Happy Easter

What a dreadful fortnight it's been - from a weather point of view. We did get to the allotment last weekend (16 March), but it was so cold and so windy that all we did was empty the compost bin and come away again in the hope that this weekend would be nicer. It was not - emphatically so! It has been the worst Easter weekend I can remember for the longest time - cold, rainy, snowy, windy and downright miserable.

We did manage to get to the allotment on Good Friday - but only by the skin of our teeth. The weather in the morning was not too bad so I took the bull by the horns, and the tame photographer, and went. Things weren't too bad there. The corn salad has germinated, the broad beans are beginning to show (just in time to be caught by sub-zero temperatures) and the onions are finally getting moving. This picture shows an emerging broad bean plant.Our major task was planting the first early potatoes. The tame photographer dug two deepish trenches, and I added some compost and a general fertiliser and duly planted out the chitted accent potatoes, and covered them to the depth of half the trench. The idea is that when the leaves begin to show we shall fill in the rest of the trench, and this will do instead of 'earthing up'. We shall see. The rest of the plot was too wet for any other activity, so we duly left. On Sunday eldest son decided he needed to do something at the allotment, so I set him to work raking off some the overwintering mulch. Again the weather was dreadful, so there wasn't anything else to be done.(The chitted accent potatoes - I have plenty to spare as we could only use about half of what we had got)
(A newly planted potato, just before it got covered up)

On Easter Sunday, after church, eldest son and I dashed to the allotments so that we could go to the shop as I needed some fleece and netting to protect the broad beans. Unfortunately the shop's weekly opening hours coincide almost exactly with church so it's one or the other, or a very quick dash from one to the other! I guess you can either worship at the alter of God or the alter of gardening, but not both. The fleece having been purchased, we then covered the broad beans to protect them from the frost. And went home and lunch was very late! All in all, a very disappointing Easter weekend as I was expecting to have reasonable weather and to get quite a lot done. Never mind - the school holidays are in a fortnight's time so hopefully the weather will have improved by then.