Saturday, April 14, 2012

2012 Allotment Diary - Me: 30 hrs He: 24.5hrs 2012 Eggs: 161

Another seven eggs today and three more hours up the allotment - leaves me feeling very happy and satisfied at our efforts.

We are still eating last years'  crop of potatoes and they are as delicious as the day they were dug up.  They hang from the roof supports in sacks in our garage, and whatever the weather seems throw at us they seem to survive it.  I am very careful to hand pick every potato that goes into the sacks, to make sure that no damaged ones get stored, and I grade them in variety and size - so perhaps that helps?

This time of year is generally spent keeping on top of the weeds and preparing the beds for seeds etc
This first bed on my plot was only dug about a month or so ago, and I dug out a deep trench where the plank is and filled it with well rotted compost etc in readiness for the climbing beans.  It's amazing that already more weeds have grown and the heavy rain then sunshine has formed a crust on the top already.

It didn't take too long for me to dig it over and mix in some well rotted manure.  I think that I will have peas and mange tout in this bed - followed by some courgettes later.
I had a little bit of space in the potato patch, so dug it over, added well rotted manure and sowed some broad beans - they are quite greedy plants when they get going so they should do well here

There was a two foot strip along the far edge and Mr Lottie 'edged' the path there too, so I sowed some parsnip seeds.  They'll not affect the potato crop at all, and it's best to cram as much in a bed as you can as it cuts down on the weeding.
 As we are due more heavy rain this week - and some is falling as I type, I decided to give all the paths a haircut. 
But in no time at all it will grow really fast and need doing again!
 It took me only an hour to mow all the paths today
So it wasn't such a hard chore, but I still had to go over them twice.
I am glad that I made the decision to give up half my plot (150ft) of my plot - today proved that it was the right thing to do, as it used to take me at least two hours, sometimes more last year!  It took long to mow up there than it did for me to cut the lawns at home.

Oh I nearly forgot

My rhubarb cuttings are growing beautifully - so too the little strawberry cuttings.
I am so pleased that I took the trouble to do this.  It was hard work digging out all the weeds, and I dug in lots of manure.  I wasn't sure about the shredded wood - the plants were buried underneath it at some point - but they look healthier than I have ever seen them before and it's definitely keeping down the weeds




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