Spring Has Sprung

It’s getting on for the middle of March and we’re finally beginning to see the signs of spring that will encourage us to get to the plot on a more regular basis. Once we get started there’s no doubt that we’ll find all manner of jobs to do that we’d forgotten about and will be spending more and more of our free time there.

Recent visits to the plot have shown us that the regular rain has kept the soil very moist. Attempting to dig it with a fork still results in large clods instead of the nice crumbly soil that we’re used to. Hopefully the increased sunny weather will dry it out sufficiently over the next few weeks and it’ll be back to its normal state.

We’ve been picking a lot more of our purple sprouting broccoli recently – something that we plant every year and really enjoy. It’s nice to be harvesting something so tasty at this time of year and it’s pretty much maintenance-free once it gets going.

Red and White Onions

We still have several strings of red and white onions from last year in our store cupboard and a couple of bunches of garlic, too. Another crop that has lasted well since last year are the pumpkins and squash of which we have eight left.

Coldframe

Next time we’re on the allotment we’ll have to clean the glass on the coldframe as it’s developed a definite green tint to it at the moment which won’t help the seedlings that we’re soon going to fill it with. The coldframe is one of the most useful things we’ve built on our plot and we use it all year round to encourage and protect various plants and seedlings.

Some time ago we had a plan to sort out our strawberry beds and although this never happened we should be able to get going on that soon and look forward to harvesting the delicious strawberries in late June.

No rain is forecast for us this weekend so a trip to the allotment is definitely planned. We’ll work out our planting plan, do whatever preparation we can and have a general potter around.