April 2008
This months activities have given us new hope of a fantastic summer season to come and many wonderful harvests to be had. Weve also managed to get a great deal done, as well as handle some cosmetic issues while enjoying a few hours of warming sunshine.
We decided to extend our flower bed by about another foot to give us more scope with our floral decorations this year. So we dug out some turf, turned the soil over and edged it, then sowed a mixture of annual and perrenial seeds. These seeds were mainly saved from the flowers we grew last year or what we were able to collect wild from the site, giving it an added bonus of being a potetially pretty and most importantly, absolutely free addition to this years plot.
Our fruit trees planted last month are doing well, producing some blossom and leaves, it was particularly encouraging to find a little ladybird nestled among the forming blossom of one of our apple trees.
We were able to plant our onion and shallot sets in nice long rows, having given them a little more dedicated room to sprawl in this year. We look forward very shortly to seeing some nice green growth from them and hope against hope the blackbirds wont pull too many of them up looking to eat the worms which lie beneath. Occasional watering and regular weeding should hopefully see us an even better crop than 2007, the last remnants of which, we are just starting to use in the kitchen.
The shed underwent its yearly "spruce" in April, consisting of a good sweep out and a lick of paint, as well as some minor repairs following the howling winds earlier in the year. We also added a little more to the hardstanding we laid to set our vehichle on in the first year of our occupancy using some beautiful old tiles which we have an abundance of, courtesy of the plots previous owner.
The fruit crop looks very promising, witht he first flowers and fruits forming on our Goosberry bushes as well as a tangled web of rhubarb which yeilded 23 sticks in its first picking. Our first and most honoured addition to our fruit harvest this year, boding well for our challenge to show the value of allotment/fruit & veg gardening.
Other harvests this month included the last of our purple sprouting borccoli which has yeilded huge crops and copious ammounts of tast brasscia spears to fill our bellies with over the past 2 months.
In more routine jobs, we turned the compost bin from last year and covered the area dedicated to be the pumpkin patch to prevent excessive weed growth in the interim.
Finally, its funny how an allotment can manage to suprise you no matter how fammiliar you might feel you are with it. On inspection of our "Wash Area" (an old cracked and discarded belfast sink fed by one of our water butt's) we found something intriguing growing in the overflow. This rather pretty looking little plant has since been revealed to be Lemonbalm and once pricked out of its rather pricarious home will make a wonderful addition to our herb bed not situated 6 feet from its current location.
