Pushing up the daisies

On Saturday I did something that was approaching insanity. My kid had to go to a rugby tournament and he had to be at the stadium at 6.45 am. Yes you read that right. "Sparrow's fart" as my friend Sandra would call it.I dropped him off and then instead of crawling back to bed, I went to the allotment. And spent 3 hours working, mostly unaccompanied except by birdsong and the sunrise. It was glorious. I should do it more often. I took some pics (bad ones again with the portable phone), and then set out to do the following:

• Tidy the edges, digging out dandelion and scraping earth back onto the plot.
• Weeding the peas, uncovering their netting and letting them grow in the fresh air. They are now big enough not to interest birds.
• Sowing a row of beetroot, a patch of rocket and two rows of green beans, one row of drying beans (end of a packet) and some yellow butter, or wax beans.
• Moving around some chive plants that are getting a little invasive on the paths.
• Cleaning the paths a little.
• Earthing spuds.
• Planting some lettuce plants and transplanting some marigolds here and there.
• Netting the gooseberries, a little sloppily but I WANT THAT FRUIT this year. They are full of tiny berries.

It was a wonderful morning, but tiring, and in the next couple of weeks, I need to have almost all the season's crops in the ground, namely the tomatoes, melons, courgettes, corn and squash. So I still have a large section to dig over and weed (about 4 x 2.5metres) and also uncover and dig over the 3 sisters patch which is currently covered to prevent weeds.
I took a couple of pics, not terribly clear...

This shows the rhubarb in the foreground, and the few flowers that surrounds it, and behind, the herb bed, with lemon balm, thyme on the left, mint behind that, sage to the far right, andparsley everywhere else. There are a couple of rose bushes here and there too. The artichoke can be seen in the bed opposite. The bessa concrete blocks are for the water tanks that are being installed - not on my plot next but one will go behind mine, to save water.

This one shows the plot from the far end, I am standing near the strawberries, so you can see the potatoes on the left and the onions on the right. The peas are netted here but just after I took the pic, they were un-netted and weeded. I also planted some lettuces next to them, where there was a blank space.
You can also see my shop-bought cold frame and the home-made one on the left. Still, they work...

And here, I am a couple of plots down and the plot with the orange roof tiles along the edge is mine. This year it is looking really good (well compared to some previous years!). Gives you a look at our plots (see today's other post).

Labels: lettuce, peas, potato, spring, tidying