The apple tree is in bloom! The raspberries and redcurrants are also looking good, although we need to do some structural work to the soft fruit cage - it's all sagging at the moment.




Nat's Grandad gave us a tray of seedlings - lettuce and two (possibly) types of cabbage.






The lettuces under cloches. We had great trouble clipping the ends into the cloches, but we got there in the end.






Nat's Grandad also gave us a ridger, which will come in very handy for the potatoes! Here's Nat trying it out in his Grandad's back garden.




In other (non-pictorial) news - the fenugreek has sprouted, as have the potatoes and the onion sets. The seeds at home are looking good too - the courgettes are now in their own pots, and about 6" high each. The sweetcorn didn't like being puts into separate pots so much, but it's also about 6" high. The "purple queen" beans are about 8" high.

I've started off a 2nd batch of sweetcorn, some tomato seeds and some tarragon. That was a week ago, and no signs of life yet, but it's early days there.

In the back garden seed trays, the carrots finally sprouted, as did the 2nd lot of lettuce, after the first batch failed to do anything at all. There are also a few broccoli and brussels sprouts seedlings visible.

The indoor seeds have (mostly) sprouted now - courgettes, sweetcorn (top shelf) and purple beans (bottom shelf). The yellow beans (middle shelf) haven't shown any signs of doing anything yet, so I've left them wrapped up for now.

I've read that the next step is to move them into individual pots. I've got quite a few of those, from Freecycle, so that's a job for after the weekend - or earlier if anyone else fancies a go!

Life!

Things are beginning to spring into life! (above - apple trees, right - raspberry canes)


Also this weekend, Simon & Ellie dug a new bed and planted it up with Fenugreek, a green fertiliser which should be good for the soil.






Some of the weed roots we dug up...

Sunshine and snow

We had sunshine and snow during a satisfying session of digging and weeding on Sunday 6th. And I had very sore muscles the next day!

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.