Following the very dry weather we were expecting our visit to the allotment this week to be unbearably hot, however when we arrived the day was quite cloudy and muggy. The soil was incredibly dry and we prepared ourselves for a mammoth water before the end of the day. One aspect of our visit that was very bright was the Tulips we had planted at the back of the shed which were in full bloom and making a lovely if understated display.
'Bloomin Marvellous'
On inspection of the plot we were very pleased to see our fruit patch looking lush and green, the rhubarb has already doubled in size in a week, the gooseberries have tonnes of flowers and the strawberries are already well on their way to producing their first fruits.
'Tooti Fruiti'
The first job was to harvest some more brocolli which is producing profusley and also gathered some rhubarb for some of our puddings this week. With the leaves we removed from the rhubarb we began another experiement of the year, namely the production of some 'rhubarb waters' as a form of pest control to be used later on in the summer. This involved tearing the leaves and placing them in a bucket with a lid filled with water to steep for a few weeks. When this mixture is a bit more mature we will try (carefully at first) to see if it helps us in controlling insects such as blackfly on our broad beans, which are sure to arrive again this year. We will let you know how this expereriment goes.
A more routine task was some weeding and hoeing to try and keep the soil and early crops as free from interference from these unwanted plants as possible, the beds for the onions, beans and the potato trenches were all weeded and raked back into shape. Whilst hoeing the potato trenches the loose earth produced was then built up on top of the potato mounds to prevent the need for extensive earthing up later. During this we noticed that we had several small sproutings of potato plants just beginning to emerge from the soil, a welcome sign that spring has finally filtered through. We hope the predicted frosts after next weekend do not cause too much damage to our young seedlings in this patch and all over the plot.
'Sprouting Spuds'
We then decided it was time to plant out some of our runner beans, before people start emailing we do know that its very early for such tender crops to be in the ground, but we had unfortunatley sown some too early and they were getting incredibly leggy and thus were only planted out as a test and because we have plenty more seedlings coming up, (we are also eternal optimists). These beans were planted with a handful of paper shreddings and a liberal amount of organic chicken manure pellets to give them a running start, and watered in well.
'Early Beans'
We had a little help later on in the day when a family member helped us to cut the grass all around the plot as well as edging very neatly to help it look almost immaculate and was quite heavy work on a humid day.
'Mown'
The crops towards the back of the plot sown a few weeks ago are progressing well, the radishes which we covered in horticultral fleece last week are strong and in tact. We have also witnessed the germination of some mixed brasicas, salads, beets and carrotts and look forward to watching them grow, some of these newley germinated varieties have also been covered with fleece to protect them in the same way. We were also able to plug a few gaps in the shallot patch where some of the sets we planted a while ago had not germinated. These were filled with new bulbs and hopefully they will be up soon.
'Salads Ahoy'
We attempted as our final task to net off the fruit patch as it seemed to be doing so well. Unfortunatley due to the purchase of some unsuitable netting for the purpose this turned out to be much less successful than we had hoped and we will share the finished results with you when we have completed the endevavour with better materials.