Oooooh! I love fresh peas!!!

And finally I've got enough to make a meal out of! Yummy!

They were lovely with my broccoli.....

and spuds.....

and a nice piece of fish :-) I felt really proud of myself!

My beans are finally doing what they're supposed to - they don't always grow around the cane they were supposed to but at least they're growing in the right direction!

There are more yummy peas fattening up for my next dinner.....

And some salad stuff I forgot to label.... erm, a type of lettuce I think.....

and some radishes.... Maybe they should be the other way round??? Can't show you the rocket leaves though cos apparently the slugs like them the best :-( Put some slug blocker down now though to protect whatever's left.....

My pumpkin plants are doing quite nicely - not as big as the monster in my greenhouse but I'm quite pleased with their progress!

And look! Proper onion sized onions!!! I'm starting to feel like maybe I can do this allotment-y thingy afterall. Not bad for a novice!

Wishing you lots of sunny weather!

Love 'n' hugs,

I bet you're all wondering where I've been.....

Well admittedly, not all of my time has been spent on the allotment! I've spent some of it in allotment association meetings getting roped into becoming association secretary (see our new allotment blog here!), some of it visiting other peoples allotments to see how it should be done! And I also spent a little bit of it getting engaged!!!! So I've been a bit of a busy bee heading off here, there and everywhere looking at venues and stuff in preparation for the big day :-) How exciting!!!

Anyway, I'd been promising to take a friend of mine and her little girl, Lily May to the allotment to have a go at some weeding, some planting and a bit of digging up spuds! I think you can probably tell how much fun Lily May had by the state of her top :-)

We planted some more onions which are coming along nicely......

And dug up plenty more potatoes! I think I've got enough to keep us going all summer :-)  The King Edwards have got some beautiful flowers on them at the mo....

 I've got little bits of broccoli appearing! My disasterous looking cage-type-thing seems to have done the trick and kept out all those naughty butterflies :-) And then I got my first few peas too! Unforunately, they didn't make it home. We ate the lot on the car journey - yummy!

Back at home my tomatoes are doing really well! How long do I need to wait for any sign of red???? I'm so impatient!

And my pumpkin is turning into a monster!  I've ended up chopping off the tip (not sure if that's wise but I had to do something!) because it's getting huge and all the tendril type things have started strangling my leeks!  I've noticed I've got a few baby pumpkins on the way so I'm hoping now I've removed the growing tip, it'll just concentrate on making those nice 'n' big ready for halloween :-)

 Right, I'd better go. It's silly o'clock in the morning and I can hear the littl'uns starting to wake up! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Love 'n' hugs,

Plenty of potatoes.....

Hiya!

Back again :-) This time with piccies of my allotment to share.

My broccoli has really picked up since I planted it out.....

My pumpkin plants are doing well (although not quite as well as my greenhouse monster - see my last post!) but something has been nibbling at the leaves.... I've put down some "stay-away-slug" stuff to see if that will help.....

My runner beans are looking a bit healthier since the temperatures have risen a bit but they're still a good way behind all my neighbours.....

And look! My first ever peas!!!! So excited :-) My Nan would be so proud if she could see them (she lives in Wales and has no internet....) Mind you, she'd probably pinch them. My Nan loves fresh peas :-)

And then my potatoes!!!! These are Rocket potatoes. Yum, yum, yum! Beautiful with a roast Gammon joint and then there was still enough for our fish dinner the next night. Lovely :-) The kids loved digging them up!

These came from only two of about 12 potato plants I've got growing so we shouldn't need to be buying any potatoes for a while - fab!!!! I love my allotment!

Our allotment site is quite basic - running water and land but nothing else. No loos, no shop and no car park. And there's no association to get any of those things changed either, so the fella a couple of plots down from me organised a meeting to try to set up an association.... And somehow I've ended up being secretary! I've never been able to say no! So now I've got letters and minutes etc to write aswell all my usual stuff that I don't have time to do! And I kind of said I'd set up a blog or a website for us too.... If anyone has any tips for me, I'd be very happy to hear from you!

Love 'n' hugs,

The latest from Mel's Greenhouse....

Hiya!

I've had these piccies for a while now - didn't realise I hadn't put them on my blog yet!!!

These were the best of my strawberries:

Plus some bonus plants that my friend gave me - thankyou, Claire!

My leek seedlings before my two year old turned the tray upside down :-( I did manage to save most of them though. They're all sat in their own little pots now until they're big enough to go to the allotment.

My tomato plant has nearly reached the top of my greenhouse :-)

And the pumpkin plant is HUGE compared with the ones at the allotment....

Now, I'll sort out the latest piccies of the allotment for you.....

Love 'n' hugs,

Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens

Hiya!

I've been promising to show these piccies of our visit to Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens for a while so I thought it was about time I got around to it!

We had a lovely time. There are lots of pretty flowers....

And I love the secret garden style little doors you can find.....

But I was mostly interested in the edibles they are growing... Gooseberries:

HUUUUGE bean wigwams:

All sorts of cabbages, lettuces and beans:

And they've got a beautiful orchard. This is one of their pear trees:

And some more pretty flowers :-)

We had a lovely time. Well worth a visit if you can make it over :-) Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of when we saw Animals in Hands - mainly because my hands were full with frogs, cockroaches, snails and other creatures! Loved it! If you ever get a chance to see them, make sure you do!

My thanks to Yvonne and Graham for letting us know about the event and getting some tickets for us before the rush! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Some produce, a question and an update.....

Hiya!

Got to make this a quick post cos I'm taking the littl'un swimming this morning :-)

So here is my first produce of the year - the strawberry finally ripened! Of course then it had to be divided into quarters so that we all got a chance to taste it :-) Verdict: yummy!

And that one was followed a couple of days later by these two - also cut into quarters and compared because one is Elsanta and one is Pegasus. Verdict: both yummy but Elsanta definitely wins! :-)

So while I was in the greenhouse, I was inspecting my tomato plants and found this:

Any ideas, gardening pals??? It's happened to a few leaves but doesn't seem to be spreading so I'm hoping it's not any sort of disease.... It happened to co-incide with a hot day when I left the greenhouse door open for a bit to allow some air flow but don't know if that has anything to do with it???? Any advice would be gratefully received!

I have got some lovely tomatoes coming along though. What do you think? :-)

Back on the allotment we decided to give George's patch a bit of an overhaul. His carrots never materialised and I think a mixture of animal invasion and not enough rain (or watering....) put an end to the beetroot and spring onions. We've cleared all the weeds, sown some more carrots and covered them with netting and planted the onions and beetroot I'd been growing in the greenhouse:

A better piccie of the beetroot and onions:

My beans are doing ok but they still seem to be a way behind my neighbours. Perhaps a little weeding would help....

The first couple of pods are visible on my peas but the plants are still quite small. These need weeding too!

I read a tip on someone's blog (I'll try to find the link.... Let me know if it's yours!) about using upturned ends of pop bottles to allow the water to get straight to the roots of your pumpkins so I thought I'd give it a go:

I had a sneaky peek at how my potatoes were doing aswell. There's loads there but they're still a bit small so I tucked them back in again. I'm hoping to dig up a few for when my Dad comes for dinner at the weekend :-)

And just another reminder of where I've come from. The next plot over is now truly a jungle! Lots of sun and rain certainly works on those weeds!!!!

Right, gotta go.... Catch up again soon!

Love 'n' hugs,