Onions, Potatoes, Shallots and digging

I went shopping on Saturday morning and purchased my seed potatoes (Maris Peer - second earlies), onions (Stuttgarter and Red Baron) and shallots (Golden Gourmet and Red Sun). The potatoes are now arranged in an old drawer chitting in the study (see right).

Saturday afternoon I managed to get down to the allotment and plant out the shallots. I pulled back some of the black polythene that had been covering some soil that I had spread manure on a few weeks back, and planted them into that. I also made use of the fleece I got for Christmas to cover the broad bean plants that were starting to look a bit affected by the recent frosts. Hopefully with the help of the fleece they'll make a recovery and will still give me a good yield. Pictured below on the left are the broad beans before being covered and on the right is the same area with the broad beans covered by the fleece and next to them the patch where I planted the shallots (covered with netting to stop birds/cats disturbing them).

While I was there I also did some more digging of the only area left to be dug, which is now nearly finished (one more session should do it). It's the area that has previously always been overgrown so it's great to have finally got that area under control so that it will be usable this year. When I've finished digging it next time, I'll spread the remainder of the manure over the whole area and then I'll be finished for the winter. Large parts of the plot that are not in use are now dug, manured and covered with black sheeting.