You know it is going to be a good day down the allotment when......

 When we first venture onto our plot for the day ahead, we find ourselves surveying for changes. Those alterations can be negative, such as a new crop of weeds, the demise of a plant or the left over seedling massacred by a slug or alternatively as we did yesterday you can be greeted with a more positive view where our plants first flowers were on display. Our lass was the first to notice the clematis having its first flower, as we walked through the gate our sweetpeas were unfurling their flags of summer by displaying flowers for the first time this season. Last but not least the yellow petals of the virgin courgette could be seen heralding the arrival of its fruits to be born.

Whilst the day may start with a positive we are forever vigilant against the negative, namely, slugs! We have beer traps a plenty, but at times that seems nothing more than an empty house going viral on social media. You feel the slugs are sending out invites "Free Beer and all the juicy leaves you can eat" We did find some slugs last year on taking over the allotment which had been that well fed that they would have struggled to fit into a half pint glass. We now take our war to the next level, and have gone for biological / chemical weapons, the natural sort of course, using Epsom salts. With us expecting heavy rains in the next few days our lass thinks a few of the beds may resemble bubble baths. If it gets rid of the slugs I am quite prepared to turn the allotment into a foam party for the purposes of eradicating the slugs.

Having the allotment has one glorifying pinnacle though "The Bounty" and our bounty yesterday was overflowing with a record setting strawberry harvest. This had already been broken on the first pick with one punnet full, something which we hadn't achieved last season barely getting one or two strawberries where the slugs and birds had beaten us to them. This season we are already onto three punnets full. Quite a large one as well as you will see from the photograph. We had our first ever crop of peas and a second crop of new potatoes. The new potatoes on the second crop had been found by the slugs as nearly half had tiny holes in them, but fortunately we were left with quite a few for us.

One thing we hadn't planned for is, what to grow after you dig up the potatoes? To be honest it was a case of would anything grow? Now it has we have to think of what is next? Our lass has some emergency sweetcorn which is too close together so we are going to move that in to the old potato bed. There is not a lot to lose, they are too close together where they are so would fail because of that it was just better than doing nothing with them. Now they will have chance to be free in open ground, will they take the chance or wilt? We will see.

When the weeds start growing start sowing.

 The header to this post has been inspired by a quote from Adam Frost (shame he doesn't present more on Gardeners World) and the past few months have been strange. April being very cold with continual frosts nearly every night and May being very wet, so at the point the ground would have been warm enough it became too wet. On the subject of weeds though, this blog has/had become a metaphor for this, you do have to keep on top of the weeds and you do have to keep on top of the posts otherwise you get to a point where it looks all too daunting to get back on track.

One thing our lass does like though is weeding, especially the ability to look back and see what you have actually done. Unlike the steady millimetre by millimetre or inch by inch growth of what is in the allotment which normally means only seeing your rewards of what you have done days or weeks later.

All clear of grass along the fence

The first shade cover for the green house didn't quite fit as you can see someone sent the wrong size out, but it has come in useful as a side shade for our lasses Greenhouse

Our lass is full of great ideas and this is starting to take shape for the flower pot of heads, update to come as it has moved on since

I am known to be quite daft really and whilst following an experiment our lass had seen online managed to cut myself not on the stanley knife but on the hose pipe.

We had been expecting high winds and the netting over the purple sprouting broccoli needed some extra help to be kept in place, so if you cut down some old hose pipe then wrap it around a cane it keeps the netting in place. That is the simple idea and whilst being very careful with the knife. It was only when prizing the hose pipe apart i managed to slash my finger. Warning hose can cut.....

Courgette and Pumpkin protection

We have managed to germinate and grow one of each of the Courgettes and Pumpkins, in reality you don't need that many courgette plants, but it does put a lot of pressure on this one to be successful. I had hoped to grow two pumpkins but there again only one germinated so it seems the grandkids will have to share. As this is the sum of our production for these plants we really do not want the slugs to get them. So, we have encircled them with grit and after about five days we have seen minimal activity from the slugs on these plants.

Tidy green house and new seating so I can sit and inspire the veg

The pansies our lass grew are looking great

Lettuce in a bucket

15 shades of sweetcorn

Day 58 - Windy Allotment, little wind in our sails.

Of all the weather conditions we face up at the allotment, I think wind is one of the most demoralising. Rain can nourish the ground, cold can break up the soil and even a dull dank day means you just potter and await the sun. But wind always leaves you in a double job mode, it isn't just doing the work you want to do, but then you have to tie everything down you wish to use which helps with the activity. Forget, and you can be chasing down the allotment for your hat or worse still picking up a broken pot or lifting a pallet off a bed which fell over for that split second you thought "Oh it will be safe.......".

Sweetcorn needs the wind for pollination, or at least a breeze, you also need it for your metaphorical sails. But when it goes calm in your world this also can be disheartening, (take lots of photographs so you can cheer yourself up with the difference you have made) this also happened today whilst doing the day to day jobs of getting the allotment ready, our lass can see all her seedlings trying to grow, but viewing them day on day you see very little difference, the only difference really shows when one of them takes a dive. The same happens in my greenhouse, growth seems gradual, declines seems instant. (Weeds seem spontaneous) The leeks which were my second attempt have been growing slowly and have finally had to be moved to a shelf below as their tops were touching the green house roof (they were on the top shelf) So where visible growth was not seen it must have happened and did hearten me a little. This is where televisual gardeners don't help, the "here is one I made earlier" or "I had sown these three months ago, just look at them now" gives the impression of instant success, they rarely mention failures and rarely do week by week reports on growing vegetables or flowers, at most you have three or four stages. So as all we have to view is the slowly growing seedlings, if they have decided to germinate, you are holding onto a lot of hope that all will end fruitfully.

A pleasant surprise for our lass, someone on the allotment didn't need it so we are now it's proud owners.

Waiting for them to be as thick as pencils but they are getting there.

Our lasses busy green house

Courgette and pumpkin, mark2

Finally sun and no wind, just as we finished for the day.