Planting peas and beans on a super hot Saturday

Fabulously hot day today on the allotment, worked on the soil in the long bed which has been under fleece for a couple of weeks.

The soil was a pleasure to work - light, crumbly and warm. A quick dig and removal of a few annual weeds, a rake over and removal of a few stones and it was ready to be planted.

We started with a few sunflowers at the west end, and then created a seed bed for short rows of swede, cauliflower and brocolli. Also, as can be seen in the picture, we planted about 8 mange toutes grown indoors from seed, along with mange toutes seeds set 2 inches apart in a 2 metre-long, 5-inch wide seed drill. Covered the area over the plants with what I think are "twiggy sticks" on the left, plus a little more experimental protection on the right (sticks from a privet hedge removed from overgrown back garden at home).

We also planted some french beans grown from seed indoors in the hot trench created previously. I covered two of the plants with coke bottle cloches - we'll see if this helps them or not! We also set up the Blackwall compost bin, which the council kindly subsidised so it only cost £10.

Didn't put fleece back on any beds or water them very much as it is supposed to rain tomorrow...Had to leave in the end only because it was so sunny I was scared of getting burned - quite amazing!

Me

Too cloudy and cold, and soil will be too wet to dig, so not going to the allotment today. I thought I'd entertain you with this pic of me in gardening mode - note the effects of the relentless passage of time (18 years) in comparision with the photo at the top of this blog!!!

The Reclusive Other Half of the Allotment Team

More digging of beds, including the claggy bed which lies to the north end of the plot. Most of the soil on site is good, but this bit is wet and heavy. I thought it was clay but a friendly allotmenteer said it was chalk, you can tell by the light colour! A little googling and I now know my soil is the bodily remains of generations of tiny sea creatures. The good news is the spinach beet should do fine. The bad news is that I will be trundling barrowloads of horse muck from the pile at the bottom of the allotments to my plot at the top for many days to come!

Originally wanted to put peas (mange toutes) in this bed as it may be a bit shady due to the tree. But now thinking about putting in early spuds instead (on Good Friday, as is the tradition) to break up the ground. The peas will need to go elsewhere though, as we love to eat these so need to grow lots!

"Other Half" heriocally mastered the art of building a wooden frame for a raised bed. But camera was forgotten so pics of that will have to wait. But here's a flavour from yesterday...

Herb Spiral

More digging and grappling with raised beds today! Creating this herb spiral was my way of winding down...The darker colour is compost, the rest is topsoil.

The idea is that herbs which like a hot, dry environment, such as Mediterranean oregano, go at the top. Moisture-loving plants such as chives and mint go at the bottom.

Note: the mint needs to be enclosed within a sunken container, otherwise it will spread everywhere.

View of our first efforts to create beds

We plan to use the raised bed method due to not having a huge amount of space, but will retain some long rows for things like perpetual spinach and carrots. There is an existing row of parsley to start with, which helps keep the beds straight (-ish). The carrots had carrot fly inside them so they have all been taken out. I threw them away rather than composted them, not knowing if they were OK to go on the compost - better save than sorry! Delia says put the tops into the middle of the compost to avoid the smell attracting carrot flies, but we don't have a proper compost heap yet - waiting for the cheapo - subsidised by the council - compost bin "any day now".

Starting our Allotment veggie garden - the rough plan

Here is the plan which shows the rough outline of our allotment. It is mostly south facing but with about one third shade in summer due to a large tree. The slope is slightly downwards from east to west. It is a half size allotment at the top of the site. The reason it says at the bottom "very sunny - or shady - possibly" is that this is the border edge with our neighbour who has also just taken on the other half of this plot. She may want to put up some vertical fence to give her a south facing backdrop for vertical crops, which would make the adjoining strip of our plot possibly a bit shady. We shall see, but for the time being I'm trying to keep that area flexible.
We got the plot from David, who at 84 is a testament to the health-giving properties of allotmenting! He is moving to a plot lower down the slope, as carting muck up the hill in a wheelbarrow gets a bit much for him nowadays.