No diving in the Deep End

Well after a couple of days of rain on this Bank Holiday, we eventually managed to dodge the showers and get down the plot.

It seems that those beds I made a few weeks back, are now swimming pools. It's not as bad as we've had before. But this new section is considerably lower than the rest of our plot.

So, we really had planned to clean out the 2nd greenhouse, but weather threatens and we decided that we may as well get started on our seriously delayed planting.

We're way behind due to the late Beast from the East (and Son of BotE). So we reckon that we're about a month behind in getting things started this year. Whether we manage to catch up is another matter. But we'll see.

Our trusty courgettes were the first to be done. We've also planted:

• Peas
• Dwarf Beans
• Squash (Honey Bear)
• Chillies (Polenia, and Apache)
• Purple Carrots
• Pak Choi
• Radish
• Leaf Beet (in the Leaf Beat bed where seeds from last year didn't take)
• Pentunias (Mirage, and Stars & Stripes)
• Sunflowers (Giant Russian)
• Lobelia
• Amaranth

And the wife planted out a whole load of the overwintering strawberries.

We still have a load of stuff to plant, such as the Cape Gooseberries, Sweetcorn, Melons. But they're going to have to wait.

Tomorrow threatens rain again. So I guess the 2nd greenhouse will have to wait until next weekend before it gets cleaned.

A bit cleaner

Well I managed to clean out the rest of the greenhouse and slowly started dragging all the gubbins back inside.

At least the plot looks a little tidier now, than compared to yesterday.

But on the good news, at least I don't have to move the Strawberry Empire back inside. They can now stay out side and keep the Daffs company.

Still more stuff to do though. Maybe I can get things done next week when there is a four day weekend. If the weather holds that is.

Clean up

It's been cold recently so we're way behind on getting things organised down the plot. One of the main things we need to do is clean the greenhouse. It's a bit of a mess in there.

But first, coffee...

It was rather tricky to wrestle the shelving units out now that we have the second greenhouse facing the first. But we managed to get it sorted in the end.

Though the pallet wood table was a real pig to move out. It needs a damn good clean as there are plenty of spiders making a home in out, as well as a few mouse droppings all over the place. Guess they've been after our seeds.

We pulled out the old weed membrane and decided to put down a layer of wood chip before we put in a new lot of membrane. This should give us a put of a cushion and allow us to try and level the tables a little better.

Needless to say, after a few hours cleaning, we still haven't finished. Let alone started on the second greenhouse. So at the moment a lot of stuff has been left outside overnight.

We'll be back tomorrow. Well, I will be anyway. The Wife is off gallivanting about with her friends. I think she calls it "shopping".

Meanwhile, we tried an old trick to get some melon seeds started. Wet newspaper wrapped in plastic. Things seem to have started ok.

Of course, it's going to be too cold to leave these fragile things at the allotment, so all we did is pot them up ready to be taken back home to a nice warm kitchen. We can't even consider starting seeds yet. It's just too damn cold.

But that hasn't seemed to affect the onions...

Or the rhubarb...

Dodging rain showers

Last week it was the Big Freeze aka the Beast from the East. This week it's rain aka the Pest from the West. But even so we did manage to get the new section uncovered from it's weed membrane and get the beds put in and wood chip laid down.

Of course it doesn't help that the ground here is lower that the rest of the plot and the soil nearly clay in it's structure. I'll dump a load of the soil from the old courgette mound into the beds. Though being lower means it gets a little more of the rain than all the other beds, so maybe it's a little more suited to plants that like getting their feet wet.

We're going to be doing Sweetcorn interspersed with Cape Gooseberries in these beds. We're still trying to figure out what the best use of all the other beds are. We have a load of seeds so we do need to get started on the planting. But we still can't trust the weather just yet. We lost all of the spuds we had chitting in the greenhouses during the Freeze. Guess we'll have to start over again with those.

But of course, it'll have to stop raining first.

Slaughtering the George

The "George" is courgette that we let grow to full size and store over winter for the seeds for the next year. The slaughter is now a regular event.

We're a little later this year because, as some of you may have noticed, winter is hanging on tooth and claw, despite it now officially being spring. But we still managed to get a good load of seeds from this year's George.

Last week however, I was busy down the plot. I have now built all of the remaining beds needed (though I have yet to get them all in place). And I also put up a flower arch in The Wife's raised flower bed...

... and made a start building some flower troughs...

When the weather starts to warm up and Spring finally decides to emerge from under Winter's skirts, I'll get round to fitting the newly made beds into the new patch and filling them with the spare spoil from the old courgette mound.

So long as it's not raining that is...