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.

A day for collecting our bounty down the allotment

 Quite a few times when we have been going down to the allotment our first sightings of change is the remains of a leaf stork to flowers or a sudden appearance of weeds. So yesterdays findings were a pleasant surprise, the glimmering rubies nestled in the straw under cover of emerald leaves. We did expect on closer inspection to find the signs of perfection on the outer most view and the signs of slugs when you turned them over, but there was very little slug activity.

Our lass picked the strawberries and although from the photograph below you might think a punnet not bad, this out strips our returns from the whole of last season and hopefully is a good sign of things to come considering all the nurturing our lass has given the plants. Transporting all the runners from our old plot, weeding and now straw bedding with netting protection. Our rewards will be at least many fold the effort put in.

The only thing lacking was cream and as it was shops shut Sunday, I was a heathen and had them with custard, our lass will wait for some cream that we will buy today.

New potatoes that we had for tea from the bed above, our lass has now added chicken manure dug it over and transplanted the last of the cauliflower seedlings. Photographs to come. The new potatoes should just have been ready in 60 days, these were sown back on the 14th March and so have had nearly 90 days, also a lot of the soil was still very clayey it is going to take some time to get the soil as we want it. Free of detritus would be a start as we continual keep finding bits of glass and nails. One day the soil will be just right and that shouldn't be too far away.

Our break time view of the alliums in full flower attracting more than their fair share of hover flies.

More colour and hopefully by hanging them high they will be out of the way of the slugs.

As we say good night to the allotment we take a look back at the current growth we have, our next agenda is to get more flowers in for our lass.it is all far too green we need a bit of colour in our life.

Blackleg potatoes

One thing I have always written is that you need to take lots of photographs and this is another reason as to why you do this. It helps you to remember just how far you have come with your allotment. Our lass has numerous issues with getting the flowers to grow and anything which does grow gets slugged.

Yesterday I noticed that one of the potato plants was worse for wear and as one person commented, it looked peed on.

This is to do it seems with black leg. Link to RHS site about Potato Blackleg best to follow the link than have me waffle about it.

But we have removed the first one as you can see, another in a different location seems to be going the same way, here is hoping we have caught it in time. The only saving grace is that the crops are rotated around the allotment and this only affects potatoes so a year or twos absence from this ground and the bacteria should be gone.

In other news...

The pansies out front have been sat on and we think the culprit for that was the local pheasant which seems to want to snuggle down everywhere. 

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.

Grand day down at the allotment.

 Well you wait a few weeks for a blog post and then you get two in one day. Bank holiday weekend and whilst you will see photographs of beaches being swollen with folks, we had our plot all to ourselves, we took a picnic and the hours flew by. The crowning glory to the day is that we finally saw a frog residing in the pond. It is all the little things which make life good.

A grand day to go to the allotment

The sunshine brought the alliums out to flower

Our lass put out the reserve sweetcorn, having bought some thinking the first lot might fail we now have two lots, but they have replaced a row of raspberry canes which were simply twigs.

All the seedlings in, now lets see if they will flower, I am sure our lasses creation will be a success

My one job, putting the shade netting on my greenhouse, now lets see if it stays on.

And finally, a frog in the wildlife pond.

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

Allotments can help you grow yourself, not just fruit and veg.

There has been a few weeks since the last blog post, not because we haven't been down to the allotment but because you do discover that sometimes it is not all about look at me look at what we have done, please give me your approval by liking what I post or write about. This allotment is for me and our lass, whether or not someone else approves or not, likes or dislikes it is for us and we do what we do.

You do however have to love/like what you are doing, with the long dry spell we have had been through recently and frosts over night it became increasingly difficult to do this. Mental health is something which is mentioned a lot in regards to gardening and the ability to get out has been of a great help to me and our lass. There is however another side you have to fight with and that fight is mostly with yourself. You invest a lot of thought and emotion into what you grow, to see it wither, not germinate, bolt or basically not do what it should, can be a source of immense frustration which may lead depending on how you are yourself to a depressive thought process.

"These are easy to grow" is something you will hear or read depending on how you take in your gardening information, those words echo in the back of your mind as you look upon a bedraggled array of seedlings or a eight by four seed tray and only three seem to have germinated and you are sure after six weeks something should have come out of the other pods. It can be frustrating with all the positive vibes of getting yourself out being drowned by the negativity of what have I done wrong? You see weeds seemingly making their way through concrete but your easy to grow seeds can't make it out of the module because it is too wet, to dry, to warm, to cold, not enough light, too much light. So if it is not the seed it must be the grower, what is wrong with me? Especially if they are so easy to grow as everyone else states.

This is where you grow yourself, you learn to say "Well, we are doing our best, what will be will be" we have also said "This is our first full year on the plot so lets see what happens" both statements you repeat as a mantra but are difficult to square up with the withering or non existent seedlings you are looking over. But the past few days have improved emotionally with the improvement in the weather. Heat is slowly coming back into the days and we ain't going to shout this too loudly but we think this is the last of the frosts until winter comes around again.

A lot of what we have been doing over the past few weeks is triaging the allotment but we have as you will see from the photographs below moved forward in certain areas, but the biggest move forward is within ourselves.

The wire mesh was a free find from another allotment, bottle tops to help the birds not crash into it, now here is hoping the sweetpeas make their way upwards

The wild flowers/life area, our lass has put a seed bomb over the uncovered ground and support for the clematis all we need now is flowers.

Early purple sprouting broccoli has been a bowl of contention for our lass, when do you put it out? But the seedlings have several leaves, so our lass has put it out now, this is a slow burner and if the weather, pests or nature in general doesn't have for it, we could have some broccoli next spring.

Plenty of sunshine, plenty to report, still cold at night.

Recently there has been a lot of sunshine, it has been strong enough to bring on the sun tans but not enough to push the thermometer outside the green house above 16 degrees. Inside the greenhouse it has been able to reach 45 degrees and thanks to very good advice from our lass we have some greenhouse shading material arriving next week but it has all been contrasts as in the evening we have been greeted by frosts and minus 3 degrees. Makes for a very confusing balancing act to keep all the plants happy.

Can not sustain such high numbers.

Far too hot in the greenhouses to sustain the lettuce

Our lass is always good at finding a bargain and upcycling things around us. On a lone trip to the allotment our lass completed a project of surrounding an inconvenient tree stump with milk bottle plant pots, should look even better when the flowers grow from them.

Just like winter currently bare will look even better in summer when in flower.

Another great find from our lass on FaceAche, you can't beat free

Two iron gates, quite some weight to them, will be very useful

A little early but the runner beans have been sown

Will any of the leeks make their way out of the holes?

Slugs like rhubarb as much as we do, but this is the rhubarbs first year so needs as much chance as possible to get a foothold. So our lass has a cunning plan to help it survive, so far so good.

As we have been leaving the allotment we have been finding some great allotment giveaways, firstly a couple of tubs, mostly likely not wanted due to the half an hour plus it took us both to part them, but once done we now have one for beans and one for carrots. So we didn't fill it all with compost, we filled to the top with straw and horse muck from the pile at the bottom of the hill and watered down, then just used one bag of compost instead of five. French beans sown and as the straw/manure rots down hopefully a source of nourishment as well.

Trying to fill every bit of space.

Another find as we were leaving moment was the logs and off cuts you will see below, this is the second time a pile had been left, before we were naive enough to think they would be still there the next day, obviously they were not. This time even though it was a trek back up the hill for the barrow, back down the hill, and back up the hill with a full barrow, we now have stepping stones and seats for the grandkids.

Nice little haul

and finally 

As we were leaving the other day, to look back and see the clear blue sky and to take in all the feeling of potential