Hey presto! We have plants

Apart from a bit more digging, raking and a general tidy up, most of this afternoon was spent planting up the broad beans. They'd been moved from their old home - a fish tank in the back garden - to their new one in the second bed. There were 27 plants, which made two and a half rows in the bed. A couple of them had become a bit leggy for some reason, and one of the nearby allotmenteers said if he had any plants left over after planting his own beans, we could have a couple to replace the leggy ones.

A woman also said we were welcome to some of her brassica seedlings, as she had far more than she needed - broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, savoy cabbage. This is interesting, because we'd tried to grow our own seedlings of those, but every time they got an inch or two high, they'd suddenly wither and die. So we might take her up on her kind offer.

We've had more thoughts about the area next to the first two beds, which is behind the shed, and instead of two more beds, we've decided to put a fruit section in the middle of the area (apparently soft fruit bushes can cope with some shade) then fence off a small rectangle by the boundary fence, which we can grass over as an area for the dogs, and a sitting area for us.

In the meantime, Malcolm has been using a website that encourages people to recycle things they don't want by passing them onto people that can use them. We're going to see if we can find anything useful for the allotment, such as wooden pallets (great for making big compost bins), odd bits of wood, a gate for our fenced section, and so on.

Weather and time allowing, tomorrow we're hoping to fill the empty part of the broad beans bed with garlic, do some more digging for the fruit patch, and plant some of our fruit bushes in their more permanent home.

Bed Number 2

Weather-wise the perfect day for gardening - dry and sunny with a slight breeze. Give or take a few tea breaks, we spent 7 hours digging! This means we were able to finish off the second bed and mark it out, then dig half of the next two beds. Fewer couch/bindweed roots but lots more brambles to dig up, so still hard going. Both hardly able to bend our backs by the time we got home!

The skip has finally been taken away. Got our key to the back gate, which means we can take the dogs onto the park next door when we bring them. Hopefully we'll be able to finish the next two beds tomorrow, and get some plants in the second bed.

First bed done - spuds in!

Didn't get down to the allotment till late afternoon today, so didn't spend as much time as we wanted there. It had only rained a little in the morning, but by the afternoon there was a heavy black sky and it was very, very humid, so you got soaked with sweat from doing hardly anything! Marked out the first bed with wooden pegs and strings, we had decided to go for raised beds 1.25m wide. This one is 3.5m long, and we've put in potatoes - a row of first earlies (Red Duke of York) and a row of second earlies (Wilja). (The maincrop Desiree ones will have to go in another bed when one's available.)

Carried on digging and picking out couch/bindweed roots, and there's almost enough dug out now for the second bed. The broad beans will probably get this one, they're already quite tall and nearly bursting out of their toilet-roll plant pots.

One of the older blokes on site offered us the onion sets he had left over, which I thought was nice. A woman allotmenteer who we sometimes see with her dog, has agreed to get us a copy of the key for the back gate cut - which is right next to our plot, and opens directly onto the park! Great for when we take the dogs to the allotment, they can go for a run when we have a break.

Back at the makeshift greenhouse (the kitchen window) things are growing well, and even the sweetcorn have sprouted. The courgettes and pumpkins are growing very quickly and almost taking over, though it looks like something might be starting to eat the leaves.. oh dear..

Digging the scene..

At long last a day without rain - in fact, a very warm, sunny day and we both came home with red glowing faces and arms! Spent the afternoon digging soil and picking out perennial weed roots. Managed to dig a good sized rectangle - doesn't look much when you see the overall size of the plot, but it's plenty for our first bed. We plan to mark it out tomorrow. A bloke came over and talked about us joining the allotment society for our site, though I'm still not sure what that entails, and hope we don't have to become grumpy retired old men to join. Still got a massive heap of cut-down brambles and dug-up bramble roots to burn, but everytime we set light to a batch it seems to upset someone or it rains. So I have a feeling it's going to take a lot longer to get rid of the pile than we expected. Never mind, all going well we'll be able to stick our first veggies in the ground tomorrow - Hooray!

Rain rain rain..

Frustrating - dying to get back to carry on with more digging, but yesterday it rained, which put paid to that. Today it's been raining non-stop, and quite heavily, so even if we did go later on, it would be like paddling in a mud bath. Not ideal conditions for digging! The plants we've potted up at home are rapidly becoming a jungle, and need transplanting very soon. I can't remember ever having as much rain as we've had this year.

First Trench

Parents were down for the Easter weekend, so only managed to work on the allotment one day. Finally made a start on the digging! Not helped by the sheer number of huge bramble roots to dig up, and having to remove all the couch grass roots by hand as we go. But at least it's a start, and hopefully we'll have our first bed ready soon. Hoping we'll be able to do a few hours during the week to make up for any lost time.

Crunch corner

Only able to do one day at the allotment this weekend, after entertaining the 'in-laws' yesterday. Concentrated on digging up the rest of the buried rubbish and glass. We were doing really well until a torrential downpour got us soaked through and we had to give up. Still a corner of the rubbish tip area left to dig, with yet more broken glass in thick layers under the surface, but with the added bonus of a thick covering of couch grass on top. Joy!

Sunny Sunday

A late start but a late finish, on another sunny afternoon/evening. And thanks to the woods next to the plot, we seemed to be the only place in the area not suffering strong winds! Carried on digging out the rubbish pit - bad news for my back and my ankles again - though I seem to have got quite a bit done this time. Sadly still some left to dig. Malcolm concentrated on raking over the area where he'd hacked down the brambles, which made the whole plot seem a big step nearer to that digging stage!

Meanwhile, nearly all the seeds in the kitchen have sprung to life, especially the garlics, courgettes and pumpkins! Only the broad beans haven't sprouted yet. Outside the fruit bushes are already started to grow leaves, and will need to be planted properly as soon as possible.

Seeing the light

Well despite the weather forecasts for heavy rain, it turned out to be dry and sunny and the nicest day for weeks! Spent a hard-working afternoon on the plot. Malcolm was trying out our new toy - a long armed sickle thing, which did wonders with the brambles. And I carried on digging out the buried rubbish and glass at the top of the plot. The skip is still there, thankfully, so there's somewhere to put the broken glass that's buried layer-upon-layer under about 6 inches of soil, and the plastic bags full of rubbish that go down nearly 2 feet under the surface! It's a painfully slow job to clear, and so I only got about half of it done today. On the other hand, a huge area of brambles has been hacked down and reduced to a pile ready to burn. Suddenly the plot looks much more manageable, which lifts the spirits a bit!