I put some Florence fennel seed in on Monday. I will put some flower seeds on the other side of the apple tree because I grew lettuce around here last year and I don’t want to plant any in this area this year. 

I gave the apple tree a good pruning back during the winter.  It had canker in some of its branches.  I hope that I have not taken off too many fruiting spurs.  

 The peas are growing really well now.  I am putting them back into the greenhouse every night and bringing them back out with the runner beans every morning.  Most of the peas are about 10cm tall and ready to be planted out in the allotment.  I will probably plant them on the new allotment because I am running out of land on the old one.  I am leaving the lettuce out all night but it has suffered a bit particularly when it hailed on Monday.  After pinching out the growing bud of the runner beans they have all sent up two side shoots and are getting bigger now.  I will have to plant them out whether I like it or not if they continue to grow at this rate.  They are in individual pots so I am not worried about them becoming root bound but I hate it when they start to grow up each other.  

A lot of the sweet peas have two side shoots growing well now.  Again, if they continue growing at this rate I will have to plant them out on the allotment.  They are fairly hardy plants so I doubt if this will harm them even if there is a frost. 

We are just cooking our first winter cauliflower.  It was not very big - about 15cm in diameter, but it smells really good.  Cauliflower cheese…  

I will be going down to the allotment tomorrow because I am off work due to local elections.  I will try to finish digging the new allotment, plant the pea seedlings, maybe plant some lettuce, level the slabs for the shed, plant some flower seeds in between the vegetables.  They are supposed to be general companion plants - poached egg plant, cornflower, poppy, and several more that I can’t remember.  If nothing else they will make the allotment look a little more colourful.�

 I mowed the back lawn yesterday and bagged up the mowings to take down to the allotment.  I also emptied last years dwarf tomato containers into the bags.  I was debating what to do with this soil because last year the tomatoes died from blight. 

 I did not want to put the container soil where potatoes or tomatoes were going to be grown.  I am using it to mulch the sweet peas with.  I took the sweet peas, runner beans, lettuce and peas out of the green house and left them on the patio to harden off.  I put them back in the green house last night primarily because the mice will eat them if I leave them out. 

Went down the allotment thinking I would put the carrots in and spent all my time digging the top third of the allotment.  I did about 1/2 of it but will need to carry on today if I am going to get it finished.  I really need to get my carrots and beetroot in this weekend if I can. 

Robins, thrushes and blue tits are nesting in the garden.  The sparrow hawk has taken the male blackbird again.

I have now cleared the top third of the new allotment but I have not dug all of it over.  I have been skim digging which means that you skim off the weeds with about 1″ of top soil and put it at the bottom of the trench as you dig.  I find it is a really quick way of clearing ground.  The problem is that you have taken the allotment level down in one part and built it up in another.  So I decided to use some turf that was left on the allotment site to put into the trenches when there was no more weed to bury.  I might have overdone the turf a little because the level of the allotment has gone up about 6″ now. 

No one else seems to want the turf so I will carry on until there is none left.  It is not very good turf anyway.  Mostly a clay top soil with lots of weeds in the turf. 

The reason I didn’t finish digging was that I wanted to get my carrots and beetroot seed planted.  I have these new fly away varieties of carrot - Unwins one is called something different but almost the same.  I hoed, use the three pronged cultivator and finally the rake to break down the soil and make a tilth.  Pegged out the line and used the back of the rake to make a 1″ drill into which I could put the seed.  I watered the drill with comfrey liquid and then dribbled some mychorrhiza along it as well.  Seed went in next.  I covered the drills with soil using the rake.  I put in two lines of carrots and then watered the rows.  I covered the carrot seed rows with enviromesh - some that I have had for over ten years now so it has really paid for itself.  I put in old plastic closh supports to hold up the enviromesh.   So hopefully no carrot fly can get to my carrots and lay their eggs. 

Did the same procedure for the beetroot - except no enviromesh.   Next to go in will be the Florence fennel. 

Bit achy after all that digging but quite pleased I got some seed in.�

I went up the allotment today and there were only a few people up there.  I decided to plant some seed because it was so warm.  I planted some lamb’s lettuce, spinach and radish seed.  There is enough room here for some of the lettuce still in the green house. 

They came to fix the tap today but it seems that the tap fixing seems to have cracked along its length.  I will have to see if I can find one of these. 

Lots of weed seeds are germinating.  I will have to make sure the hoe is sharpened this weekend.  At the weekend I am going to level the slabs for the shed, dig over the top end of the new allotment, and probably plant some more peas.  I will prick out the sweet corn, winter cauliflowers, tomatoes - two varieties, lettuce and the camomile. I will plant the pumpkins and some more lettuce seeds.�

Well, I went up to the allotment after work and it was the best thing I could have done today.  The tap between Eric and my allotment is broken so I told several committee members that I had turned off the water.  I hope that no one decides to turn it on again or we will have a permanent fountain and stream between the allotments. 

As I got to the allotment I saw a myriad of people and wondered why there were so many there.  Then I realised that a load of horse muck had been delivered.  I decided to get some and put it under the bean canes as a mulch to keep the weeds off. 

There was a shed for sale on the allotment and I should have gone for it but it was £100 and that is a bit steep for something that is going to be vandalised as soon as I put it up.  I am hoping that Phil will bring an old one down that no one will bother with.  The trouble is that now that there are a lot of people who are working allotments, there is more demand for cheap tools.  There is a danger of loosing the lot from the shed.  An old and dilapidated shed will not stick out and attract nutters to break in.  Hopefully… 

Temperature was 18^oC at 4’oclock today and that was pleasantly warm.  I felt like planting some seed but food beckoned me home.    

Tagetes got knocked hard back by those cold north easterly winds.

Lettuce, peas and rocket doing well on the old allotment. Bean and sweet pea canes on the new allotment.  You can see the amount of stone on the comfrey bed.  This used to be the carpark.

Its not the cold that causes the damage it is the north easterly wind.  It was biting up the allotment yesterday and today. 

 I dug over a third of the new allotment.  The soil is quite good in places but in others it is just clay.  It needs a lot of working to get it as good as my other allotment’s soil. 

I have taken all the broccoli out now.  It was still flowering but the pigeons had stripped them so badly there was little left.  The netting did not deter them enough.   There was very little whitefly on them.  It would seem that aspirin did keep the whitefly off the brassicas.  Usually at this time there are clouds of whitefly around them.   The plants were about 4′ high so disposing of them was more of a problem that usual.  I did not want to bury them just in case they had club root so I bagged them up and took them home.  They are now in the green bin ready for recycling. 

I put up the sweet pea sticks ready to put the sweet peas out.  Several sweet pea seedlings have formed very good side shoots already, after having pinched the growing tip out of each one.   I am restricting each plant to two side shoots.  Any more and it takes food away from flower production.  I have decided to mulch the sweet peas with last year’s tomato compost.  I did not want to use it for anything else because all the tomatoes died of blight and the spores could have fallen onto the compost.  I just need some strong big plastic bags to take it down to the allotment.  I think that I will use the seed compost bags and then when I have emptied them, I will fill them with rubbish from the new allotment and bring that home to put into bin.

 I pricked out some more aubergines and Brussels sprouts but I did not want any more.  It is always good to do too many so you can give some away.  I makes for really good relationships with fellow gardeners and for very little effort or expense on your part.  I would have only thrown them onto the compost heap if I hadn’t pricked them out. 

I think that last year 20th April was the hottest day of the year.  About 70^o F if I remember.   I was expecting it to be the same this year as well but obviously it isn’t.  I have a greenhouse full of seedlings that could be put out if the temperature was a little warmer.  Not to worry.  I have just stopped planting seed in the greenhouse for the moment.   The soil is far too wet and cold at the allotment - so same there as well.

I cut off the tendrils  because they are not needed by the plant and just take energy away from flower production.  Little seedlings like mine do not have many tendrils yet and those that do are very small so no need to cut them off.  They will form on the bigger leaves I think and all of these will be taken off.  I tie up the sweet peas on the strings with garden wire.  It does not take as long as you might think. 

The year before last I tried winding the sweetpeas around the string as I do with the tomatoes.  Big mistake.  When the sweet peas have reached the top of the string you need to layer them down so they can grow up another string.  Unwinding the sweet peas was impossible.  I just had to let them go and did not disbud or cut of tendrils any more.  It made a massive head full of little flowers.

Last night was cold with a frost but everything at the allotment seemed to be surviving.  Greenhouse seedlings are all fine.  I think we will get another cold night tonight because there is an east wind and the sky is clearing again. 

I NEED SOME WARMTH…

It was boiling this time last year.

Just been out pinching out the growing tip buds of the sweet peas.  No more damping off thank heavens.  After the second leaf I take out the growing tip to encourage two good buds lower down to grow.  You get much better flowers from these side shoots than you get if you let the leader grow on. 

I am going to grow cordon sweet peas this year. I do not have enough canes to grow them up although they are probably the best things to use. I am going to set up the rows in a similar way to my runner beans with two rows of canes tied at the top with a horizontal cane to keep them in place. This is attached to a post at each end.With the sweet peas I am going to run strings from the horizontal top cane to the ground (plus a bit to bury). I will put some vertical canes every 3′ on both sides of the row.  When I plant the sweet peas I will plant the string under them. I have done this several times and the string never pulls out. In fact it is quite difficult to get the string out at the end of the season because the sweet pea roots have grown around it. It looks better if you keep the string fairly taught.I only use nylon string because ordinary string will rot off.

Last year I grew sweetpeas and they were very good indeed.  I watered them every week with a weak comfrey liquid.  One of the allotment holders near me said that her dad used to grow championship sweet peas using only comfrey liquid and I can believe her. 

It is getting cold again tonight so I will not be watering.  I like to keep my seedlings just damp so that I do not get any more damping off. 

I planted the lettuce and the peas adding a little mychorrhizal fungi.  I watered them in with a little comfrey.  I will spray them with the aspirin today.  It is easier if I mix it up in warm water at home than try to do it at the allotment. 

I watered in the rest of the snail and slug predator nematodes but only in places where I know they congregate.  I expect that they will find the veg. but in much reduced numbers. 

I have put some chicken wire around the peas and then netted them so that the mice and rats cannot get at them. 

The pigeons have been having a right go at my purple sprouting and winter cauliflowers.  One little - 6 cm in diameter cauliflower has come.  Not really what I am expecting but if the pigeons are stripping off all the leaves maybe that is what we will get from the others too.  A lot of effort for very little reward I think. I renetted them again and hope to pick a lot off today. 

I didn’t plant the tagetes yesterday and I think that I will today. I planted my early rocket in the ground.  Last year I planted in pots in the greenhouse but I don’t think that it is necessary.  I want to plant some early lambs lettuce and spinach too. If the ground is taken up then I will plant some in pots in the greenhouse and bring them on until I have some ground to put them in.   I am really amazed how many seeds there are in Italian packets than English packets of seeds.  I have thousands of radish and rocket seeds.  I may get all my seeds from the Italians next year. 

I am going to dig over a little more of the new allotment because there are weed seedlings growing all over it.  It just needs a little turning over. 

Another of my sweet peas has dampened off.  Fungi have attacked the base of the stem and it has keeled over.  I don’t want to loose any more.

I was going to take some pictures but I forgot so I will make sure that I do today.

Guess what, this time I forgot the camera.  Still I planted all the tagetes and there were quite a few.  I put  mychorrhizal fungi in the planting holes. 

The garlic still seems to be sickly and some of the leaves are broken.  Classic signs of eelworm infestation.  Remarkably the winter onions seem to have perked up a little bit.  I hoed, cultivatored and raked this area again to keep the weed off. 

I went down to the new allotment and dug a 12′ area across the allotment.  I think that I might put leeks into this area.  The top part of the new allotment might be an area where I put the maize.  I worked from about 3 o’clock to 8 o’clock.  About 5 hours work.  Where does the time go to?Â

The plants in the greenhouse all got a dose of the slug predator nematode.  The theory behind this is, the area around the base of each plant I put out is where I want the highest concentration of nematodes to be. 

 Also the tender plants that have been in the greenhouse will be the ones that the slugs and snails will be attracted to first.  With any luck the slugs and snails will be infected by nematodes in the compost when they attack these plants. I am putting out the February sown lettuce and peas today.  Two types of plants that slugs and snails love to eat.  Therefore, these will also be getting a spray of aspirin as well.  I think this can be described as belts and braces. 

I may well be disappointed but I am going to put the plug tagetes out as well. I have not dosed these with nematode because I think that their root exudates deter nematodes.  I will spray them with aspirin though to make sure they produce whatever it is that deters onion eelworm.  The tagetes will be planted by the garlic and the onions. 

The February sown onions are coming on well but they are still too small to put onto the allotment.  I will let them grow on a bit in the greenhouse.  Now that I have taken out the lettuce and the peas there is a little more room. 

 I have already pricked out about 16 Revenge F1 Brussels sprouts into individual pots.  There is no use in putting mychorrhizal fungi in with these seedlings because they will not make an association with brassica roots. 

I also pricked out 9 sweet corn seedlings.   Remarkably the cucumbers are still struggling on and some of them have produced second leaves - always a good sign.  The runners are doing well and now are producing good side shoots after I took out the leading bud.  This will slow them down so that I do not have to plant them out when there is still a danger of frost. 

Two of my sweet peas have died.  First time that has happened.  They have rotted off at the base.  I removed them straight away and are in my compost bag for the allotment.  The sunshine is quite bright at the moment and there is a possibility that I can plant some more seed in the allotment.�

When is the weather going to change and get warmer.  It is colder now than in January and February.  Remarkably the seelings in the greenhouse are still surviving. I am keeping them very dry - hopefully not too dry.  I think that I have seen the last of the cucumber seedlings.  I will resow these next weekend. 

The tagetes plugs came on Tuesday.  I put these straight into the greenhouse and they seem to be surviving at the moment. 

I need warmth.  This cold weather is not doing my head cold any good either. 

I went up to the allotment today but there was nothing notable happening up there except for a very cold wind. 

I planted some hyacinths near the darlek under the plum tree.  Bought some rhubarb home.  This is the first pick of the year.�