Getting there….Slowly

Spent a good day up the plot on Saturday, arrived early enough to get to the RHS hut on site and pick up some manure and compost.

The manure is a good price and the compost is good against garden centres, but I have a link to an on-line compost company which is much better value, just need to make the order.

First Job of Saturday was to finish off the compost bins, a friends had kindly dropped up some pallets so I began dissmantling them to make the fronts, the bottom sections are hinged for hopefully exracting all the lovely compost they will produce, this is yet to be seen in action, but it does mean that I can now bring the compost from home.

Now to continue with the exciting finds on the plot, this weeks piece of scrap is an old rusty pair of shears, or whats left of them any way, the photo shows the evidence of whats left, I don’t think they be getting much action ever again, but I am looking forward to what I might find next.

Next job was to move onto one of the larger beds and work the soil so that something could be planted, I had planned to get my Rhubarb crowns in so the idea was to make this the bed for my permanent\non rotated crops, thats

still the plan but I might have space on the end of it for some rotating crops, or the glut of potatoes I have to plant.

I dug over the whole bed with the fork to loosen it all up and then worked one end to make a trench and fill it back with a layer of manure and then a compost, manure, soil mix, once this was done I dug a couple of holes and planted the crowns I have with plenty of compost, as you can see one is growing well already, the Timperley early, the other is a champagne variety that is just a bare crown at the moment, I think I will be trying to force the Timperly by getting a cover over it next time I’m up.

Overly a pleasing days work although it did take a log time to complete, and there is still a long way to go.

Once home I still wasn’t finished, I had been saving egg boxes and have borrowed 😀 some trays from work to chit my potatoes in, I have set out Earlies, two lots of Second Earlies (One set is a freebie) and my main crop.

Everything is moving along now, just need to work out whether i need to start any seeds off at home or whether I can wait for the correct time to get it in the ground up at the allotment, either way though I still have 7 and bit beds to dig over and compost or manure accordingly.

Seed Delivery Finally Arrived

Today finally my seed order arrived, a nice big box full of seeds, seed potatoes, onion sets and garlic bulbs, it’s now going to be fun organising what needs to go where on the plot and when.

I will have to sort my self with some indoor growing trays so that I can begin with some of the seeds and set the potatoes chitting in the garage, although I think I have under estimated the amount of egg boxes required for this amount of spuds.

The order also came with a free book, I know it was part of the set cost, but it was listed as free and that’s good enough for me.

All very exciting for me in my first growing year.

Oh and the book is available via the Allotment Diaries very own book store, The Vegetable & herb Expert.

Looking forward

Looking forward to the weeked, hopefully if the weather holds I should be able to get upto the plot, I have money for the last of the raised beds, the target number for the plot is eight.

I’m hoping with eight beds I can keep on top of the management of the crops and begin a decent rotation plan, with maybe one plot if not two for permanent crops that don’t require rotation.

Every thing seems to be coming thick and fast now, the time for sowing is fast approaching and I do hope that I get some of it right, the first of my seed order has arrived, mainly the freebies 🙂 and some free Vivaldi potatoes which will need chitting, I don’t want to start chitting though until all the spuds are in though so they all get the same amount of time.

I am becoming a little worried about the trees around the plot though, and I do hope they don’t cast to much of a shadown once we get the summer sun, I am hoping that the sun will pass directly over the plot.

Fingers crossed.