A dry day at last!!!

I've been so rubbish at keeping this blog this year! :-( I've still been planting stuff.... It's been so horrible for weeks though. And then of course there was my wedding! But finally we have a dry day and we've been able to spend some time at the allotment :-)

The potatoes we planted a few weeks back are finally starting to peek through. I did wonder whether they would survive living in the swimming pool they were in when I visited them last week!

And just to show you the potato patch before it turns into a weed patch like the rest of my allotment....!

This is supposed to be my onion patch....

Look! There are definitely onions in there somewhere!

My other onion patch is even worse:

We planted the last of them today - this is what the rest of it should look like:

Weeding will have to wait for another day though.... Too much to do!

We covered the top section of the plot so hopefully we'll be able to use this section next year....

We put up the netting for the peas and planted our first lot out. I've got three lots of peas on the go at different stages of development so hopefully we'll have a decent supply of these later in the year....

I've planted a few varieties of carrots, spring onions and lettuce in my raised beds, leaving some room for more in a few weeks.....

And an overall view of the plot.... I really need another few dry days so I can get on top of those weeds. Otherwise I'm not going to have any room for my runner beans! Or sweetcorn... Or pumpkins and courgettes.... Or broccoli.... Oh dear! I'd better get a move on!

I'll show you some of the new additions to the garden at home in the next few days. I'm quite excited! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Nearly Halloween....

And my pumpkins are ready!!!!

Once I took down my dodgy broccoli cage and the sun could get to them they turned orange in a couple of days!  If I make anything yummy with them or the kids carve them I'll take some more piccies to show you.....

The bean structure has finally come down now... Look at all the weeds it hid! Still got to take down my pea wigwams....

My potato patch is starting to grow weeds again already! Eek! What to do? Any suggestions what to do with it over the winter????

I've throughly weeded and dug over my broccoli and pumpkin patch and added a load of compost.  Not sure whether this is any good as far as crop rotation goes but this is where I've planted my onion sets for over-wintering..... one set of normal brown onions - these ones are called Troy.... and one set of red onions - Electric. I've got no idea about the varieties at all but they are what they had in the garden centre so we'll see what happens!

Apparently they have a habit of popping back out of the soil so I'll check them every few days to make sure they're staying put!

I've also sown some all year round cauliflower seeds in trays at home.... apparently they like to keep warm at first but can go out in the allotment after they've grown a bit. I'll try to keep you updated on their progress!

Love 'n' hugs,

I've been building stuff.....

Hiya!!!

Don't my piccies look nice 'n' sunny :-) Needless to say, these were taken last week before the mega thunderstorms and downpours that scared the living daylights out of me and had me checking the oak tree at the bottom of the garden was still ok at 2am! From the window, of course!

Can you just about make out my bean supporting structure??? It'll show up much better in my piccies when it's all covered in gorgeous greenery :-) Fingers crossed!

Here's a close up of my pea wigwam that you can see just beyond my bean structure... I spent ages threading the netting onto the canes and then "sewing" it in place with string..... I'm experimenting. Will they grow better up this thing or the twiggy sticks I managed to find? Photos of them next time!

I've covered all my pea and bean seeds with sections cut from 2 litre pop bottles to try and protect them from any sort of wildlife which might want them.... I know there's stuff out there. Something nibbles through my string every time my back's turned. And I found about a third of a rabbit buried on my plot (not nice!) when I was planting my potatoes. Whatever it was came back for the rabbit and dug up some of my spuds :-( I replanted them but it happened again so now I've just left a hole there as if to say "Look! No rabbit!"

Now left to their own devices, my potatoes are coming along quite nicely. I must earth them up but I get so carried away weeding whenever I visit. I lost my favourite weeding tool. I may have planted it :-) I've searched and searched but no luck. Maybe the wildlife wanted that too? I've bought a new one which I'm considering painting bright orange so I don't lose it!

Right, I'm off.... Thanks for looking!

Love 'n' hugs,