I am aware that the Simply Red song is "For your babies" but this is our allotment and these are our babies. It was something our lass said as we were leaving last night from the allotment "night, night babies". Which got me to thinking, 1) How much I love our lass and how much she cares about everything 2) What we are growing does receive emotional investment into them. Much like babies.
"I don't believe in many things but in you, I do." is another line from the song, and although maybe I give our lass good reason to find this difficult to believe I do believe in her and her ways. This is even when I might seem as though I am off marathon running in my head.
Yesterday was a pottering day, our lass was potting out more of the lettuces, giving them their own space
Our Top Tip, (top tip number #1 is always take lots of photographs.) But another top tip is it may well say on the seed packet that you can sow direct into the ground then thin them out. But in all honesty are you ever going to do that? You then have the struggle of sifting weeds from seeds, unless you have a really keen eye or knowledge of every weed vs seed leaf shape it is all a great faff. Last year our lass didn't have a green house, we didn't have a lot of room, so directly sowed into a drill. The lettuces came through, but so did the weeds, they were lots of lettuces close together. So they then bunched up and started to rot, it is all a lot simpler, if you can sow them into a tray, then prick out. You can put them into pots as our lass has done, or wait until they are bigger and plant them individually. But, I would suggest keep away from just sowing in to drills.
Our lass has also been busy sowing flowers seeds around the allotment, now with these it is okay to sow freely as we do just want them to flower where they are going to land. The main focus will be, will they grow and what will it all look like. I am forever the optimist and I am sure it will all look grand.
My two little jobs were planting the tomato plants in between the onions in their final growing space. I know folks keep potting on and on, but to me, like ourselves if you are comfy and laying down roots, surely you don't want uplifting and being unsettled every few weeks. So one move from small plug to bigger tub for those that germinated and now a move to the final growing place. The green house has warmed up so I think it might just be about time, I do have some in reserve in case this all goes wrong. Job number two was knocking together a stool, we will see how long it lasts with my weight upon it.
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| These are very lucky lettuces as they have a pot all to themselves. |
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| A stool, it is as safe as it looks. |
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| First of the tomatoes planted, and it may look like a seen from the Wild West where they are being hung for their crimes, but the string is there to support them in the future. |
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| View of the other two tomatoes from a seated position. |
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| Could be argued one of our favourite parts of the allotment. break time. |
