Dig that!

Today, although much colder than last week, after a murky start, turned into a lovely sunny day. So I donned the wellies & headed off to the plot, laden with my camping stove that I had unearthed from the camper, replenished stocks of tea, coffee & biscuits and my freshly scrubbed out kettle.

I used to have the stove at the plot, but took it home to use when camping, and have since taken a flask with me, but last week I heard my plot neighbour's kettle whistling, which reignited my pleasure for making coffee & tea in my shed. The great advantage of this is you can always make cups of tea for allotment friends & neighbours, which is a great way of getting to know people & improving the community atmosphere, which our site could do with.

So tea making facilities installed, I got on with the main task of the day, which was to dig the next bed. Again this bed had been covered for over a year and all the grass had died off. The only thing with this one is that I don't think I weed killed before I covered it with cardboard then compost & black plastic & the couch grass roots were rampant, although fairly near the surface, whereas the previous bed had far fewer roots left. This is as far as I got, as I was trying to be careful about taking as many of the roots out as I could.

I was going to use this bed as a salad bed & nursery bed, but I am now thinking of putting more strawberries in here instead & intercropping the other main beds with salads etc. I start most thing off in pots & modules, so the need for a nursery bed is minimal. Once I have finished digging it I will put some more compost & manure in & plant up with strawberries.

My garlic plants seem to be doing well. They have grown loads since I planted them out, They have had a fleece shelter but I have now opened the ends up to harden them off more.
The Rubarb I bought from the garden centre, which was already potted up appears to have taken and is now putting out shoots.
As you can see, the sweet peas have now started to send out shoots from lower down the stems, which was the reason for pinching out the growing tips - I like it when a plan actually works!

The lettuce seedings I have had in the greenhouse are coming along and I will transplant them soon into a bigger tray - to carry on growing as indoor plants.

The broad beans I sowed in december are finally showing their faces - there are a few gaps, but I have some I sowed indoors that hopefully I will be able to slot in once they have germinated.

This is the other rhubarb plant that I bought. These plants were already potted up when I bought them, however I also bought 2 that were roots in bags & neither of these have done very well at all. In fact both went squishy, then they seemed to recover & I planted them out, and now they look very sorry for themselves. One has been dug up by something - probably the fox, and the rhubarb plants both looked chewed, strange that they went for the plants that came in bags rather than the ones that came in pots, which have not been disturbed at all.