Happy New Year

Christmas has happened since I last posted and there was an excellent garden related haul. I got a lean-to green plant house (green house) which I am going to install in the garden so I can get seedlings ready for the allotment. It has been too cold recently to put it up, but as soon as the weather warms up a bit, I will do just that. I also got a pair of long handled edging shears so I can keep the grass path tidy, a new pair of gloves, two netting tunnels and the tame photographer got a very handome pitchfork (shit shoveler!).

We ate our own produce for Christmas lunch - along with the turkey (not ours!) we had brussels sprouts, parsnips and butternut squash - all delicious, needless to say!

We haven't done much gardening in the last couple of weeks - Christmas shopping taking up far too much time and then, of course, the festivities themselves. But we did get down there on the day after Boxing Day. The new pitch fork was christened by moving a couple of loads of manure to our holding heap - and, amazingly enough, it really is better for the activity than an ordinary garden fork. We also baptised our new storm kettle. This is a fabulous device that we got for our birthdays. It involves making a small fire with twigs in a dish at the bottom of the kettle, which then heats up some water. It was fun to do and will be perfect for warm drinks and even soup on cold winter sessions. The great thing is that it only uses tiny twigs and the like, which are easy to collect round and about the site. I also used my new edger to great effect, and wore my gloves.

At the allotment the onions are beginning to grow nicely. They have almost all sprouted and the first broad beans are just beginning to show above the ground. The garlic has just started to grow and the spring onions and spring cabbages look good. We are currently harvesting leeks, parsnips, brussels sprouts, January King cabbages, spinach and the sprouting broccoli is just about to start cropping. It's quite something that we are still eating so much from the plot and I haven't had to start up the organic box delivery since I stopped it last spring. I do have to buy potatoes, carrots and the odd veg here and there, and I have just used the last of the onions.

Last week I put in my order for next year's seeds - it will cost about £30 or so and I have chosen a mixture of veg that did well last year and completely new ones for this year. I am still hoping to get another plot, and I really would like to have more space for all the crops I would like to grow. I still haven't done anything about flowers, but I would like some dahlias, sweet peas and sunflowers.

Strike Day

I was on strike this week and that meant that on one of the days I managed to spend a morning at the allotment. I started clearing the strawberry beds of weeds and straw, but it was back breaking work. I managed about a third of the area, and will continue over the course of the next couple of weeks. Next I dug up one row of broad bean plants. The rest I will leave in a bit longer so that the nitrogen in their roots can get nicely fixed into the ground. I then attacked the bindweed in the onion patch with a vigour. I really don't know what I can do to keep on top of it, but I may have to resort to weed killer to attack certain plants where I simply cannot dig. All the plants are doing really well and we continue to eat spinach, broad beans, french beans radishes and potatoes. The runner beans will be ready soon and the sweet corn looks very good. Only the courgettes are not doing as well as I had expected.

Finally the last month's worth of pictures arrived from the tame photographer so I shall post them all here, with assorted captions, rather than try to insert them into old posts.

First, from several weeks ago: the peas (now almost over)

The spinach (still going strong)
The onions we planted last winter, dug up and drying (now hanging in strings and being used)
The last of the strawberries
Me picking a Tom Thumb lettuce (now we only have two left - but there is plenty of salad bowl lettuce)Now a picture of the purple sprouting broccoli - which I sowed myself, and you can just see the sweet corn in the foreground

and below is a snap of the sweetcorn seedlings in their own private greenhouses!The kohlrabi which were brilliant, and very easy to grow - I will certainly grow more of them next year.
Potatoes (Accent, I think)
and finally the splendid dwarf green beans.And the whole lot together!