Tomatoes Sown

Having not had a chance to visit the allotment recently (it rained all last weekend) I haven't had much to update this blog with for a while. But last night I got around to sowing my Tomato seeds (see above). I've sown them into seed tray inserts (15 segments per tray, 2 trays) covered with plastic propergator lids to give them a little extra warmth. They're currently living on the desk in our study, but when I get a chance to put my small plastic greenhouse on the patio they'll be going into that. This is actually the first year I've grown Tomato plants from seed. Normally I just buy the plants at the Garden Center when I'm ready to plant them out, but I thought I'd have a go and growing them from seed this year. It should mean I can have a lot more plants than normal. The last few years I've grown about 6 plants in growbags on the patio - but this year I plan to also grow some on the 2nd allotment plot since I have so much more space this year.

I've sown the popular Gardeners Delight (red cherry), Mirabelle (yellow cherry), Tumblers (red cherry - for growing in a hanging basket) and something called Cream Sausage which are yellow plum tomatoes that came free with a magazine.

The Sweet Pepper, Chilli Pepper and Aubergine seeds that I sowed in pots on the window sill about three weeks ago have started to germinate now. There's a couple of seedlings showing through in each pot. So I'm hopeful that they will grow into plants that I can put out on the patio in a month or two.

If the rain holds off long enought for a trip to the allotment this weekend I have a long list of jobs to take care of. Broad Beans need sowing, and I may try some Peas as well. Some people are also planting potatoes and carrots at the moment, but I think I'll hold off on that for a few more weeks. I also need to prepare a bed for the Asparagus, which I'm told should be delivered next week. Plus there's still pleanty of digging and manuring to do on the new plot.

Parsnips, Compost and Digging

First time at the allotment for a couple of weeks. I sowed 4 rows of Tender & True parsnip seeds (last years 3 rows were not enough!) on a patch of soil that I have not manured and that has been covered with black plastic for several weeks. Hopefully that will have warmed the soil a bit. I covered the soil over with fleece once I'd sown the parsnips (see above) to keep the frost off for a few weeks.


The next job was to take my new compost bin to the allotment. I now have 3 (see above) which seems excessive (especially since I have another smaller one at home) but I think will be useful. The big green one I use for composting weeds and I'd already pretty much filled the first black one, so I'm now going to leave that one to rot down and start filling the new one. I emptied out the existing black bin in order to 'turn' the compost - emptied everything out, then put it all back in again. This helps to mix it all up, adding air and helping it to rot down better. It was pretty wet and soggy inside, so I added some shredded newspaper while I was doing it.


The 3 rows of garlic are growing pretty well still (see above). Unfortunately there are still no signs of the shallots or onions shooting, but hopefully they'll do something soon. I dug up the remaining parsnips from last years crop and pulled a few more leeks.


Over on the new plot I continued the digging and manuring. Still just really turning the soil with a fork, removing the odd roots and weeds that I find, then spreading some manure over the top. As you can see from the above pics, I'm gradually getting it dug over and the manure pile is gradually shrinking!

Back home I've sown Aubergene (Purple Beauty), Sweet Peppers (Carnival Mixture) and Chilli Peppers (Cayenne - free with a magazine). They're all in pots in a window sill. I'm still waiting for my Broad Bean seeds to arrive and as soon as they do I'll be sowing those on the allotment.

Fame at last!

Ok so not exactly 'fame', but I finally decided it was time to do a bit of 'plugging' of my allotment blog and the results have been amazing. Up until about a week ago I think I was the only person to have visited my blog. So, I decided to e-mail the owners of my favourite allotment blogs and ask if they might add me to their links. Within hours many had done so, and I even started getting 'comments' on this blog which is extremely exciting! It always feels more worthwhile if you know that somebody is actually reading what you've written.

The first vegetable-growing-blog I ever discovered was Jane Perrone's Horticultural blog - to me she is like the Grandmother of vegetable-growing-blogs (not in an age kind of way you understand, just in a respect/founding member/experienced-hero-to-look-up-to kind of way). So I was immensely proud when she actually posted about this blog on her own blog this week. She even awarded me a gold star!

So anyway, thank you to everyone who has linked my blog from their own - I hope I've included links to all of your blogs on the right here (if I've missed you off, please let me know). And thank you for actually reading my blog! I may not get a chance to visit my plots this weekend, due to family visitors, but hopefully I'll be down there again soon and be back here to report on my progress.