My First Allotment Visit of the Year

Monday afternoon, saw me visit the allotment for the first time this year.  OH had visited a few times and bless him, he'd dug half of it over before I'd even set foot on the plot.  This has saved me a lot aches and pains I can tell you, as digging always results in me aching all over, from muscles I never even knew I had.

We headed down to the plot in an attempt at getting it in some kind of order before OH went away for 5 days on his cycling trip, and before the inspections at the end of this month.  OH dug over the remaining half of the plot, whilst I transplanted some strawberry plants from containers on our decking at home, to their new permanent home on the plot.  I also had a couple more raspberry plants to put in, that I'd bought from Poundland.  I noticed that the existing ones had sent up a few new shoots, so in all we should have quite a few more plants this year.

After all the digging was finished, OH sowed our potato tubers and stacked up the soil to keep them well covered.  He sowed four different varieties, one early, and three main crop, one of which was made up of tubers we'd grown on the plot last year, so cost nothing.  The other three were also Poundland purchases. Last of the big spenders - not!

I watered in the fruit plants and felt very happy that the plot looked tidy and we'd made a start on cultivating it, which is what is required by the first inspection. I harvested some parsnips and beetroot, leaving some celeriac in situ, which hadn't fully grown yet. I will definitely be sowing more beetroot this year, as now that I have found a good way of pickling it, thanks to my friend, it saves me buying any for a large part of the year.

Other things we'll be growing this year will be tomatoes, cucumbers, sweetcorn, beans and lettuce.  I'll probably buy ready grown plants for the first three and sow seeds for the latter two.  We've decided that you get better results this way, as the plants are well established and don't get so spindly. I've not really got the patience for growing things from seed in the greenhouse these days, and my greenhouse is on it's last legs too, as the metal poles are starting to rust through, making it a bit unstable.  I may just take it down and do without one, as I don't  really need one any more.

Here's a couple of pictures from the plot as we left: