Slacker

I have to admit that I seem to have run out of steam when it comes to the allotment. I really want to get work done on it and make progress but my enthusiasm for the hard work, especially the digging, has come to a complete stop it seems.

Last week I only went down on Thursday to water as it had been really hot all week, I think half the lettuces are dead but we will see as this week so far it's all rain... Sunday I went down for about 2 hours, I managed to dig about 3 widths of the bed, do some hoeing, some weeding and plant up the peppers into bigger pots. Asda have pots big enough for tomato plants for 59p each, I'm off up there again soon for more as I used up all the ones I'd bought and I will have to move the peppers up again (I have 3 in a pot at the moment, I have no idea how big pepper plants grow but judging by the size of peppers I would say I will end up with 2 to a pot maximum), I have some basil plants wanting a tub and hopefully the aubergine seeds will come up. I think I may have to find some shelving for the shed as with all that I'll run out of floor space soon!

The good news of the plot is that everything appears to be growing which is nice, although not as much of it as I hoped, I guess I need to plant more next year to allow for the seeds that don't come up etc. I only have about 3 courgette plants up so far which is worrying, I am hoping for more soon, if I don't see any in the next week or so I will plant some seeds in pots and hope I can get them out and into the ground in time for them to be worthwhile, we eat a lot of courgettes and they're expensive so this was a crop intended to save us money.

Something I have been thinking about is how much room I will need in a garden when we eventually move to grow almost all our own veg. Even thinking about planting things a couple of times a year (onions, cauliflower, cabbage etc) I will need a lot more space than I ever thought. I am going to buy a book on Square Foot gardening soon and I will try it out on the plot next year and maybe over the winter and see what the results are.

We have the Council doing their inspection of the site on Friday and from what I've read my plot doesn't meet standards at all... It's supposed to be 75% cultivated, I am about up to half now, I should be 2 beds further on but there you are... Rubbish is supposed to have been moved off the plot, well Frank said there would be a skip at some point so not to worry about the rubbish so mine is still there waiting. I'm supposed to burn what I can, but my short trips with a toddler in tow and a fear of setting the whole place on fire have prevented that. Finally, my hedge is supposed to be 4 foot high and cut back so that the path to the side of it is clear. I can manage to trim the side but the hedge is probably about 7 foot tall, you can't tell me it grew 3 foot in 1 year surely??? It's the same species as we have in front of our house which is in need of a trim, but until it's dry for a couple of days there's no way I'm out there with the battery powered hedge trimmer, safety first! I am hoping for no rain tomorrow so I can go down and see if anyone else has cut their hedge, it's getting really hard to get down to my plot at the moment as things are so overgrown so it's not just me with the large hedge, I will also see if there's anyone about to ask about whether I should be worried about not meeting regulations, I don't want to be blase about it and get chucked off the site after all my hard work!

Busy Busy Busy

Yesterday was the first day I made it down to the plot after a week of rain and apathy! For some reason I seemed to be very popular yesterday with the other plot holders as well! The man who has the plot next to mine gave me all his old leeks (solid on the inside but I've enough in the freezer now for 2 stews from the outside leaves so not bad) along with some cabbage seedlings and some lettuce seedlings and some seed potatoes he found in his shed! Then the lady who runs the plot shop came along with a tray of large lettuce seedlings for me and promises to hunt down a water butt from one of the empty plots as the rubbish bin I'm using seems to have a hole in it! I couldn't bear to tell her that I had no plans for lettuce on the plot and that I had just planted mine in tubs outside my back door (come and come again plants) so I now have lettuce in the bed that is supposed to have cabbage in it but I'm still digging!

Frank also popped by and was very useful in pointing out what were actually plants rather than weeds! I'd just about given up on the parsnips but he showed me which they are and I have a good few short rows of them growing, I could finally clear up the weeds around them to give them some space which was nice. I also have some leeks coming up, not many but they'll do, and apparently amongst the huge weed patch there are carrots growing!

So, after handling all the visitors and new plants I did manage to get some work done, I dug about another 2 foot of the cabbage bed which is now about 1/3 done. I finally potted up the pumpkin plants into the empty margarine tubs I'd been collecting and planted some aubergine seeds in a tray (Suttons Black Beauty) as I am now down to 1 plant and it's looking a bit ropey. I watered everything in the shed, it's all coming along really well, which panics me a bit as I need to spend more time digging so I can plant it outside!

Outside I planted another 2 rows of carrots (Early Nantes and Purple Dragon), earthed up the second lot of potatoes, edged the pea and bean bed, hoed the beds where I could to clear some weeds out, planted 2 tee pees of runner beans and one side of peas. I'm going to need more runner bean seeds, I'm using Painted Lady by Unwins and I'm only going to have enough for half of 1 more tee pee so I think I will hunt down a different variety. My peas are Unwins Organic Rondo.

I was really enjoying myself but it was after lunchtime and I was starving so I left the plot and came home. Today it looks like rain and I've learnt not to try and do too many heavy days in a row digging as it's counter productive so I will hope that there's no rain tomorrow and we'll head down there and try and get on with the digging. When I've done a few more feet I'm going to plant another 2 rows of the Chard and then plant the cabbage seeds as they will need to grow for a bit and then be transplanted and hopefully by the time they're ready for that the lettuce will be eaten and the chard will form a nice border between the 2 varieties I'm growing.

Really have to get on digging as this month I'm supposed to be getting the Cauliflower and Broccoli in a bed, the pumpkins in and 1 lot of the squash (or both squash depending on how the seedlings are doing) and I'm still working on a bed that should have been dug last month!

I finally got the spring onions in their tub in the back yard yesterday as well, so I think I had a pretty good day! :o)