Sunny Sunday

Early Morning visit to plot 23B to plant the last of my seed potatoes 10 x Lady Christi and 8 Desire the left overs when with me to Plot 1A and went in buckets later in the morning.

Potatoes in I then when to plot 1A and planted the first early - Swift and all the left over spuds that didn't make it into the ground into flower buckets.

Now it's much warmer, I took the second layer of netting off the Japanese onions. There are weeds in there and gaps where the onions have been got at, where as the ones that were over wintered in the greenhouse and have been out under cover to harden up (picture below) a little are looking much healthier.

So next visit these will go into the bed once it has been weeded, there are still some in the greenhouse and they may replace the ones that have been hardening off to fill any more gaps in the bed. So next year I may just stick to overwintering Japanese Onions in the unheated greenhouse.

Not being down to Plot 1A since the spuds went in a couple of weeks ago I was stunned that the grape vine has leafs and that the Parsnips I left to bolt and go to seed have kind of gone mental, lets hope with the warm weather it now bolts and goes to seed.

I weeded the over wintered cabbage, one has been well and truly attacked by snails and slugs but at the moment the others don't look too bad. The jury is out as to if it's actually worth over wintering cabbage, at the moment I feel like all I have done is supply the snails and slugs with an early food source. I did use some coffee grounds and I hoping that will discourage migration from the attached cabbage to the others, I will have to keep an eye on the situation, but if push comes to shove at least I have grown some compost!

Home for Sunday Lunch then .......

Last week I've had a landscape and fencing contractor replacing the fence to the rear of my property and installing and couple of grandfather posts some concrete gravel boards to replace the timber ones that retain my neighbours earth under their hedge on the line of boundary.

The paving along the path slopes and I was going to level it off last year after doing the second step for my space saver greenhouse, but I'm getting older and I don't work as fast and I have two allotments to look after so I got the landscaper to do that and give the retaining wall to the lawn a face lift to match the one I did along the decking patio

I loaded up the car with as many Flower Buckets full of last years Coir and Compost from the tomatoes that I grew at home and made my way back to plot 23B. Now the bed in front of the paved area where the greenhouse will finally stand is now at a reasonable level. it has the layer of stable manure underneath so this is now a really nice bed. 

The planters came from the back garden along with the excess strawberries as I have filled the stacking strawberry pots in the back garden, there are a few nesting on the plastic and those will go into comfrey bed 2 when it finally gets dig and prepped, waste not want not, and besides the comfrey in the greenhouse it not even showing yet.

By the end of the day, yes walking was difficult and I felt like I had been run over by a bus but I was knackered in a good way (well that's what I keep telling myself) but the garden and the allotments are all moving forward.