June blossoming

.Apart from major slug & snail damage, we haven't done too badly. A tiny crop of strawberries, the tomatoes are coming on nicely given that we haven't a greenhouse... Potatoes are doing well, the 1 sunflower that survived is still surviving.

Managed to dig over and plant 2 raised beds for the cucumber & courgette, planted out the cabbage plants from B&Q, replaced some sunflowers thanks to mum who had loads of them from her garden.  Sowed more carrot, & Swede which I haven't tried growing.

In all a productive 2 hours spent

Rainy Thursday

Seeing as the rain subsided for the evening, I popped to the plot to water the tomatoes left in the cloches.  One unfortunately suffered sunburn last weekend as the whole plant is brown and shrivelling, it had started to flower but I have plenty of back-up tom plants starting off at home...  I am tempted to leave one or two of the tomato seedlings in the hanging baskets just to see if they would grow with some support - even if I lifted them and carefully replanted into the base of the coco husk.

The peas are coming along well, although I was concerned that the rain wasn't getting to them because the netting is quite fine mesh, not the 1cm gap it is in #B&Q, so I'm taking it off for a day or so.  Slug pellets seem to be keeping the blighters at bay!  Baby daughter is happy her little flower windmills are working a treat even though the wind has played with one a bit too much and it ended up in the neighbours' plot I'll have to get the superglue out and fix it Proper!  All I need now is the fine beans to grow.  I've started some off in the conserv-eenhouse-atory but they seem completely unaware that they've been placed in fertile compost.

Back holiday Monday

Beautiful morning spent with my man and princess digging a bit more tough ground.  Planted out more peas, tomato, and marigolds.
Not much done but a nice chilled morning

Phoebe finger food

There's only one way to get that last bit of Fromage frais and that's to scrape it out with small enough hands.

Smart girl!

Paidia mas! Our Greek friends

Finally Panos, Vicky and little Natasha had a chance to come up and assist with tidying and digging.  We managed a good 10 metres square, while Natasha and Phoebe played and helped with throwing (planting) some potatoes to help break up the land.  I would have hired a cultivator but the ground needed clearing first.  There are 2 more bank holiday weekends that I can get on with cultivating so not too worried.

We have had a good amount of compost from the house waste composter, so good in fact, as soon as I planted out the hanging baskets, up popped some tomato seedlings!  Here in the conservatory I am trying to grow Harbinger and Gardeners delight, which seem to be taking ages in the #Verve compost from #B&Q... perhaps I should have just bit the bullet and turfed out more compost

It has become so compacted in the middle it's hard for me to squash it to the bottom in order to put more veggie cuttings/peelings.  Hubby doesn't have much time to help and lately I don't have the strength.  I tipped some snapdragon seeds into an old takeaway container and they are taking over nicely, some of them I replanted into a basket for one of the old ladies in a nearby bungalow (I had promised her some from last year's seed heads)

Also in the plot I had planted 2 5" tomato plants (the name escapes me..) which unfortunately one suffered breakage due to wobbly toddler but appears to have survived and small shoots are appearing at the stem... Peas starting to appear, and last weekend we also planted fine french beans, more peas, carrots and some beetroot.  and waiting for the rains!  On top of that, the weatherpersons, threatening a -1 on Saturday morning.  Oh well the plants have 2 choices

Little weed

I dared the idea of popping to the allotment on the way home from collecting princess, it was lovely peaceful and sunny.  We watered the seedlings under the cold frames, the carrot & parsnips, the strawberries, peas and lifted the plastic Weed control...

Only one nasty great bramble remains so I'll enjoy digging that up at the weekend, saw a frog hopping off so clearly I mistook the plastic as not required when in fact I had removed the poor thing's shelter.  Oh well there are plenty of broken pots for it to go to!

Oh I guess I should get my tomatoes started tonight, 

Onion, beetroot, lettuce and rocket

It's time time to get my seedlings under the cold frame tents we put up last weekend, and water the carrots and parsnips planted out in the 2nd raised bed.

Then the Lincoln peas can go in beside the cold frame in the 3rd bed.  The plan is now to dig over the area that has been hidden under black plastic and get the 2nd early spuds in given that the councillor who complained that I wasn't tending my plot to their satisfaction sent a letter last weekend noting that I had 3 weeks to make it look more productive.  It's still annoying me!  If they had come last season they could've seen the mass of courgettes, peas, spuds etc we had grown.  and just because a third is laid under plastic to get rid of weeds naturally rather than using chemical means, doesn't mean it wouldn't be worked plus dearest bf had acquired 20 pallets for us to make raised beds but we hadn't time to do them last year but kindly we've given all the plot tenants a heads up staying that anyone is welcome to them... also due to bad weather no-one had chance to get them used!  There are various plots which are over run with weeds and bramble.  Whine over.  

It's just sad that bureaucrats poke their noses in, what with Eric Pickles itching to seek these allotments for development into housing I get the impression someone in our council is on the take getting pocket money to sell any land in their parish.