25 Mar - Onions & Early Potatoes Planted

Things are beginning to get moving on the allotment at last. We've had a bit of wet weather from around mid-March so I've waited until things dried out a little before planting out my Sturon Onion sets and early potatoes. Looking back at last year I'm only a few days later so no problems with timing.

The onions went in first, next to the garlic I planted earlier this month. I find onion sets much easier to deal with than seed so, unless you want something more exotic, sets are the way to go for a good supply of onions.

The soil was dug over, raked and a bit a fertiliser added a few days before. The onions were just pushed into the soft soil about 5 inches apart. I use a scaffolding board to walk on so the rows are just over a board apart, around a foot. Make sure you plant them pointy end up with the tip showing - you need to check on them frequently until they root as birds tend to pull them up! Just pop them back into the ground. 

There was no avoiding it, one of two spud planting days had arrived with the associated 100 ft trench to be dug and re-filled. Ouch my back! I'm planting around 88 Rocket potatoes in three rows about a foot or so apart. (Earlies go in closer than main crop). I add a bit of fertiliser to the trench and the back-fill soil before planting.

Rocket potatoes can usually start to be be dug from around 10 weeks after planting so I should be eating these around the first week of June. I find Rocket to be cheap, reliable and plentiful at harvest time. They boil well too, they don't turn to mush like many of the early potato varieties. 

That's it for this posy and this month. I'll be back in early April with a round-up.

14 Mar - Brassica Sowing & Other Seeds

Wow, it's mid March already! Still, the weather has turned into Spring all of a sudden and I've had a few hours pottering around the allotment in a T-shirt. I've been adjusting the chicken run a bit after the Winter, altering the fencing to give areas of well munched grass a bit of time to grow. All three of my hens have gone through a moult and are firing out eggs.

I've finally planted my garlic into the plot. The cloves have been in the fridge for around a month to give them a blast of cold to ensure that the bulbs split correctly. 

I've done a bit more sowing too. First of all the brassicas, I've sown a few Primo II cabbages, just a handful, we really don't get through them and I always sow too many, so with my philosophy this year of growing fewer plants I've sown less. I've also started off my Brussels sprouts, the reliable and excellent, Bosworth F1. 

I'm trying some different kale this year too, along with a few Nero di Toscana I'm growing some dwarf curly kale as well. The kales stand well throughout the Winter and are handy greens for the hens if we don't eat them all. (Pic - Nero di Toscana kale in Winter).

Despite them being 'easy', I find spring onions a little troublesome, often slow to germinate and patchy. I've taken to starting a few off in some small cells then planting them out when germinated. So, I've sown a few White Lisbon spring onions too.

I'm growing Bunyards Exhibition broad beans again this year, they are very reliable and produce masses of beans. In fact I've still got a load in the freezer from last season! Again, I'm growing less this year, I've planted 16 in deep root trainers, I think last year I put in around 20. While the spring onions and the brassicas have gone into the heated propagator to get them going quickly, the broad beans have been left in the greenhouse.

A quick round-up of everything else. The tomatoes are growing in their single posts, a little slower than last year, probably due to slightly cooler temperatures; likewise the Californian Wonder sweet peppers. The spinach is looking a bit 'leggy' in their cells so I might pot-on a few plants. I also need to thin my leeks into a deep tray to let them grow until planting out in late May / early June. Finally, the lettuce, Little Gem and Lollo Rossa, have grown like weeds and will need thinning out too.

That's it for now, bye.