It's a couple of days since we were last at the allotment, but I thought I had better post this week's installment. Christmas is rather overtaking my thoughts at the moment so Saturday was devoted to trying to knock the Christmas shopping on the head. We did managed to get a lot done, but rather at the expense of time to devote to gardening activities. Work has also been more than hectic recently so I have been too exhausted even to think of planning my planting - maybe there will be more time over the forthcoming holiday break (wishful thinking, I suspect). To top it all the weather has been horrendous - as it has all over the country.

On Sunday we treated ourselves to a quick visit - during a break in the weather, but there really wasn't much to do, added to which the ground was so wet we didn't really want to work it. We talked to someone at the manure heap about the best thing to do with stable manure - which is mixed up with wood chippings - and he said what he tried to do was to spread the manure over his beds at this time of year, rather like a mulch in order to keep the weeds at bay as much as possible, and then in spring he would scrape it all off plus a small amount of soil and pile it all up and let it rot down for a couple of years. I can see the sense in this but I can also visualise an allotment comprising mostly of heaps of manure at various stages of decomposition! I suspect we will have to compromise, as in most walks of life.

I then looked more closely at the raspberries. There are two rows of them and they have been well tended and I wondered what I should be doing. The books are less than helpful in that there are very different instructions for summer fruiting and autumn fruiting canes and I have no idea which sort I have - I guess the best plan is just to leave them this year and see when they fruit. I also noticed on close inspection that there was a lot of dead bindweed amongst the canes - not such good news. I did ask our neighbour her views on the raspberries but she said she wasn't an expert and suggested I look it up on the internet - not really much help.

The best news is that our onions are starting to grow! Our first produce is on its way. They are not exactly large yet, in fact you could miss them if you weren't looking closely, but if you have a tame photographer with a very good camera, you can make them seem quite impressive!
Also, with time on his hands, the tame photographer decided to use the last piece of chicken wire to fashion a very useful radar type device. He has a theory that possibly we could receive communications from extraterrestrial allotmenteers.