Attack of the Mutant Daffodil

So the daffs are on their way out. They did a sterling job getting the place all bright and flowery. But sadly now a lot are going to seed and fading away. We still have a couple that look normal...

But we have one which is decidedly abnormal. It's just plain weird...

It's either some sort of mutant, or we've just found a new type of Daff. Definitely going to get the seeds from this one and see if it breeds true.

(Update: So apparently this is a variety is a "Double Daffodil" known as Golden Ducat. I'm still going to see if it spreads seeds or grows more bulbs though.)

Anyhoot, after yesterday's cleaning session, it's time to get planting the seeds for the new year of growing.

The Wife has been busy with her Strawberry Empire by sorting out the old potted plants and either planting them in the beds or re-potting them on.

Meanwhile, I finished up the greenhouse and started planting the seeds. We have planted:

Veggies:

• Courgettes
• Sweetcorn
• Beetroot
• Purple Carrot
• Chilli (Apache)
• Pak Choi
• Cape Gooseberries
• Edamame (Soya Beans)
• French Beans
• Sunburst Squash
• Tomatoes (Ildi and Sweet Million)

Flowers:

• Petunia
• Viola
• Morning Glory (Purple)
• Calendula
• Pink and White Spyder Flower
• Red Daisies
• Red Sunflower
• Foxgloves

We now have no almost no room left in the greenhouse.

OK, so maybe there is a little shelf space left. but we still have a lot more stuff to plant. But that's going to have to wait for a while as we're just too exhausted.

Spring Clean

So today we fully intended to start planting seeds. But when we got there we saw that the water had been switched back on, and we even had new taps as well. So instead we decided to clean our old greenhouse. We cleaned the new one a little while back, and the old one is desperately in need of a clean because of the bloom from the tomatoes last year. So we started emptying it out.

Eventually we pulled out the tables and my home made pallet desk and could then set to and clean the glass.

Eventually we managed to get everything nice and clean, not without having a lot of cold water running down my arms, and so it's time to move everything back in. Well needless to say by this time we'd been down the plot 5 hours and we were getting tired. We we didn't get everything finished.

We're going to a change around this time. We're putting the table on the right. Just because... Well, why not?

There is just one problem. We've taken everything out of the greenhouse. We can't leave it strewn around the plot. So we had to put the "stuff" somewhere. Cue the picture looking the other way.

Yeah, it looks like an explosion in a plastic plant pot factory.

Tomorrow... well I guess we can get everything back in it's right place and start planting the seeds that we have lined up.

Sunny day in Spring

Unlike last week, today was a glorious sunny day. If you cast your mind back you'll remember that I broke my fork. Well now I have a nice shiny new one and we immediately started putting it to use.

Although I tried to dig out some of the weeds last week, it is so much easier with the right tool. I dug over 7.5 beds clearing out a shed load of weeds. Well, at least a compost bin full.

So now we have a lot of empty beds ready for planting. We did intend to start germinating seeds this week, but we were so exhausted that we decided to put that off until next week. But the wife did start transferring some of her strawberry empire from out of the greenhouse into the newly cleared beds.

But elsewhere, we have a whole clear load of beds ready for use.

There has been a regime change at the allotment though. Frankie and his mother, Felicia, have been chased away by this guy... Billy the Bully.

Billy is not as friendly, but he is gradually getting to trust us and coming closer. But we've still not forgiven him for claiming dominion over the plot and chasing away our old friends.

Cold start to spring

So a couple of weeks back, we had nice warm temperatures. In February. But since then it's been a combination of rain, wind or the odd named storm... or two.

So trips down the allotment have been sporadic at best and mostly consisted of dashing in, dropping off the kitchen waste in the compost and then heading for home to warm up. Yesterday the weather was abysmal. But today should have been better. We it started off with a short hail storm, but there was plenty of sunshine promised.

The Daffs are in full flower. In fact this photo I grabbed last week but they're still going strong.

The Rhubarb is also starting to poke it's head out.

But if you think back a few years I had another rhubarb that was given away to friend of mine. Well look how well that one is doing on her plot.

There are many different varieties of rhubarb, and I honestly have no idea what mine is because it was already on the plot when I took it over all those years ago. All I know is that it's a regular guaranteed production which is utilised by me mostly as a jam, in combination with ginger.

We tried growing ginger this winter. We managed to get it to sprout quite well and had a stem some 20cm tall with a couple of leaves on it. But for some reason it never got any bigger and eventually died. Now we did keep it quite warm, in the kitchen, but whether it was too close to the window and got hit by a cold snap I can;t be sure, Either way, our attempt to grow our our ginger failed... for now. We'll try again later in the year and see how that goes.

Meanwhile the George that we kept in the kitchen, on top of the cupboards, had reached the end of it's "shelf" life. So it's time to cut it up and get hold of the seeds. But Muppet here, forgot to bring the knife. Fortunately a shovel does the trick, albeit one that's rather dirty.

Other than that, it's a little cold and windy out to be doing much. I did end up clearing some of the weeds in the onion bed. This bed was a sea of green, so although it doesn't look like I've taken a lot of weeds out, I removed two buckets of weeds.

By the time we'd done that (and had a good old chat over coffee with other allotmenteers) there were some serious dark clouds looming, so we thought that it would be best to call it a day. By the time we got home we had a huge hail storm, which turned the top of the car white as if it had snowed. Just as well we missed that. I can only hope that we get some decent weather soon.