Huzzah! 1st BBQ of the year (and some jobs)

Sunday was allotment day for me over the weekend. Saturday was spring cleaning day at home. I am prepping for visitors so I've been busy with jobs whilst I have time. What lovely weather we had this weekend. Sun, and just the right amount of heat. Bliss!

Here's a snap of my chitting 'Rooster' potatoes. Not too many but I'm looking forward to eating these. I had planned to plant them out but I didn't get time in the end. A job for another day.

I checked the seed progress about the allotment and spotted this teeny tiny pea making an appearance. Currently it is the only one but I am hoping others will follow its lead. This shoot is about 1cm high!

The four pics below show the flowers I planted in some of the mini-beds I now have. I wanted something pretty I could cut and take home to my flat. I am particularly looking forward to the Ixia.

This photo shows the mini-beds. The 3 on the right are where I planted the flowers. Nearest to us is two rows of Ixia, the middle one is Gladiolus in the centre (maked with 4 little sticks), with the mixed annuals and Californian poppies around the edge. The furthest bed is the Dahlias. There are currently 12 mini-beds dug. There will be 15 soon. I was thinking this would be a nice size to work with, about 1m x 1.5m. Makes everything a little less daunting! I need to plan what will go in each bed but I reckon some more flowers could be in order, even mixed in with veg.

We had a fire. With MASSIVE flames!

Then, as the weather was good, I had my first lottie bbq of 2010. My friend Claire was chef. We made use of my big bbq as a stand for a mini one. Less bending down. Already it is asparagus season so I picked some (bottom right of the photo, on the shelf) and steamed it with a little water in foil parcels on the bbq. SO tasty. I love asparagus, me :) You can't get any fresher than that.

We celebrated with a bottle of bubbly, just because we could. I love this pic of Nick watching the cork fly into the stratosphere!

So, this is the tasty meal - veggie kebabs, fresh bbq-steamed asparagus, salad, bbq prawns and bbq-steamed salmon with lime and coriander. Yum! Trying to be healthy you see.

After dinner we released some pigeons... (!)
'Bob' the plastic pigeon, and his new friend 'Boo' went into the ground.

And Nick's bike got attacked by an alien! It is actually a left-over parsnip he found. I am sure it tasted revolting. :) He must've looked odd with this wedged on his bike as he cycled home.

So, they are all the snaps I took but I also popped in a 2nd trellis for sugarsnap peas next to the normal peas and cleared more dead raspberry canes away. I also planted the honeyberry, goji berry and blueberry I got from Suttons, but the pots were full of slugs and the plants look sad, so I am not holding my breath they will make it. Claire weeded the asparagus and Nick did lots of digging.

I hope you had a great weekend and the weather was kind to you too.

Sunday's sowing

So, here they are, the tomatoes I wasn't going to grow this year! I've got some of the tumbler variety. They're in a hanging basket, dangling on a long string on my balcony. I've already walked into them a couple of times when I was hanging out the washing! Let's see if they drive me up the wall...

Down at the allotment, the seeds I planted last time are already starting to show through under the clingfilm coldframe. The radish and kohl rabi are doing the best, with the broccoli also poking through the soil to the left of the photo.

I was wondering if a pesky animal has been digging in my flowerbed as I spotted this mystery hole and soil overspill. Hmm...

The tulips should be out soon, and the mint I thought would be dead by now has resurrected itself! I should have known you can't kill mint so easily :)

I did some weeding in the first shed-end bed & planted some Lily of the Valley I got on a shopping trip, as well as some Baby's Breath Gypsophylla.

I am also wanting to plant up some different varieties of lavender as I love the smell & it is practical too. This is a pink variety. Didn't get the name. Will have to check the pot next time I'm in the shed.

The rosemary I got last year was a sorry sight. I think the cold weather finished it off. Rather than have an almost dead plant struggling on, I sent it to the compost afterlife and planted this fine specimin in its place. I also had to move the caraway which is going great guns but was too close to the lupins (behind the rosemary in this pic).

The rhubarb I got for a snip went in today next to the globe artichokes. Hopefully I've left enough room for both to grow ok. The plants look really healthy.

The onions & garlic are doing well.

The asparagus is already coming through
- looking forward to eating that this week sometime :)

Finally I planted lots of seeds in pots (about time!) and put them outside in my mini-greenhouse. Hopefully there will be some greenery soon :)

Making new beds

Well, down the allotment I went today, with a helper - huzzah! My friend, Nick (a star of a friend, if ever there was one) volunteered digging services today. Of course, I happily accepted :) While I waited for him to arrive, I gave my shed's potting bench a dust down and found these bulb cards hiding. Now I know what should be popping up in the 2nd bed, 'shed end'. This is great as I didn't really make a proper note of what I planted. Tut tut! This is one of the great things about a blog - a searchable record of what went where, when :)

I also took some snaps of yet more shopping I did on Friday evening - more seeds for this year:

Celariac: giant prague, sugarsnap peas: sugar bon
& kohl rabi: purple vienna (which I have never eaten,
in any form, so this will be a proper first!)

Sunflowers: sunburst mixed, marrow: long green bush2 

(LOVE marrows!), leek: lyon2 prizetaker (sounds promising!), 

& some mixed annuals - planning to plant these in strips 

at each end of the veg beds.

The crocuses growing next to the shed are also further on than last week. lots more of these stunning purple ones and each one open. Sigh :) Looks like even more will come out soon too.

So, what did we do? Well, I attacked the 'dump mound', left by the last tenants, next to the globe artichoke, on the end of my herb bed. It was full of old potatoes of various varieties and jerusalem artichokes (all rotten), as well as loads of bloody sloe tree roots! Grr! Ahem. My cunning plan for this area is to build a cold frame. It should then be sheltered by the shed and close to it for moving and acclimatising my new plants. The soil, once I'd attacked it for a couple of hours, was perfect. Just right for purpose :) No raking needed - which is good as I snapped the rake before Xmas! I also dug out last year's woody spinach so there is another bit of bed ready for something new, next to my tree onions. The pic above shows how it looks now. I really want to get hold of some scrap wood to edge these beds, now I know I will be keeping them like this. I shall keep my eye on skips...

Nick, well, he's a digger. A digging machine, who will work as long as there is a supply of tea and biscuits (and cake!). I set him about digging over last Sunday's new bed which I'd de-turfed. I was going to bury the turf but he ended up shifting it onto an existing mound behind the shed. Out of sight out of mind ;) One day I will sort it out. Perhaps. This just needs attacking with a rake - which I need to buy. Nick did take one off the shed (read earlier posts if this sounds odd!), but I reckon it will snap soon enough, like the other one.

Bed dug over, time for tea. Nick brought his camping stove and some chocolate biscuits. Nick rocks! :)

His next task was to dig another new bed, a bit bigger this time, between the strawberries and the other globe artichokes/spring onions/asparagus. Safe to say he did this MUCH quicker than me last weekend. But then I am a feeble girl ;) Again, this just now needs to be raked over, once one is purchased!

The other job we did was to move 3 compost bins out from behind the shed and under the trees, into the open. I am hoping being in full sun will create some heat to break things down faster. It also means they are easier to get to. We put lots of the rotted compost onto the beds and Nick dug it in. I was on barrow duty. I also put the unrotted compost back into the bins. To be honest, a lot of what was in the bins was trash, literally! Jam jar lids, sweet wrappers, crisp packets, carrier bags. Doesn't make any sense to me. Hardly going to rot down eh. There were also lots of sticks, stones and bits of metal I also picked out. At least I know what's in the bins from now on will be useful for the allotment!

This last pic shows the 1st bin we moved - the bin far right was already out on the plot. I now have 2 more black bins between the two. I may move the black ones down to the other end of the plot, the 'road end', so there is compost on each half.

Well, might pop down the allotment tomorrow, might not. We shall see! I do need to mow though. Claire's mower wouldn't get going today so I think it needs some 'go-juice'! Hope you're making the most of the finer weather this weekend. :)

Picked and packed

Well, I have so many spring onions ready to eat I am spreading the veggie love! I picked and 'packed' these beauties for the folks at work.

I also got another crop of asparagus after only a couple of days. This stuff grows mega-fast! Not a problem though, I love it! Might have to get a harvesting volunteer to keep on top of it whilst I am on hols. I am sure I can find someone who likes asparagus! Having it again for tea tonight - yummy :) There's the asparagus festival on near me at the mo (started today) so I am thinking of popping up there this weekend with my aunt and uncle, who are down for a visit. We're also going for a woodland bluebell walk, I think :)

Tonight there wasn't much light at the allotment but I was there for a couple of hours until it was too dark to see (even though I still wanted to stay!). Made a start on my strawberry row. It is totally overgrown with grass and it is going to take a while to weed. I also marked out where I want my paths so my lovely lottie neighbour, John, who has volunteered to cut my grass, can see which bit needs cutting. This should also help my friend Paul know which area to strim! Aren't men handy ;)

I didn't take any photos of the lottie tonight as, to be honest, my clearing looked rather feeble and pathetic! But as you allotment folk know, lots of effort goes into something but you don't always see a big result straight away. It was also dark!

Allotment plan - initial map

So, the plot got measured last night and I was quite surprised to find out it was over 50m by 5m (with 1m paths down each edge) - bloody big! I've made a quick to-scale map of what is where so I can start to decide this year's plan. Some things are missing so I need to add them in like the tree, pond, compost bins etc but this plan should really help me think about what I'd like where.

G.A. = globe artichokes, dark brown patches = dug over, light brown = to weed/dig, green = grass paths