Real gardening has started

It's two weeks since I last posted, not because we didn't go to the allotment last week, because we did, but first, and most importantly, the photos didn't get to me and secondly I was very busy all week - so I will do a double dose this week. The picture above is a general view of the allotment as at last weekend.

On Sunday last week the trading post on the site opened for the new season and with it came my seed order, potatoes for chitting and onion and shallot sets. It looks like an awful lot of seeds, but bearing in mind we started with absolutely nothing, I guess it's not too bad. Also I hope there might be a little left over for next year. Possibly not beans and peas, but I seem to have enough lettuce seed to feed several warrens of rabbits. I had a quick peek and the rhubarb we are trying to force and it seems to be coming along.
Some of the other allotments have rhubarb that seems further along, but ours is rather in the shade compared to some so maybe that makes a difference. The rest of the week was spent deciding what and where to sow seeds. For several nights now I have spent the evening surrounded by packets of seeds deciding whether to plant straight into the soil (thereby risking inclement weather and predation by rodents/slugs) or to sow indoors and then plant out later (which takes extra effort and requires the use of eldest son's bedroom as a nursery).

So to this weekend - and off we went today full of enthusiasm - the weather glorious - quite outstanding for February. We didn't take any seeds with us as I had decided to start with a bit of indoor sowing, but we did take the onion and shallot sets. I cleared off the woodchipping/manure mulch and planted one row of shallots (9" apart) and two rows of onion (Sturon, I think) at 4" apart. The soil was great under the mulch - no weeds and much drier than the uncovered areas. I can see the point of spreading it now. It's quite backbreaking planting the sets - worse, I think, than digging. You can just see the onions we planted in October behind my boots. By some miracle I avoided trampling them down.

I had another quick look at the rhubarb and some of the leaves seem to be rotting. I think it must be too damp inside the bucket for them, so I peeled off some of the tape to let some air in. I hope that helps.

While I was preparing the soil, the tame photographer (TP) got busy repairing the wheelbarrow. The wheel on our barrow was slowly rusting off so we recycled a wheel from a barrow that had been thrown away and and replaced ours with it. It wasn't quite as easy as it looked but it is done. If you require a lengthy description of the task, please ask and I am sure TP will oblige!.
This picture shows the buds appearing on our gooseberry bush! Given that it has looked rather like a dead twig ever since we planted it - this is great news and obviously we have done something right. Here's looking forward to gooseberry crumble!

When we got home we put out the potatoes for chitting. I had not collected any egg boxes, so had to improvise with rolled up newspaper to stop the potates from rolling around and it looks like it might work. These here are the second earliers (Maris Peer). There are sitting in the some very useful trays that were being thrown away at school.









These are the earlies (Accent). We also got Isle of Jura (maincrop) but there are no photos of them.

I sowed Greyhound cabbage , which is a pointed cabbage that says it grows quickly. Next, I cut loo rolls in half and used them to sow broad beans. Next week I shall plant some directly into the ground (broad beans that is, not loo rolls), but I thought I would try some indoors as well and see which does better. Using old loo rolls appeals to me as they always seem too useful to throw away. That's about all for today - oh yes, I sowed some cress as well just because it grows quickly and I can harvest something very soon.