Things are growing...

The chillies are developing their first true leaves and the peppers are all doing well now too.

Flowers on the top shelf: candytuft, sunflowers and calendula, and bottom shelf has brussels sprouts, cabbages and leeks.

Tomatoes are getting quite big as are the cucumbers, not shown. I have also sown sweet peas, herbs, marigolds and nemesia.

Down at the plot, the broad beans are coming up and the onions are beginning to put up shoots.

It was very exciting to discover today that there are wrens nesting in the hedge behind my compost bins. I hope I won't disturb them too much. There is a road on the other side of the hedge which doesn't seem to bother them.

My only concern now is that it is so dry - we haven't had any rain for weeks and weeks. The water butt is almost empty already. I think the taps are switched on at the beginning of April, and the forecast is predicting rain for Tuesday and Wednesday. I will be on holiday for Easter by the middle of next week so I hope it doesn't rain for too long - short and sharp is what I need.

Spring Sunshine

The last few days have been gloriously sunny and springlike, and I have been making the most of it down on the plot. I have planted strawberries through the weed fabric, which was quite a fiddly job and some of the plants look as if they have died, either because they have not been planted properly, or because the flaps of the holes have covered the plants and deprived them of light. However, at least those that survive shouldn't need too much weeding.

In the next bed along I have sown some broad beans, and next but one along from that has onions in it. Aside from that I have just been clearing weeds, ready for the next crops, namely potatoes, carrots, peas. There is quite a lot of couch grass, mixed in with ordinary grass, which makes me paranoid about accidentally putting couch grass in the compost bin, so to speed things up I have just been stripping off all the grass and chucking it all on the non-compostable compost pile.

Meanwhile, back at the house, the greenhouse crops are coming on nicely. They are all potted on now, except for the aubergines, which have only just come up, and red peppers, which I gave up on and sowed some more from a new packet. Lo and behold, no sooner had I done so than the original ones are now starting to show. Typical.

I had a lovely garden centre shopping spree yesterday, got my 5 shrubs for £20, 8 perennials for £10, several half price bargains, including the most beautiful hellebore, only just slightly past its best, and one or two other items. Tomorrow afternoon I will be planting those out.

Some progress at last

At last - the weather has finally decided to co-operate, and we have managed to get the glass into the greenhouse, the frame went up three weeks ago and there just hasn't been an opportunity to get it finished until today. Well, Friday in fact, but I didn't get very far because I had trouble with the little s-clips with which you support one pane of glass on top of another. The glass just didn't seem to want to fit in the roof, so I had to ring up technical support. They said they would post me some larger, bendier clips, which duly arrived yesterday, but we were out all day, so today it was. It is all done except for three panes in the roof, which seem to be missing. We have been sent too many of the big panes and not enough of the smaller ones. Tomorrow I will take the bigger ones to the glass centre to get them cut down.

Now finally I can get on with sowing some more seeds. I have started my greenhouse crops in the conservatory, which is an ideal environment at this time of year, although I have to cover up the propogator with bubble wrap at night.

On the right are tomato seeds, six different varieties, which have germinated within a week. The rest are peppers and chillies, and aubergine, which look as if they are just about to come up as well.

I have spent very little time at the allotment over the last three weeks, but I managed a couple of hours on Friday. My free strawberry plants have finally arrived, plus free blueberry plant (very small), and I also have some which I picked up very cheaply from Aldi, and they are all now in pots, waiting for their patch to be ready at the allotment. That makes a total of 26 strawberry plants for the grand total of just under £9.50 (that includes the blueberry plant and postage). The previous tenant left a few plants behind as well so I've got quite a good stock to start off with. The transplanted rhubarb has established nicely, as has the comfrey which I was a bit worried about as I planted it when it was frozen. The new raspberry canes are beginning to show signs of life as well as the transplanted blackcurrant bushes. So fruit-wise I am doing fine, but not a single outdoor vegetable has been started yet. Tomorrow I aim to finish preparing the bean area and get my broad beans in.

I have tidied up a bit in my garden as well, and prepared a few areas for planting new plants. My local Blooms is doing some mega offers during March and I have a big wodge of gardening vouchers to spend. 8 herbaceous plants for £10 (9cm pots), 5 hardy shrubs (2ltr pots) for £20, fruit trees £9.99 each (reduced from £24.99) - not that I really need any more, but I might not be able to resist... coldframes, reduced from £69.99 to £29.99... and so the list goes on. I will definitely be getting down there before they sell out. Bargains galore.

Fruit Patch Established

Today I have planted out 10 raspberry canes and the 3 blackcurrant bushes that came from my old plot. Using my new azada made short work of digging a trench, which I lined with compost, to put the raspberries into. You can see the 3 blackcurrants at the end, in front of the builder's bag. There is a further raspberry cane which was there already, and I have left it where it was as it isn't in the way too much. At the back, I have created a small bed for the comfrey, which I planted out last week, while it was still frozen, so am keeping my fingers firmly crossed for that. There was a plastic raised bed type thing in our garden when we moved in and this has been recycled to make the retaining barrier that you can see in the foreground. The whole area is going to be covered in a mulch of wood chippings. (These are inside the builder's bag - hopefully there will be enough).

The azada has proved to be really quite useful. I had to cut about 10 inches off the handle, as I found it too long and unwieldy to use effectively as it was. It took me a while to develop a good technique with it. I realised after a while that the best method was to work forwards, standing on ground that had been cleared, and chopping and pulling the earth towards me, so that it was easier to sort the weeds from the soil. It's particularly good for creating neat edges. I still need to get a bit more used to it though.

Next jobs are to put in garlic and broad beans (after clearing spaces for them), and creating a strawberry patch. I have sent off for 10 free strawberry plants and a free blueberry bush which are offered in the March issue of Kitchen Garden, but I will try to source a few more from elsewhere as well. I really would like to produce more fruit. I do hope my new raspberries won't suffer too much with raspberry beetle. They are autumn fruiting ones, which seem to be less affected. Oh, and plant the rhubarb. There's so much to do....

More on the New Plot

Here are some more pictures of my new plot - in sunshine this time (still very cold though). I have spent the weekend moving all my useful bits and pieces over there from my old plot, and yesterday bade my final farewells. I met some people who would have been my new neighbours if I'd stayed - they seemed to be making great progress, they have already dug over nearly half the plot.


There was a pile of wood chippings on the new site, which we had been told was for general use, and one of the first things I did when I got up there was fill half my builders bag with them, ready for when I put my raspberries and blackcurrants in, I'm going to use them as a mulch around the fruit.


This area at the very end is the most overgrown part, with nettles, brambles and couch grass in abundance, so this is where I have started to clear first, partly so that I could get my compost bins set up, and also because this is where the fruit bushes will go. It's pretty tough going so far, but I think it will probably get easier as I move further up. I have also sent off for an azada, or Chillington type digging hoe as they're sometimes called. Apparently these are the answer to your prayers. One reviewer claimed that he was able to clear one square metre per minute. Well, I'll believe it when I see it, but I have heard such good things about them that I decided it was worth spending around £10 to find out for myself. The action is very different to how you would use a spade, thus preventing the sore back you would normally expect when digging. You can read about it here.


So this is what I managed to get done today, or most of it anyway, I started on it last week, but today I cleared the area where the compost bins are, and filled them both up, one with almost-done compost, the other with compost-in-progress. All of which I brought with me in numerous bags from the old plot! Well I don't know how much had been added by the previous occupants, and you can never have too much compost can you?

Then I cleared the bit to the right of the bins, where you might be able to see a few sticks poking up - this is where I have planted the comfrey I brought with me. I hope it will be alright - when I tipped the plants out of their pots the soil they were in was frozen solid. I managed to break them into separate pieces and just stuck them in and will just have to hope for the best. They're pretty tough.

And that's about it so far....

I also made 10 jars of marmalade today.

Seed Potatoes

I have just been to buy my seed potatoes. I am a big fan of garden centres where you can buy your seed potatoes loose, that way you can have exactly the quantity you want, the right size and be sure not to get any damaged ones. I got these from Russells Garden Centre in Coventry, and if you are interested in finding a similar one local to you, have a look at this list. I got 10 each of 6 different varieties, which cost about £9.00, - pretty good value I think. The other major advantage is you can get them at exactly the time you want them, rather than being at the mercy of suppliers' sometimes rather erratic delivery procedures, and of course the hopeless postal service.

These are the varieties I chose for this season:
1st earlies - Pentland Javelin, Red Duke of York
2nd earlies - Anya, Charlotte
Mains - Desiree, Cara

I don't know yet whether I'm going to have room for all of these - my new plot is somewhat smaller than my old one, and I haven't quite 'moved in' yet so I haven't been able to go and measure it all out properly. I suppose I could put any leftovers into containers, or give them away.

This week I have begun packing up at my old plot ready for moving to the new one. We are not allowed sheds at the new site, so I will have to find some kind of plastic chest storage. As a consequence I won't be able to bring the water butts either, so they are all staying. Everything else is being moved. I have bagged up the contents of both compost bins and the big compost bag, and rolled up all my bits of netting inside one of the bins. I have dug and potted up three blackcurrant bushes, a couple of comfrey plants which I have split into several new plants, ditto a large rhubarb crown. Most of this I will be able to move by car, once I have been given the go ahead to 'move in' but I plan to borrow a friend with a trailer to help me with the heavier stuff like paving slabs and bags of compost.

In the garden, we had some goldfinches visit a couple of weeks ago, and to entice them back again I have hung up some nyger seed, which seems to have done the trick, they have been back today for a snack. I have had to replace the other seed feeder too, after this naughty squirrel mutilated the last one, pulling out the plug with the percher on so it could hang upside down while the seeds poured into its mouth.

New Allotment

Exciting news!!! I have had a phone call from the Hillmorton Allotment Association to say that a plot has become available. Much sooner than expected! He said there was one definite one, and a couple of other possible ones, so I may even have a choice. I'm meeting him on Saturday morning to have a look, but in the meantime I couldn't resist hot-footing it straight down there as soon as I'd put the phone down. If I have understood him correctly, it is this one:

I hope so as it's right in a corner, like my current one. It is a bit smaller though, but not by too much. The gate on the left appears to lead into someone's back garden. To the left of the gate, out of the picture, is a water butt that comes off the shed in the garden, although the butt is in the allotment. On the bottom left is a strawberry patch, and to the right, a couple of currant bushes. Goodness knows what's in all those bags. I have studied it on Google Earth and established that it faces south lengthways, so apart from a bit of shade at one end first thing in the morning, it will have the sun most of the day.

He said this one would be available in about a month's time, when the present tenant has moved off it. The timing couldn't be more perfect, as the rent is due on my current allotment next month. So that solves my dilemma about whether to own up to having moved. All I have to do now is borrow a friend or relative with a trailer, to help me move all my stuff over there.

It will mean sacrificing my purple sprouting brocolli, and the garlic that I put in in November, but I will make sure I dig up and eat/freeze/give away all the leeks and parsnips that are still in the ground. Luckily I hadn't put any broad beans in yet.

I'm planning to order my greenhouse at the end of January, so double excitement! Looks like I'll be pretty busy in February, I hope the weather will be on my side.