Potatoes, Onions & Help!

I love my family, my eldest daughter Emma and future son-in-law Andy came in the afternoon to help me on the allotment as I have to be very careful not to injure my leg which is still red and inflamed but thankfully is not as raw and painful as it was. They know I could not get down on my knees to plant onions or deal with the spuds.  Andy did a great job of weeding the beds along the paths between plot 1A and plot 2 and between the Daleks 

Dad & Daughter bonding time, Andy is not in the photo as he had gone home as they had someone coming to their property at 4:00 but Emma and I stayed to complete the second bed of spuds. 

I visited the allotment early in the morning on my own and topped up one of the Daleks. The photo on the left is how much the compost had dropped in a week with the topping layer being cut cardboard. It was good to see a number of worms on the top doing their thing. The middle photo is a bucket of kitchen scraps and flowers which was watered in and a layer of coffee grounds was added. The right hand photo is another topping layer of shredded paper. Each layer was watered in and made a nice damp environment for the worms and bacteria to do these thing.    

I managed to clear the onion bed and lay the onion weed membrane that I finished making Saturday night. Then it was up to the hospital for a blood test, as I have an appointment Monday and it saves waiting 2-3 hours for the result to come back and see the doctor again.

In the afternoon with Emma's help Beds 5 & 6 planted up with Rooster and Desire potatoes, I still have two trays of other varieties of spuds to go in but that will have to be work for next weekend and again Emma & Andy have offered to help me.  

I topped up the first early spuds in buckets and placed the fireguard and dog cage mesh panel around them to put off the foxes from digging them out in search or worms to eat. 

Emma did a great job of putting in the onions in Bed 12 making sure that the stems which had been growing towards the light in the Space Saver Greenhouse at home were facing away from the sun so they will be encouraged to stand upright now they are out of the modules and in the ground. Note to self I need to pop down before next weekend and get hoops and netting over the onions ASAP

 Emma put the overspill onions into bed 14 that Andy had cleared of weeds 

Emma watering the apple, plum and pear trees in pots which will eventually go on Plot 1 along the wall 

The raspberries have really come back quickly but there is some bind weed in there that I need to deal with next visit, the comfrey pipes also need clearing from last year ready for filling with this years crop of comfrey  

The comfrey in a matter of a week is now dwarfing the bluebells that have been giving me a splash of colour and providing the bees with some food. We now have two bee keepers on the allotment site one at either end.  

We worked from 1pm to 5pm and managed to get a lot done and I'm hopeful that now the Space Saver Greenhouse at home is empty I can get some more seeds sown and hopefully get back on track and play catch up.

John of plot 10 has grown me some cucumbers that will be ready to go out in a few weeks and Pauline my sister-in-law has given me some excess brassicas she had that will now go in next weekend.