Bank Holiday Weekend

This has been an intensive allotment weekend. I have managed to persuade the tame photographer to come with me to the allotment on Saturday, Sunday and Monday - but we have had to curtail the length of time there as he seems to have lost his staying power.

The better weather and longer days have really brought on the crops. Everything looks good, and I was very glad I didn't give in last weekend and plant out my beans as the touch of frost on Monday and Tuesday nights got most people's beans and potatoes. Our potatoes seemed to unharmed and I earthed them up yesterday, pulling out bindweed as I went along. We harvested our radishes - French Breakfast - and they were the best radishes I have grown and we also had a bowl of mixed salad leaves for supper.

Other major tasks included quite a lot of weeding, preparing the soil and planting out a row of Greyhound cabbages, a row of calabrese, a row of brussels sprouts and four walking stick kale plants. I thinned out the salad bowl lettuce, iceberg lettuce and tom thumb lettuce and the tame photographer tidied the path edges and pulled up the purple sprouting broccoli plants while I dug up the remainder of the leeks, to make way for the brassicas. I also watered the strawberries with some tomorite to encourage nice fat juicy fruit.

Up at Lakey Hill the tame photographer laid 9 paving stones as a foundation for the shed on Sunday and today we erected the shed. We haven't put the windows in yet, and the roof is very makeshift, but apart from that it looks good. We are planning on a corrugated iron roof which extends four foot on two sides to create a veranda effect. The only problem is that it is very hard to come by corrugated iron - if anyone out there knows where we can source some close to South London - please get in touch.

The blackcurrant bushes I planted a week ago look fine - well two of them do and I have hopes the third one will perk up soon. The dahlias are no progressing very fast, but the potatoes look good. I had a real binge on the bindweed, but I'm sure it will all be back by next weekend.