New shoots already

Lovely sunny day so it's straight down the plot again today. I think the wife has caught the bug as she is joining me again. First thing we notice is the Pak Choi is already sprouting.

One of the reasons the wife is probably a little more interested is that we have got a few more seeds. The recent Suttons order also had some colourful pots. But these weren't included in the original delivery. They came during the week. I only ordered plant pots, but Suttons obviously have spare seeds they want to get rid of because they stuffed the package with more goodies.

There are a number of bee friendly flowers here. As well as stuff we already have... such as the spinach. Bee friendly is certainly good as last year there was a major issue with the bees of site. Last year we only had three hives coming out of the winter. This year the mildness of the winter has meant that all of the hives have survived. So that's 9 hives of busy bees. During today's visit to the allotment we took a walk up to the separate section in the wilderness area where we have the hives. It was rather gratifying to see all of them busy with the bees out of this nice sunny day.

Back on the plot, there is much to be done. I wanted to start building raised beds, but a quick trip to Wickes this morning showed that they won't have the wood delivered until Tuesday. So other things need to be sorted out. The pathway between plot 29 next door and myself is rather overgrown. It has a carpet put down to repress the weeds but obviously this is not a good option as the grass has grown through it as well as rooted off the carpet. So the grass tussocks need digging out and the carpet reset. But most notably a big helping of wood chips are needed too.

Meanwhile the wife has planted up the flowers into new seed trays and then started picking the damaged leaves and weeds out of the perpetual spinach bed. I must say, it certainly looks a lot better. But she still needs to learn to squidge the slugs.