Day at the allotment

I had a day-off work to spend at the allotment yesterday. I dug up the first potatoes of the year as you can see from the above photo - those were all from one plant. As you can see from the photo below (left) the potatoe plants are all starting to die off now, so it's the right time to start digging them up. The cabbages and brocoli that I planted just a couple of weeks ago have gone absolutely crazy and now look far too squashed together (below right).


I sowed 3 more rows of carrots (2 of Autumn King, 1 of Sytan) and constructed fleece tunnels over them to try and prevent carrot fly. The tunnels were purchased from Lidl at £1.99 each, although they came with clear plastic which I didn't use as all I wanted was support for my sheets of fleece. As you can see below, I put 5 arches over the seeds and then covered them with fleece. The 3 rows of carrots I had previously sown are coming along well in their fleece tunnel (see further below left).



The main task of the day was to sort out the raspberries. They were swamped with long grass and bind weed which I removed. I'd been meaning to put together a support system for the raspberry canes for years now and finally got around to it yesterday. I put in 6 wooden posts, 2 each end and 2 in the middle, then strung garden wire between them at 2 different heights (above right). The fruiting canes were then tied to the wire to stop them from collapsing under the weight of the fruit. This should make it much easier when picking the raspberries.


The Sweetcorn and French Bean plants (above left) are all growing well and the French Beans are starting to form their first beans. The lettuces, spinach, spring onions and radishes (above right) are all growing well and the first radishes were picked. I also sowed some more radishes and spring onions and planted out some lettuces that were started off in seed trays at home. On the new plot I planted out a cherry tree that my sister gave me for my birthday.