So where's all the updates?

Normally I post after weekly visits to the plot - which increases to three or four at this time of year. So why haven't I been posting updates? Illness?

Sadly no. It's a motivation problem. The reason being? Well this...

The actual amount of visitors to my blog. 8. 7. 2.

I started writing the blog to keep track of what I was doing on the plot. It was more of a personal record. But after a decade I'm pretty much doing the same thing each time. I know what I'm doing now (sort of) so now I'm pretty much uploading the same thing each week - pulling weeds, planting stuff, harvesting stuff. It seems that it just doesn't make for interesting content.

So, I'm not going to keep this blog as a "regular" blog, but now will switch it only to milestones or special interest. And at present there is nothing of interest going on.

Cold and Damp

I have nothing growing over Winter.

It's been an odd sort of year. A lot of the crops started off well and then there was a cold spell that basically stopped the growth. Then there was the rains in July which brought in the blight. So, no. I'm not growing anything over winter. I'm pretty much ignoring the plot as it is so cold and damp at present. If there is a time when it gets above 10°C then maybe I'll get down there to start clearing some of the weeds and repairing stuff, but in the meantime, my only trips to the plot are to offload the kitchen waste into the compost bins.

So it all looks very bleak at present.

Yes, I do have a rogue Leaf Beet growing in the pathway by the squash beds. It can stay. The main Leaf Beet bed has been cleared of it's lone compost bin (which has now moved to join the other two) and the compost been raked level to fill that bed. I suspect it will be very productive next year. But for now, the plots are cold damp and I want a nice hot drink to warm up.

3D Printing for the Plot

I've had a 3D printer for a while now. I'm a big table-top board gamer and got the printer so I could make additions and improvements to the various games I own. I also made the mistake of printing specialist Lego parts for my neighbours children and they now keep peering into my window asking me "What have you printed?" At least I managed to give them some custom printed stuff for their respective birthdays.

Now Prusa is currently running a competition for Gardening Tools, which got me thinking about prints for the Allotment. There are definitely some needs here. First off, we have just had new gate locks fitted at the site to make it a little more secure. The old locks were simple padlocks wielded to a metal chain attached to the gates. Well the padlocks saw quite a bit of abuse over the years and the new locks are much better. As a result we have new keys, so I need something to distinguish the allotment key from my house key. Here's a simple keyring. (Placed along side one of my warning signs of course). I couldn't choose which colour combination I liked best. The Orange/White combo is good if you happen to drop your keys at dusk. But pretty much any combination of colours works.

But that begs the question what else could be made for the Plot?

Plant Labels? Yes there are numerous types there. It's dead easy for me to create labels of all shapes and sizes with OpenSCAD. There are also loads of clips, hooks, fittings and fasteners for Greenhouses.

I suppose I could also make some warning signs.

So what would you want making for your plot? Leave a comment below, or if you want me to make something for you, then get in touch.

Snow and Ice

 It's not often that I go to the plot in Winter these days. But today I had to do our bi-weekly trip to dump the compost bags which were building up in the kitchen and were getting a little, shall we say, fragrant. But today also was when London got that rare commodity known as snow.

The plot is of course flooded. It usually is during the winter, but the ice has put down a covering across it that makes it look as if solid... it's not. Nothing like putting your foot down into a pile of snow and realising that it's not snow after all and now you have ice cold water in your shoes.

Remind me to come back in February.

End of year roundup

 So once again another year has passed. Oh boy did it pass. This year has been unprecedented in so many ways. The Pandemic has meant that the allotment is the only place I can escape to.

As I mentioned in last year's roundup, I have some serious health issues, and the Covid virus would really see me undergoing some serious issues if I caught it. So I have been on lockdown since the start of March. The only places I can go is Home and the Allotment. I can't go shopping. I can't go see friends. I am essentially trapped. So the only way I can escape is by going to the allotment.

January - This was the last time I met anybody on the allotments officially. Yes I had a few distanced chats - shouting across the plots etc. - but this was the last time I met anybody indoors. It was also when I started thinking about turning the plot into a weather station and remote monitoring/wildlife camera station. An idea which still hasn't fully come to fruition, but I have made some significant steps towards achieving it.

February - As is typical for us, Feb is when we really start work on the plot. The Winter is just really too damp and wet to be doing much down there otherwise. So we started getting the beds ready for the year's planting.

March - This marked the start of my first and only holiday for the year. I had two that I had to use up before the end of the financial year. And even with that I was still carrying over 5 days to the next year. And this was also the time when Lockdown started. I was kicked out of the office at the start of the month, well before the lockdown was ordered. Given that I was a high-risk person, my Boss ordered me to go home. So when my "holidays" started I had pretty much planned to be at the allotment anyway. So the end of March saw the daily trips to the plot to get things up and running. This was also the time we started planting our seeds.

April - Still more bed preparations as my "holidays" continued. A couple of days were lost to weather and dodgy knees, but we managed to get the plot back into shape ready for the rest of the year. The way things were looking, we would need the food. It's not often you get pictures of the insides of supermarkets that have totally empty shelves. Towards the end of April we started planting out some of the seedlings that we had germinated in the greenhouse and we had our first major setback of the year if the form of a hungry mouse.

May - This was our second major setback. Although no frost had been forecast, there was a cold wind blowing from the South and it killed our Crown Prince squashes and Courgettes that we had planted out. Steve sent me some replacement Crown Prince seeds which were gratefully received. However after this the weather got warmer. A lot warmer. We had a small heat wave that sent a lot of our stuff straight into bolting to seed.

June - The rains came. And so did the weeds. Whilst we could now enjoy our strawberries of the Strawberry Empire, it was offset be just trying to keep the weeds under control. The earlier heatwave from the driest spring on record had put paid to any New Zealand Spinach. We had completely lost the whole crop. Either it didn't germinate properly or the heat killed it, but we ended up ripping out the bed and eventually planted replacement tomatoes in there.

July - Yet more weeds. It seems that the weeds have embedded themselves quite a bit due to the previous year's lack of attention. We really have to be more ruthless in the future.

August - The courgette harvest was well under way and this tine I tried my hand at pickling them. I'm not sure how well the pickles turned out as we only ever seem to eat pickles with Fish'n'Chips and we haven't been anywhere near a chippy for the whole year. So I guess they'll have to keep a while longer. Meanwhile our potato crop was started to be uncovered and we found that although we had a pretty reasonable count, all of the tubers were on the small size. Not sure why they turned out that way, but even so, they were quite delicious.

September - we were still collecting huge amounts of courgettes and tomatoes. Indeed they formed a huge part of our meals this month. Throw in some pasta and you pretty much have a ready made dinner. And the biggest surprise to the show was the Crown Prince squash. Were were delicious. This is the first year we've tried growing them, and I can say for a fact that they will now become a staple part of our regular growing season.

October - We were still dealing with the weed issues. When we inherited the plot our three main problems were brambles, bind weed and couch grass. The brambles we managed to deal with within our first couple of years, the bind weed has become less of a problem as the years progressed, but the couch grass is still as persistent as ever. This was the month when we got the final crop of our chillies. We've had quite a decent result this year. Not as much as in previous years because we didn't get the planted into large enough pots. Those that we did made a good show, but the others were only so-so. The main idea here is to plant them in tall/deep pots at least 25/30cms (10-12 inches in old money) and keep the bottom parts of the pots moist/wet. People say keep your chillies dry, but I've found that if you keep the bottom of the pots wet and only ever water from the bottom upwards then the plants will take as much as they need and produce a decent number of flowers and fruit.

November/December - we had planned on growing over the winter time. Field beans have been recommended and I was all for it, but the shear amount of work I have on my plate due to the Pandemic has meant that I have not had chance to do much in the way of outside interests, so sadly the plot is getting neglected over the winter time and we'll see how things progress next year.

The Pros:

• Crown Prince - These will now become a staple of the allotment. Tasty and they keep for ages.
• Tomatoes - Next year we are going to be growing a larger number of Toms. Normally we go for the cherry toms, but I am going to be growing some of the larger varieties so we can start making some passata.
• Chillies - Once again a good crop from our Apache chillies. We've kept a whole load of the seeds so same again next year we hope.
• Sweetcorn - We actually got proper sweet corn this year. Not the pop-corn style we've had before. So, we'll be going for those again next year.
• Strawberries - The Strawberry Empire keeps going from strength to strength. Although the beds are getting a little weed infested, so next year we might have to do some serious digging and re-planting.

The Cons:

• Our New Zealand Spinach failed to materialise. Not sure why, but it just didn't happen.
• Also the loss of seeds from the mouse put back our cucumber harvest.

Objectives for next year.

• Bigger Tomato harvest. Mainly for canning purposes.
• Bigger Crown Prince harvest. Because they are so damn tasty.
• Less Courgettes - because there is only so much that you can eat and/or give away.
• Try and turn the back of the plot into a seating/cooking area rather than the wilderness that it is at the moment. Of course that means that I have to be able to go shopping to get materials for seats... which is dependent on how well we can control the Pandemic. At the moment infections are rising because people just don't seem to be taking it seriously despite "Tier 4" lockdowns.

Stay safe people. See you all next year.

It's looking a little un-loved

 Well we've been having miserable weather. And what with the new lockdown, it's all looking a little forlorn, forgotten and unloved at the moment.

Indeed, about 2 minutes after I took this photo the skies opened and it absolutely threw it down. But by that time I was just getting to the allotment gate. I dashed out of the car to close it, getting a bit of a soaking in the short duration, then cranked up the heating in the car to dry off.

W're not growing anything over the winter. Whilst I did briefly entertain the idea of growing Field Beans and/or garlic over winter, this year has been a bit of a washout. So we decided that we're going to give the plot a bit of a break and concentrate on fixing up the house a bit. We'll start again in January.

Or February.

End of year roundup

Another year rolls around and we seem to be ending the year on a damp note.

This year has been very "challenging". Most notably because of the serious health issues I faced this year. At one point I was only a few hours away from death and it took a long while to recover. However it has shown that in the face of adversity then a lot of help can be had from friends.

I would particularly like to thank Michael for his offer of help which we gladly took him up on. His work allowed us to keep on top of things and make sure that the plot did not get too badly overrun. Also I'd like to thank Richard and Annette. We've been feeding them spare courgettes and beetroots for years so we made sure that their help in dealing with the plot will keep them in courgettes for years to come.
I'd also like to express my appreciation to other plotholders who all enquired after my health throughout the year.

So how did the year go?
January - Frankly, nothing doing. Only basic visits to drop off our home organic waste into the compost bins. Nothing worth blogging about.
February - Starting to get the plot into shape ready for the year. Culling weeds and cleaning. This is possibly the start of where everything went wrong.
March - We started planting. I broke our old garden fork back in 2018 so this was the first chance of using the new one, an all steel construct, which was far sturdier than the previous one. It made short work of the beds. But we did manage to get our seeds started.

April - This is where things started going downhill rapidly. I had been coughing for a couple of weeks. I am a severe asthmatic so I really didn't give this much thought as it is common for me to have breathing problems from time to time. Especially living in London - the only place you can get your daily intake of minerals in one breath. So when I took a week off work to do an Allotment Week, I didn't manage to complete it.
May - This was my first hospitalisation of the year. I saw one of the leading lung specialists who immediately admitted me to the Royal Brompton hospital. I spent a week in there on some pretty high strength anti-biotics, undergoing daily blood tests, a CT scan and lung tests. Overall I left hospital a week later with a different medicine regime (actually the new medicines have worked really well) and a gradually reducing steroid programme.
June - Very weak still and trying to recover. However the last week of June saw me rushed into hospital almost at Death's Door. My wife managed to keep the plot alive, but she was far more worried about me than the plot.
July - Meh. I did absolutely nothing but try and live throughout July. We didn't pot things up properly, nor keep up with watering. So the plot from here on out was pretty much neglected. Anything that did manage to survive this neglect was tough and resilient.
August - I did manage to get back to the plot but it was pretty much a weed infested jungle. The courgettes were not performing as well as hoped, but they did produce some. The beans did generate some results, as did the Patty-pans.
September - It was during this month that I started doing pulmonary rehab at St. Georges in an effort to try and get back to reasonable shape. The change of medicine from my Royal Brompton stint, and the rehab has worked wonders. But sadly the plot by this time was seriously neglected.
October - December - with nothing doing on the plot now, we pretty much left it alone and concentrated on getting my health back.

I'm glad to say that I am now fully recovered. I can now blow over 500ml on my peak flow (which is pretty good for me) and now use less salbutamol than ever before.

There is a lot of work to be done on the plot to get it ready for planting again. Weeds must be pulled. Paths must be replaced. And the rear of the plot which hasn't been touched for a couple of years will definitely have to be sorted out before the Committee start complaining.

Walking in a Water Wonderland

It's been raining a bit.

OK, amend that. It's been raining a lot and as you may well remember from earlier times, our plot is on top of London clay, so that means it collects water every time that there is a small flood. So I was fully expecting it to be a little wet when we visited today.

Of course the greenhouse, being on the lowest part of the plot gets the brunt of it of often gets flooded. Here it looks like there are dry parts, but that is because the weed membrane has risen up in the flood. Step on it and it squelches down about 6 inches.

But the rest of the lower part is also fully under water.

As is the new addition where last year we had the courgettes growing.

As I said last time, maybe I should take up rice growing. They're perfect paddy fields.

BBQ

So this is the third BBQ we've held down the plot this year. We had an old friend (of The Wife's) visit us. So we had a jolly good cook-up down the plot with burgers and grilled slices of courgettes fresh from the vine.

Of course, when she left, she went with a load of tomatoes, apples and courgettes. After all, we can only eat so many. We have to give most of them away.

A New Year's visit to the Plot

The Plot in winter is not an inspiring sight. There is no greenery. OK, I tell a lie, there is, but it belongs to the small weeds and grasses that are obstinately clinging to life.

We have had quite a bit of rain over the holidays and the main path next to the new section is somewhat flooded.

Which also doesn't bode well for said news section as it is significantly lower than the rest of the plot. If we end up with huge rains again, like last time, then this new bit will be totally underwater.

The shed is looking a little tired. When the weather warms up a little (and before the grape vine starts sprouting obviously) I will have to apply a good coat of preservative again. Gotta keep the Red Shed on Stilts.

This is not the only job required. There are new beds to be built. I already have all the necessary wood ready. I just need a decent dry day to get to work.

The new beds will be installed in the new section and at the front where the previous infamous Courgette Mound resided. At the moment it's covered with weed membrane in an attempt to keep the weeds at bay. Though they are still making an appearance in some places.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The Daffs are starting to raise above the damp. Well they are in a raised bed anyway.

Soon...

End of year round-up

So once again the wheel turns full circle and we come to the end of the year. Time to reflect back on what was achieved and look forward to what we aspire to.

So what happened this year?

Well for starters it was an extremely poor start. January saw me fighting off a lingering lung infection which required a couple of trips to hospital. But on the plus side, I got to take part in the Greenliving Forum's Seed Swap.
February saw me start getting the new greenhouse put up. This actually took quite a while due to the lack of glass, but it did get put to good use throughout the rest of the year as the Tomato and Chilli house (oh and Carrots too).
March saw the completion of the afore mentioned greenhouse and the start of our actual planting as well as preparation for this years courgette mound.
April we got hit hard by a late frost. It's unusual to get frosts here in the centre of London due to the heat island effect, but this one almost wiped out our courgettes, and did wipe out our sweetcorn. Fortunately we had corn to spare and some of our courgettes survived.
May was warm. Really warm. Unseasonably warm. Time for a Barbecue. But it also saw the first of the Bread Club's visits to a working flour mill.
Blooming June was just that. Loads of flowers (keep the Wife happy) and the start of harvest-able veggies (keeps me happy).
July paved the way for this year's courgette season to really get rolling.
By August we were into peak production across the board. Many things were ripening and we started enjoying fresh potatoes and yet more courgettes.
September rolled on and we were getting pretty sick of courgettes by now. Fortunately we could now start combining them with our own tomatoes to make chutneys and jams and even get to show off the Bread making skills at the Produce show.
October finally things started to slow down. Once again our carrots were forked sixteen way to Monday, but they still tasted wonderful.
By November we'd finished with courgettes (finally), and made a start securing the new addition of an extra rod which has been added to the plot, and we also harvested what we could of the Cape Gooseberries.
And by December, it was all over.

So lets go over some of the more specifics that we did.
Apples - The apple tree didn't carry as much fruit this year as it has on previous years. I tried using a moth trap to see if I could cut down on the number of maggot infested apples. I'm not sure how well it worked as we had less infested apples, but we also had less of a crop. The apple tree however will soon have a major trim to tidy it up and make access to it easier. I have also removed the Bramley (never really produced well) and the third apple tree (which has never produced anything anyway).

Artichoke - The artichoke had a huge thinning as it was partly in the way of the flower bed which I built last winter. But even so it once again produced a load of bee friendly blooms.

Beans - Dismal failure. We tried for borlotti beans again this year, but I fear the slugs were rather ravenous and they didn't recover.

Beetroot - Only a single bed this year. But even then that was more than enough to produce a whole load of delicious beetroots. And some even got turned into bread.

Blueberry - Getting bigger and better ever year. Though I will have to cut them back this winter.

Cape Gooseberry - Prolific is the word I would have to use. However it should be noted that the plants in the beds but more effort into growing foliage rather than fruits. Whereas those in pots soon got root bound, but did produce a substantial quantity of fruits. Perhaps limiting their nutrient intake is the better option.

Carrots - Forked. Again. But tasted wonderful in soup.

Chilli - We produced a pretty impressive quantity this year. Certainly we'll have to do the same again next year. We dried and crushed them, and now they feature regularly in our meals.

Courgettes - We lost count at around the 130 mark. I reckon we had over 150 of them. Fortunately we can trade them for cheese or eggs with our neighbours. So it's a win-win all round. We did try de-hydrating them this year. They took 24 hours in a low heat oven to dry, and that seemed to go OK. But when re-hydrating them, they just turned to mush and tasted foul. So either less main courgettes or we need to switch to growing winter squash instead.

Flowers - The new flower bed did wonder and the Wife was really pleased. So much so that now she wants even more flower growing areas.

Grapes - Seemed grow OK... but once again somebody went and pinched them off the vine. Have to definitely rig a camera trap to catch the culprit.

Lavender - We lost our planted lavender, so now we have potted ones. And they did really well this year. Next year hopefully they'll be even better.

Leaf Beet - One of our front beds to totally given over the Leaf Beets and it's in constant production. A good staple.

Onions - Well they grew, of sorts. The problem was that they were so small as to not really be worth pursuing. So maybe I'll re-plant them this winter and see if they can produce something decent this year.

Pak Choi - Again they grew... but didn't really like the greenhouse. Seemed to be lamky and tasteless. But if I had planted them outside they would have been devoured by the slugs. So I guess they dodn't win either way. We probably won't be growing them again.

Potatoes - Didn't do so well this year. Very small results. But growing them in bags is a useful way to get them going so we're going to be doing the same again.

Rhubarb - Does nothing stop this plant? I'll have to make even more Rhubarb and Ginger Jam next year.

Strawberries - The Wife wants a strawberry empire. She's already earmarked one of the new beds to be another dedicated strawberry bed next year. And she also wants a vertical grow wall at the rear of the greenhouse too. And lets not mention the strawberry towers. Fortunately, I like strawberries too.

Sunflowers - The Giant Russians didn't germinate. But the smaller ones did put on quite a decent show.

Tomatoes - They just kept on coming. Though the larger ones didn't really ripen properly, so I suspect that we're going to standardise on cherry toms next year.

A few points of note.

• Firstly there was a distinct lack of Black Fly this year. Not sure why but we didn't get any on our Artichoke or other plants. None whatsoever. I really have no explanation for this, but it's good to see.
• Secondly I'll be more wary of late frosts. We carry over our courgettes seeds from one year to the next. This year we gave away a lot of our seeds and seed marrow to neighbours. So when we lost a lot in the late frost, we were almost wiped out in the courgette area. That however has been our biggest producer each year, and we use it as a staple in trading favours with our neighbours.
• Thirdly we're going to have to start inter-planting a bit more. Especially when it comes to the Cape Gooseberries. They will be better used as possible ground cover in amongst the sweetcorn.

So what about next year? Well we now have a bit more room to play with. We have the soil in an excellent position to carry us forward so things are looking good. Here's to the next growing season.

Allotment Week: Paths and Mounds

One of the requirements of taking over a small additional section of an adjacent plot, is that I put in a pathway between plots 30 and 31. Now there never has been a path between 30/31, same as there is no path between 28/29 or 32/33, so it's kind of awkward trying to figure out where it should go.

One big issue is that the apple tree slightly overhangs the boundary, so in order to get a free walk down the path, the apple tree will have to have a significant haircut. But not today.

Today is the path for actually putting a path in. I've started at the back of the plot because the closer section needs some serious levelling and sorting out.

Of course another big problem is that there are significant amounts of bramble and couch grass blocking the way. So I gave the brambles and grasses short shrift with the billhook and then put down weed membrane. It might keep them at bay for a while. I then piled loads of wood chip on top.

Meanwhile all the grasses and weeds that I've been digging out of the paths and beds are being dumped on top of the Cape Gooseberry stems which were chopped down the other day. This will eventually be turned into another courgette mound, since these mounds do so well.

All-in-all, not a bad days work. Rather cold and brisk, but sunny enough to make me take my fleece off when doing the heavy work. Still more to do though. Back tomorrow.

How do you eat yours?

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now. There is no stopping them.

And the sweetcorn are starting to set. We have our first tasselled corns appearing. We're going to have to keep an eye on them, unlike last year when we completely missed our chance because we were a little too late.

A far cry from where we thought we wouldn't be having any at all this year.

The tomatoes are now starting to produce in earnest as well. They are somewhat crowding the new greenhouse.

But our poor beans are not doing so well. They never really recovered from the slug damage they got earlier in the year.

We have now gained a small extension to our plot. The plot next to us (plot 31) has been partially converted to bays to contain manure and woodchips. The remainder has been converted into two smaller 3.5 rod plots with a little awkward spot (less than a rod) alongside the bays. This small bit is our new addition.

I think for the time being we're just going to cover it to keep the weeds down and build some beds over winter. Although I suspect this might be an ideal spot for next years courgette mound.

On the subject of which...

The 2017 Courgette Tally:

40

So how do you keep on top of your supply? What recipes do you use? Here are two of our current quick courgette cookups. Three if you count my old cake recipe.

Recipe 1.
Bring a portion of pasta to the boil and set aside to cook. I use Penne or Fusilli (Rotini).
Fry up some onions and garlic in a little vegetable oil in a large pan/wok.
Add diced courgette and fry for a little while.
Add tuna (or mince).
Add a tomato pasta sauce.
Combine with the pasta and serve.

Obviously there is a lot of scope for variants. I usually mix in chillies to make it a little spicy. I use tuna, but you could add quorn (for the vegetarians), seafood (prawns, mussels etc. for the pescatarians) or minced meat (for the carnivores). Even better if the tomato sauce is home made from your own tomatoes.

Recipe 2.
This one is a firm favourite of ours.
Bring some spaghetti to the boil and set aside (similar to above).
Fry off a few diced onions in a little oil.
Add salmon chunks.
Add a small tub of Philadelphia cheese.
Stir in a handful of chives and black pepper.
Combine with the spaghetti and serve.

So how do you eat your courgette glut?

Busy Weekend

It's been a bright sunny weekend. So much so that when the time came to actually write up the work to put it on this blog, I just fell asleep totally exhausted. And I also think that I need to take more photos, but then again, how many photos of dug over beds and pulled weeds do you want to see? I mean, I'm sure you have enough of your own.

Now I think I've been foul of the Allotment Regulations for a couple of years now. For one thing, I haven't been displaying my plot number. The last time I saw a plot number was back in 2014, but even that was small and insignificant. So this time I made one bigger and better.

It will definitely need a waterproof lacquer on it, so in the meantime it will have to hang inside the new greenhouse, which is not really the best spot. I used a luminous chalk pen for the letters, and then the same wood stain that I use for the shed to make it really stand out.

Of course whilst I had the wood stain out, I also painted the shed. Not the full blown paint job like last time, but just a touch up where it needed it the most, along drip points and on the south facing side.

Now I need to sort out my beds. I've built a couple more of my stackable frames but I need to clear the space to set them out. So at the moment they're stacked up on what will be the sweetcorn beds. I had a whole load of weed membrane down covering one of the new locations, which I duly pulled up to reveal nice black soil. But of source having been stood for so long and being walked on it's somewhat compacted so will need a good digging over before it gets put into use.

In the meantime the weed membrane is moving to a new home to cover the pestilential couch grass that's everywhere. As this is going to be a pathway, I'll throw a load of wood chip ontop to help suppress it.

But I have a rogue Leaf Beat that's sitting proud in one of my beds. Thought I'd try and move it back into my dedicated bed. Although I seemed to have removed it without damage to the roots, it's not really happy with the move and seems to be wilting. Whether it'll survive or not, I'm unsure. I gave it a shed load of water to help it settle, but I fear I might have killed it. But we did get some leaves off it last week for a pasta dish, and it was a rogue anyway, so not a great loss overall.

The strawberries however are going from strength to strength. I think the wife is very pleased with her Strawberry Empire.

(But don't tell her that I knocked over one of her stacks and had to re-plant them.) Need to find a more stable area for them.

And the apple tree has finally started to blossom.

I'll have to try some Codling Moth traps this year in an attempt to cut down on the number of maggot apples.