Twin Leeks

Plot Time: 11:00am - 17:30pm

Weather: Rain in the morning but sunny with sparse cloud all day. Very warm in the sun. 

Big news of the day, we have finally sown the seed on our wildflower hill! Over the last couple of weeks, we have been waiting for some rain and have had overnight  enough to damp down the first couple of inches of soil. We have sown a great mix of seed: poppies, nigella, cow parsley, sweet scented stock, hollyhocks, campion, crocosmia, borage, forget-me-nots, foxgloves all from collected seed from last year and two boxes of seed we bought yesterday from a pound shop that contain a mix of 16 or so flowers. The seed has been raked lightly into the soil. We have also transplanted into the wildflower hill, some rogue plants that have popped up in random areas of our plot. These include forget-me-nots, campion, foxgloves and an ox-eye daisy which all self seed happily.

We dug up the rest of the overwintered leeks and weeded and dug over the space that they were in. They’ll go home for tea tonight and the rest will freeze whole for use in soups and stews. We also cut some purple sprouting brocolli to take home too. We have lots of it at the moment.

Jobs Completed:

1. Weeded raspberry bed, flower bed. Removed couch grass, dandelions, knootweed and cleavers.  
2. Prepared seed trays to plant radishes for the show (more on this later)
3. Pricked out Mexican Tree Spinach seedlings into small pots
4. Planted Aster Milady seed into small plugs. Planted Habanero chilli and Birds-eye chilli and cucumber seed in pots with cloches in the greenhouse. Planted red-veined sorrel in a medium sized pot in greenhouse.
5. Turned and cut up top layer of compost.

Jobs to do:

1. Sow parsnip, swede, sweetcorn, radish, rocket, tomatoes and purple sprouting brocolli
2. Prepare beds for potatoes

Mexican Tree Spinach pricked out into small pots

Sweet peas sprouting in greenhouse

Habanero Chilli sown under homemade cloche

Plot Time: 11:00am - 14:00pm

Weather: Dry and sunny early on. Thunder and lightening in the afternoon with short hail stone showers.

Jobs Completed:

1. Dig out compost from behind lock-up. Riddle compost into wheelbarrow. Take soil down to the wildflower hill to create a depth of 4” ready for wildflower seed planting. Just waiting for some rain.
2. Edged and weeded front flower bed. Dug a deep trench in it and put some of our homemade compost within and planted some Jerusalem artichokes.
3. Emptied out spent tomato growbag compost onto asparagus bed.
4. Planted some seed today. We have sown some litle gem lettuce and spinach into troughs.
5. Watered seedlings in greenhouse.

Tree spinach seedlings sprouting in greenhouse

Plot Time: 11:00 - 16:00

Weather: Overcast, grey, cool air temperature.

Jobs Completed:

1. At the back of our allotment is a hill. We have never really tended to it. We recently discovered it was under our responsibility and decided to remove all of the brambles and nettles and sow a wildflower hill. The area is about  8m x 6m. Today we cut back all the brambles.

NOTE: There is currently a lot of awareness in the media to do with the decreasing populations of insects and bees in the UK. Every one of us can help by planting in our own gardens and allotments indigenous wild flowers that provide food for our native wildlife. 

Click to find out more about how you can help

Brilliant online wildflower identifier

Plot Time: 10:30pm - 16:00pm 

Weather: Cold with rain all day.

Despite the weather we decided to go to the allotment today to tackle the back of our plot. It’s an area that as been neglected as it is on a steep hill. It was largely covered in thick nettle and bramble, some branches thicker than a 50p piece. Together we managed to cover most of it and take out a fair amount of the large weeds. There is still quite a lot to do.

Jobs Completed:

1 -On the back hill, cut bramble back to main stem and dig out by roots. Cut back nettle and dig out roots. Level bank with adze and rake. Discard weeds.

2 - We ‘righted’ the apple tree that had become lop sided in the storms and staked it again to stabilise it.

3 - Weeded raspberries and flowerbeds

4 - Cut herbs for cooking