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.

Straw, Slugs, Allotment, Slugs, Cauliflowers, Slugs, Potatoes, more slugs, oh and bind weed.

You may have noticed a theme to the header, the bane of every allotment holders life. Slugs! I did actually google to see what are slugs good for? (Absolutely nothing!) You may well have the song War! in your mind now. But it seems that slugs are a big part of the eco system, they make great composters, it is just a shame the stuff they want to eat is young tender leaves and not weeds. If only a slug could be encouraged to eat weeds, we would be devoted disciples of the slugs, erect monuments in their honour. They don't though so our lass sets out beer traps and the feeling is we might as well be putting party invitations out for the slugs with a header of FREE BEER!.

One thing which seems to have worked a bit is the grit around our courgette and pumpkin although one mound as you can see top right seems to have mysteriously moved all by itself. Also the leaves at the bottom are yellowing and hopefully we start getting new leaves before we lose the old ones.

Our lass has put out the barley straw, worry as always is will this just be a comfortable hiding place for the slugs. We have since netted over as well, to stop air attack from the birds, here is hoping we actually get some strawberries for ourselves.

Our lass put out a few cauliflowers yesterday and whilst doing so removed five slugs from the ground, they now have hopefully become lunch for the frog as we put them in the pond. But please give us a chance, go for the beer please leave our veg alone.

Yesterday we took our first crop of potatoes out of the ground, we had had some from a bucket, but these were our first from the soil. This whole area when we got the allotment though had bin weed, not only is it a lot tidier now we are still doing our best to get every little bit out. As you can not even leave the smallest bit of root in. Plan of action, is to cut the main leaves of the potatoes and compost them, fork out under the potatoes and put them on the sieve. Pick through and sort, potatoes, then potato roots and weeds in a bag to go for rubbish. I know they say you can compost everything, but for us weeds just have seeds and you are spreading it around the allotment and potatoes seem to like to grow anywhere from even the smallest node.

How the allotment looked on day one and the bind weed on the right.

Yesterdays new potatoes and very nice they were as well, the smell of the cooked potatoes took me right back in time, might sound like some old fart. But the potatoes we have today just don't even smell the same as they used to and was very enjoyable to eat yesterday.

and finally Carrots and Onions, no need to thin the carrots as only a few have come through from the ones which were sown a couple of months ago. Last month we sowed another row in the middle and they are just showing the first signs of germination and yesterday to the right sowed the final row of carrots in the hopes that over the coming months we will get a progression of carrots to pick, carrot fly is supposed to have gone by June, but still trying do as little as possible to disturb just in case. As for knowing your onions, well I didn't and thought they had all died in the winter but thought would just leave them to see what would happen. Which it seems was a good idea as they are starting to look a lot like onions. Now just need to know when is the right time to pick them? Answers not on a postcard but in the comment section if you know.