View from the plot

Sunshine!

The lovely weather at the weekend bought lots of people out onto the plot. For many of them it was their first proper session on the allotment this year.

It was good to catch up with fellow plotters and discuss plans for the upcoming season. It also provided a welcome break from the heavier tasks that needed to be completed.

The garden centres had their busiest weekend of the year so far. There was a very popular offer at B&Q for two 50 litre bags of potting compost for £10.

With the better weather and longer days it’s now possible to pop to the plot after work for a quick session to keep things ticking along.

Seeds in the tray

One of the main jobs last weekend was to get as many seeds as possible planted in trays. A box of seeds from Dobies arrived last week and most of them are now hopefully considering their future careers as tasty vegetables from the comfort of their own coldframe.

Dig/Dug

Despite some areas of the plot still having the consistency of a suet pudding it was still possible to dig large portions of it. Compost and manure was spread on the freshly dug regions on Saturday and then a return trip on Sunday was made to dig it in.

We weren’t the only plotters to comment on what a slog the digging seemed to be. Maybe it’s the state of the soil or maybe the lack of personal exercise over the winter?

Bring out your shed

Another of the jobs to tackle was clearing out the shed. It’s amazing how much stuff had accumulated in there last year when we cleared the plot at the end of the season.

Various items had also been literally thrown in there over the winter to be dealt with later.

Sorting through the heap we did find a few things we had completely forgotten about which will save us having to buy them again, but a lot of it ended up at the local recycling depot as it couldn’t be salvaged for projects this year.

Watery rave

Overflowing water butts and a spare dustbin full to the brim are testament to the amount of rainfall we put up with over the winter. It made us think back to the very dry spell we had in June/July last year and what an effort it was to keep everything well-watered.

Hopefully there will be no such problems this year. A regular, predictable downpour would be appreciated this season.

Three times a week between 10pm and 6am. What are the chances of that?!