06 Apr - Broad Beans & Peas

It's been a lovely Easter Monday, the weather has been very warm indeed, an ideal day to do some work on the plot. The first job of the day was to plant out the broad bean plants that have been raised in root trainers in the greenhouse.

There were 19 Bunyard's Exhibition altogether so I planted out 5 rows next to the onion sets. I raked in a sprinkling of Growmore first and then just popped them in with a trowel, a quick and easy job. To fill up the rest of the bed I planted 5 rows of Hurst Greenshaft peas, a variety I've not grown before. I just scraped out a shallow trench and sprinkled the peas in, having first divided up the packet into five even batches for each row. (Pic - this bed is now full with garlic, onions sets, broad beans and peas).

I'll be sowing parsnip and carrot soon so it was time to take the covers off the required bed and see what shape it was in. I dug the bed over last summer after taking over the plot then tilled it in the  late Autumn. However, the bed had a fair number of sprouting Sycamore seedlings due to the tree behind the shed. It dropped loads of little helicopter blades throughout the Autumn, perhaps I need to get the covers on earlier at the end of the season. (Pic - bed with loads of Sycamore seedlings).

Despite the Sycamore the bed was in pretty good condition through a little damp; the sun forecast this week will help dry things out a little. I'm hoping that a quick once over with the tiller will uproot the unwanted weeds and seedlings and the sun will dry the roots. A quick rake over and it looked fine.

I got plenty done today though there is a fair bit to do this week, I think I'll put my main crop potatoes in soon too along with barring in some root crops. That's it for now.

03 Apr - Start Of April Round Up

It's Good Friday at the start of April so it's a good opportunity to see where I am in terms of the allotment. However, most of the developments are occurring in the greenhouse where my sowings so far are currently growing.

First up are the brassicas. All of them are doing well through the Brussels Sprouts initially looked a bit spindly - still, they seem to be growing better now. The kohl rabi, summer cabbage and cauliflower have sprouted well - the cauliflower so well in fact that they have already developed true leaves and I've potted them on into separate pots. (Pic - brassicas in the foreground).

The Marketmore cucumbers have also done very well - I placed three seeds into two pots and I have now thinned down to one plant per pot. I find two cucumbers are plenty for us throughout the summer - I end up giving them away. (Pic - Marketmore cucumber before being thinned to one per pot).

Despite the germination rate of the Shirley F1 tomatoes being poor (only 4 decent plants from 12 seeds) the plants have come on well. Added to these I had to sow some Alicante to make up for the deficiency, these have almost caught up with the first batch. I've now potted these on. (Pic - Shirley F1 tomato plants before re-potting).

I didn't place the Bunyard's Exhibition broad beans in the heated propagator, I just left them in the greenhouse to get on with it - and get on with it they have. They were sown in deep root trainers which I used for the first time last year and proved to be particularly useful for broad, runner and French beans. Out of 20 broad beans, 19 have germinated well.

The leeks are growing strongly in their seed tray too, I will need to separate 40 or so out in the next week or two and plant them in a larger deeper tray I keep especially for growing on leeks. They will stay in this tray until June when they will be planted out on the plot. Talking of the plot, my garlic have sprouted well since the cloves were planted out at the start of March. There only seems to be a single gap where a clove hasn't put forth a leaf. (Pic - garlic sprouting on the plot).

That's it for now, until next time, bye.