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