First strawberries of the year

 So today's sojourn to the allotment for watering showed that there were a large number of strawberries ripe and ready for eating. Guess the sunshine has brought them on.

Roll on the smoothies!

More pricking out

 Today it's the turn of the Aubergines.

This is the first time we've tried growing Aubergines at the allotment. Now like our other ventures, we were somewhat worried when we planted the seeds and nothing seemed to be happening for a long while. But then suddenly everything burst into life. So now we have 12 plants nicely potted on. Yeah, I mis-counted and had to go in search of additional pots.

Today was only a quick trip. The old "She goes shopping, and I go to the allotment". But even so it was just too damn hot. Instead of closing the greenhouse doors, I used some pallet as temporary doors to try and keep the heat down a bit. Large amounts of watering was needed. Hopefully they'll last until Tuesday when I can get back there.

By the pricking of my thumbs...

So the correct term, before it obtained such lewd connotations, is Pricking Out. And we have a lot of plants that are in dire need of just such an activity. First off we have the Chillies. After a very slow start I thought that we wouldn't have much in the way of chillies this year as nothing sprouted. But I suspect that it was the cold April that caused everything to be slow, and I was almost considering throwing out the tray of seeds are starting all over again. But when May started rolling round, things seemed suddenly trigger into action. And now I have a tray of about 20 seedlings all requiring their own pots.

After I had finished here, The Wife got to work clearing up. As you can see this task was done on a pallet balanced on the end of the flower bed. A bed which was growing more weeds than the afore mentioned flowers. So The Wife started clearing it to plant a few remaining flowers such as Calendular that we had growing.

Meanwhile I was still doing battle with the couch grass around the big beds trying to get a bit of space to start planting out some of our courgettes.

So I don't know if my thumbs are aching from just the digging or the pricking out, or maybe it's simply because in amongst all the grass were a whole load of thistles and my gloves are not the thickest (cheap Wilko gloves, £1 a pair) and the thistle spikes kept digging into me. I certainly don't need to be a great detective to figure this one out.

Digging, digging and more digging.

It's been another scorching hot weekend, and I am writing this blog entry on the Monday afterwards, because I was too damn exhausted to write anything at the weekend.

It didn't help that on Friday there was a long slow steady drizzle of rain that soaked everything and made the couch grass spring into life. It was too damn heavy to move stuff... especially the areas where the couch grass had settled. So you get the one and only photo that I took at the very start of the weekend...

Yeah, see all that grass? Well a lot of it is still there. But a lot of it isn't.

There are also some beds which have been cleared. Not sure if you remember the scruffy bed next to the compost bins? It had some rogue chard and beetroot in it, as seen in the top of the top photo. Well that has now been cleared too. And a whole load of other beds cleared. And the compost bin that's at the very front of the plot has been dug out and sifted.

My aching legs and back meant that when I got home on Sunday I just wanted to crawl into a bath and bed. But at least now there should be some decent soil and beds ready for the next lot of stuff that has to go outside.

We do keep on potting on some of the bits that we have in the greenhouse. Most notably the courgettes and tomatoes. But I think the chillies are next on the list for potting on... as and when I feel I could withstand the plot once more.

A hot weekend

 Well this past weekend has been a scorcher. After weeks of cold, miserable weather we finally got a but of sun. Time to get some of the seedlings potted on into a bit more comfortable surroundings so they can make the most of this heat.

First up, we have our Tomatoes. Now our Sweet Millions were not very good starting. Of about 50 seeds we only got about 4 to germinate. I blame the weather. But the Ailsa Craig and Money Maker seem to have done quite well for themselves. Time to sit down and get potting.

There are also some other things which need sorting out... such as the influx of weeds because of all the rain. The Bindweed is starting to rear it's ugly head and I've managed to dig out some veritable rope sized roots of the stuff. I really need to keep on top of this stuff this year.

The newly potted Toms are now residing in the cleared second greenhouse.

And it's at this point that I didn't take any more photos. The heat took it's toll on me fro all three days that I went. Saturday was potting Toms, cleaning greenhouse and weeds and we picked some of the Pak Choi for dinner that night. I must say it wasn't the best. It was almost bitter. I suspect that the plants developed the bitterness as a response to all the slug/snail infestation. I might have to get a new batch underway.

Sunday was just a quick trip whilst The Wife was shopping. All I did was a quick spot of weed control and made a load of pots from toilet rolls.

Monday saw those toilet roll pots put to good use in the new batch of Edamame. The first lot were put out a little too early despite them wanting out of their pots. They didn't seem to survive the cold and the wet. I guess thats quite a common thing, getting plants started too early so they have to get put outside and then they get caught in late frosts. It's happened before. Really need to learn that lessons and make a start later.

Anyhow, I'll be popping back in the evenings this next week. It promises to be a bit of a hot one and I need to keep an eye on things. Oh, and there are still some plants which need potting on, such as the Sweetcorn, the Chillies etc. There is always something to do down the allotment. And if I'm not dealing with the plants... then I'll have to deal with the weeds. It never stops.