Lots of seedlings growing very nicely

So here are my seedlings which are all doing really well expecially as most of them were in a greenhouse which blew over and the seeds and seedlings were scraped up and repotted!!A tray of mixed lettuce and rocket seedlings - these will be planted in the allotment when they are a bit bigger and I grow cut and come again in the greenhouse

Courgettes - 4 varieties and I will grow 2 of each and give the rest away to friends

Sweetcorn - First time I've got Sweetcorn to germinate - I had to buy plants last year

Basil - Cinamen - I'm also growing Lemon and Spice

My biggest Cucumber so far - some rotted so I have various different sizes and 2 varieties - Marketmore, which I grew last year and were fantastic and Bedfordshire Prize which I have been a bit disappointed with the germination rate

Peppers - Sweet and Chilli - quite slow to get going. I'm still eating my last years Chilli's, which I froze and like to chop one into small slices and add to and omlett....Delicious

More tomatoes

Some of my many Tomatoes

Parsnip experiment update....

Of all three experiments mentioned earlier I have not had 1 seed germinate!!!! I'm putting this down to the fact that the seeds were best before 01/2010, but on the plus side my son got given a packet of new seeds by his grandparents so I'm planning to nick some of his and plant them straight into the ground!

Today I dug up a Fox!!!!!!!

Today I was planting my new strawberry plants in a part of the allotment that I had dug over on Saturday. Well I thought I would give a small area a quick dig over and this is what I dug up!!!! A fox cub and it was pretty disgusting I can tell you. So how did it get there? Was it buried by an adult fox, a fellow allotmentier or did someone plant a fox seed some time ago and it has grown this big so far?

Parsnip Experiment

Having read an interesting chitting post on another blog I have been reading a lot about parsnips having never grown them before. It seems that parsnips can only be grown from fresh seed and that they take forever to germinate hence the fascination with chitting. So having read lot's of different ideas I have decided to try two of those ideas and one idea of my own. Trial A has seen me get a plastic container from the re-cycling and cover the bottom with damp kitchen roll, spread the seeds on the top and then mist the seeds and cover with clingfilm. These seeds have then been placed in my conservatory on the sill above the radiator (this is my very best germination spot). Trial B was to get a clear sandwich box and again cover the bottom with moist kitchen roll, spread the seeds on the top and then place the lid on the sandwich box and then place in the airing cupboard. Then Trial C is an idea I got from plan B, you see although parsnip seeds need to be fresh you still get 300 per packet! So you get a lot left over to experiment with and so I have decided that I will try to germinate some in my sprouter. I usually use this for growing mung beans so I thought why not try parsnips. The seeds are currently soaking overnight and will then go in the sprouter on a tear below some mung beans. Will it work? Find out when I bring the results in about a weeks time.

First Earlies & Gordon

And here are the spuds all laid out like tombstones!

I was almost to the end of planting them all when a voice called out "still a bit wet ain't it?" which made me jump out of my skin! I'm sure the old boys up at the allotment do this for a laugh as it gets me everytime. This time it was Gordon. He has a full allotment one down and one across from mine. I'd never met him before and it was very nice to meet him I must say. He is 81 years old and has had an allotment on this site for 50 years this year!! I say an allotment because he told me he used to have 3 full plots at one time but now was down to just one full plot because of ill health. He seemed pretty fit and healthy to me and was there to pick some rhubarb for a crumble. We chatted for ages and I could feel the wind starting to get up and the sky was beginning to darken. Each time I tried to get back to plant my last few spuds, and the garlic I had also bought up, Gordon would tell me another veggie story until eventually he said "you won't get much done now in this weather" and nipped off home with his rhubarb. About a minute before it started poring down with rain. I finished planting my spuds and garlic in record time before a massive storm began. I dived in the shed for shelter and laughed at how I was shaw Gordon must be laughing at me in the rain.

You certainly meet some characters down at the allotment and they all swear like bleedin' troopers too!!! ;-)

First Earlies & Gordon

As it rarely ever stops raining these days I decided to get up to the allotment early on Saturday morning because I had my first early potatoes plant - Maris Bard, Charlotte and Jersey Royals. I will probably grow a main crop as well later. Anyway here they are nicely chitted and ready to plant.

Seed sowing and Freebies

My plan today was to spend all afternoon at the allotment, digging and planting up my 1st early potatoes but at it has been raining in sunny Berkshire for about 24 hours these plans were well and truly scuppered! During the past week I have been sowing more seeds, carrots, spring onions, peppers, chillies and cucumbers all grown in either pots or modules. However despite the awful weather today I did get some good news - my free dig in seeds arrived, basil, salad, carrot, french bean and courgette which I will so a few of each this year. I also got my free daily mail strawberry plants, six lovely healthy plants.

Frozen...Tomatoes...Rhubarb

Today the weather looked fantastic from inside the house so with great enthusiasm I went up to the allotment this morning only to find that the ground was completely frozen! So no digging and it was still frozen when I left at midday, apparently it was -6c last night! Still I had my nicely dug potato beds under cover so was able to get a fork in there and so transplanted my rhubarb into the end of that bed and had a general clear up.

Then I came home to sow my tomato seeds, last year I grew hundreds because I had found lots of packets that were about 5 years out of date and they nearly all germinated! This year I limited myself, I had 7 varieties, Tumbling Tom, Gardeners Delight, Golden Sunrise, Marmande, Tigerella, Alicante and Moneymaker. I sowed 6 seeds of each except Tumbling Tom as I only had 2 seeds so we shall see how many germinate this year. I grew all these last year except Tumbling Tom and they all did well except Marmande where they were a bit pulpy. Personally I have never found a tomato to my taste so have to rely on my wife to eat them all and pass comment.

Onions...and digging

On Thursday I really felt it was time to plant something and I am always impatient at this time of year so the onions had to go in! I had bought them a couple of weeks ago from Aldermaston Nursery. Everyone up at the allotment had recommended it and it was brilliant. 63 different varieties of potato and you could by one of each if you wanted. I bought 3 varieties of early new potatoes. Jersey Royal (although there not from Jersey so are called something else), Charlotte (because my mate Willo has a little girl of the same name) and Maris Bard (because they looked nice!). Anyway the lady at the Nursery was a great help with my choices so I bought garlic, which is now in pots, and 3 different types of onions. I bought Red Baron, because I grew them last year and they were fantastic and made the best bacon and onion rolls I have ever tasted. I also bought Centurian, because I liked the look of them, and just for fun I bought Stuttgart Giant, because I used to work for Porsche and visited Stuttgart once. One day I will hopefully pick my choices on what grows and tastes the best!

And then today I promised Adam that we would sort out his raised beds so 2 hours were spent digging an area only about 10ft by 4ft. The soil was really bad, covered in weeds and strawberry plants, so I decided to de-root and weed and then cover in a weed suppressant membrane and then fill the raised beds with compost. We, hopefully, will fill tomorrow and then he can start his planting.

Garlic...

My Garlic was beginning to rot so I have planted them in pots and will plant them out when the soil drys out a bit

Pictures...

The Beginning....

So I took over the plot in late September 2009 when the ground was hard, compacted and the allotment was covered in weeds. You couldn't get a fork in the ground back then so it was a case of just clearing. I also acquired a shed for free which has been nicely painted and patched up my my wife Michelle and 8 year old son Adam. I started to dig as soon as the ground got a bit softer, the only thing is it has barely stopped raining or snowing since then. To one end of the plot we have fruit bushes, gooseberry, raspberry, black current along with strawberry's everywhere! They will all need sorting out once I've dealt with the couch grass and other weeds. I haven't actually planted anything yet but as you can see from these photos some progress has been made.