if sown indoors and are kept on a windowsill. They are great to cut and add to salads and sandwiches. I even got the grandchildren involved one day when they got home from school. I filled a big tray of compost and brought it indoors. I then found some recycled plastic food containers to use as seed trays. I let them choose what they wanted to grow. The fact that they were going to grow salad leaves was of no interest to them, as they said they didn't like salad. I suggested that mummy would like to have some, but the thing which really grabbed it for them was that it was a messy job. They dug their hands into the compost, got dirty and made a mess.

So in the end they enjoyed their after school activity and they had a tray of newly sown seeds to take home. Their mum was pleased. I just had a lot of mess to clear up afterwards. It was a bit painful, but I managed. (ouch!). Hopefully they will get more interested when they start to see the seeds germinate.

 

Seeds

We're always ready to grab any free seeds, so when my daughter and I heard that there was going to be a stall on the market with a seed giveaway, we went along to see what was on offer. The event was organised by a local environmental charity group called Prospects who have a food growing project working with allotments, schools and other community groups.

I wasn't really expecting too much, maybe just a couple of packets of free seeds and lots of promotion for the group. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find the market stall had boxes of seeds set out containing many different varieties of  all sorts of vegetables, herbs and salad crops. Not only that, we were allowed TEN packets each!

Needless to say we had a good old rummage through the seed packets. Although we had already bought our seeds for the new growing season, this was an opportunity to try some different varieties.

Our haul included:
turnip, cabbage, pumpkin, yellow courgette, purple podded pea, beefsteak tomato, pepper, runner bean, broad bean.

There were plenty of varieties of salad leaf which caught my eye and since I have been taking part in the
52 week salad challenge I'm always ready to try something different.
We picked out:
Swiss Chard--bright lights, Mustard Pizzo, Orach Scarlet Emperor, American land cress, Mizuna, Perpetual Spinach, Rocket --discovery, Pak Choi crunchy mix, and a frilly leaf salad mix.

That should keep us very busy this year and now we have two allotments to grow on we should have plenty of space. Can't wait to get sowing!

Allotment plans

Last week I was feeling quite down. Trying to do things with my left arm after breaking my right wrist, and coping with the pain is quite tiring. Another result of my fall on the ice, that of a back injury is now becoming apparent. My emotions have ranged from tearful to angry to just plain miserable. Don't anyone annoy me for I might just whack you with my plaster cast!

It's quite frustrating not being able to do the things I want to do, especially when I read about all the things I could be doing in the garden right now. I have to remind myself that up here in the north it is still too early to be sowing any seeds. In a few weeks hopefully I will have more movement in my hand and then the time will be right for sowing seeds.

We checked through our seeds the other week and decided what we want to grow this year. This will be our first growing year on our new plot, so it's quite exciting. Our allotment association are doing a seed order from King's seeds, so we have put an order in. We also need to buy some potatoes, onion sets and garlic yet.

In the meantime as I can't garden, I have been thinking about our plans for the allotment this year. My daughter and I went down to the plot the other day to see how things were doing. We were pleased to see that the daffodil bulbs which I planted in the autumn are showing signs of growth. I'd put one lot under the holly bush and the others in front of the grow house. The soil is very heavy clay in these areas and I wasn't sure if they would grow. The garlic hasn't shown any signs of growth so we will have to plant some more in the spring.

Our plans for this year are: 

•  Do the paths between the raised beds. There is a lot of rubble around the plot which we can use as hardcore before putting some gravel down. The pathway up to the grow house and beyond may need steps. It is a sloped area and being clay soil gets very slippy when it has rained.

• We also want to lay some flags  to create a little patio area next to the shed. It will be somewhere to sit and eat our lunch, have a brew or for the grandchildren to play. There are some paving flags which we have found around the plot which can be used.

•  Dig over and improve the soil in the growhouse with compost, then make a path of some sort. This depends on what we can salvage from the stuff that we have found lying around.

•  Have a good tidy up of all the 'stuff' which is lying around the plot, like pieces of wood, bricks and rubble. These can all be recycled to use around the plot or stored somewhere safe. Other things which are of no use need taking to the local tip.

• Move the fruit bushes. These were given a temporary home when we moved them from the old allotment. We now have a long border along the fence which has a good depth of soil and has had soil improver added. It just needs some compost adding.

So those are the main projects for this year which, all being well, I will be able to be involved with in some way. If I can't do any physical work then I shall just have to stand and watch, giving orders and cracking the whip!

Salad growing

As I  review my salad growing  for this month for the salad challenge, I'm feeling that I'm making progress. I have a raised bed which I am using for growing salad and there are some neat rows of crops coming along nicely. I'm also using the cold frame to grow salad.

There are some  radish  now  ready to pick from the first sowings I made. The tom thumb and little gem lettuce which I transplanted into the raised bed have taken well.  I had so many of the little gem lettuce that I also planted some in between the broad beans and peas. In the cold frame I have some tantan lettuce which is a little gem type. I have planted out the watercress which has been a bit slow to grow, but hopefully the warmer weather will bring it along now.

I have been sowing more crops this week. I sowed  watercress,                              mizuna, and lollo rossa.  I also planted some beetroot seedlings.  We had planted most of them at the allotment and these were left over. Couldn't bear to throw them away.

I bought some herb plants a few weeks ago. There are ginger mint, basil mint and lemon mint, sorrel, hyssop and three sorts of sage. I potted them up into terracotta pots and left them next to the raised bed whilst I decided where to put them. I the end I left them there because I thought they looked quite good. I have other herbs around the garden, different types of mint, thyme, oregano, marjoram and chives. Today I sowed seeds of borage and dill. I have parsley and basil seedlings too.

I've been trying to grow outdoor cucumbers, the seeds germinated but the seedlings eventually died off. I've sown more seeds and if these don't work then I might buy a couple of plants from the garden centre to grow in the cold frame.

There's lots of salad growing, I just can't wait to eat it!

  

     

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