More planting...

Forgot to take a camera, so no photos but Nat and I went over to the allotment today, so I thought I'd post an update.

We planted the next batch of potatoes - Maris Piper (maincrop) - next to the first batch. And we also planted some onions in the area nearest the gate, next to the spring onions and leeks.

We also made a fair bit of progress on digging the next area, near where the path bends round the bramble. We think we'll split the bed and put tall stuff like sweetcorn on the side nearest the path, and maybe something like lettuces in the bed furthest from the path. Interestingly we didn't find any more signs of potatoes in that bed, so maybe that will be a good place to plant potatoes next year.

We also took some junk (including the very rusty green barrel and the old metal gate) down to the tip, which should tidy things up a bit. Oh, and Nat put the carpet down on the area near the orchard, so hopefully that will keep things at bay until we get there.

Maybe one of us will take some photos tomorrow anyway...

First planting

A couple of weeks ago, we were given a redcurrant bush, which has now gone in the middle of the soft fruit area. A few of the plants down there are beginning to sprout leaves, and they look a bit like raspberries, which'd be nice. There were also rumours of gooseberries, but no evidence as yet.

Thanks to various ad-hoc digging expeditions, the first area is now mostly dug over and de-rooted, so it's time to put some things in!

The area nearest the camera has got seed potatoes in, Second Early Maris Piper to be precise.

The area on the far left has leek and spring onions seeds in rows at interesting angles. The rest is only roughly dug, and not so thoroughly weeded yet.

Jeremy bought some other seed potatoes too, which are mostly being chitted (put them in the light, in the cool and wait for the sprouts to reach a few inches or so) in our garden shed. The Maris Piper earlies already had decent sprouts on them, so we thought they were worth planting.

We filled a few seed trays with compost too today, and put seeds in: brussels sprouts, carrots, lettuce, broccoli and parsnips.

That just leaves the remaining seeds as courgettes (plant Apr-Jun), Sweetcorn (Apr-May), the coloured dwarf beans (Apr-Jun), Spinach (Mar-Sep), and the other lettuce (Apr-Jul). There are also some more carrot seeds, so they can be planted in a few weeks, to get a 2nd crop.

Finally, having heard how hard onions are to grow from seed, we bought some onion sets. They're not in yet, but some time in the next couple of weeks would be good...

The plan

We looked at all the seeds we got from Paul, and chose the ones that were in date and that we fancied eating - so no peas (Jeremy's veto).

We then put together a plan of what could go where, missing out the patches of really tough weeds that can wait for later in the year.

The story so far...

The original state of the allotment - weeds 6' high. Jeremy and Nat tackled them with a hired strimmer.









The first harvest! Cheating really, but the apples were unpicked and at the end of their season when we took over the allotment.











Digging over the first section of ground, ready for planting.











We spotted a pile of wood chippings at the entrance to the allotments, and created a passable path with them.

So far, we've been burning the weeds in an incinerator that we found on Freecycle, rather than composting them, which would run the risk of the seeds surviving.