Toast!

Saturday night was world book night and having applied for some copies of Nigel Slaters Toast to give out at the allotment that's what I did this weekend! I spent both Saturday and Sunday at the allotment and did loads of digging. More than I have ever done to be honest and now I ache like hell. A day off and 20 miles on a mountain bike in Friday didn't help either! Anyway a cold but sunny weekend provided perfect digging weather and I dug my onion and bean plot and my potato plot - just the middle bit to do! I also got given an incinerater and a couple of garlic bulbs so I burnt the shed and planted the garlic!

Also planted a row of Red Baron Onions (too impatient to wait any longer) - have also sown my peppers chillies and tomatoes in the conservatory this weeked.

Big Banana Peppers!

Just ordered some of these peppers....Mr Grumpy from the allotment grew some last year and they were huge.

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!!! ;-)