I have decided that I am not going to bow, or call him Chairman or Mr President, no matter how often he asks. Following the AGM today Neil was elected as Chair of the Society. This was mainly due to the lack of willing volunteers when it came time to re-elect, but he does have plenty of enthusiasm!

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The AGM did not take very long, nothing very controversial. We then had a Sow and Grow event, with planters of compost to plant up with seedlings of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and radish, so that people could learn how to plant them and take something away to nurture at home.

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The weather was a bit hit and miss for most of the day, but it didn’t get in the way too much as most of the jobs we were doing were tidying, plot admin sort of tasks. We made two visits to the tip with all the bags of rubbish, glass and other general junk that had been cluttering the place up since we got the new plot. This alone made a huge difference. We also tidied our spare plant pots that had been hanging around on the old plot and gave the shed a good tidy, it really looks like we are on top of things. Perfect timing as the allotment competition judge will be doing the rounds in the next couple of weeks, fingers crossed this will get us extra points!

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Both sets of rhubarb needed all the dead leaves removing, as it made them look like they were on their last legs, so they look a bit perkier now and can concentrate on growing for next year. The broad beans that were in over winter had finished producing pods so Neil dug them up and covered the cleared area with some of our compost. I think he used three wheelbarrows full and it all looked really good quality and had a fine, crumbly consistency. I think it’s fair to say we are pretty proud of our compost (geeks!). The second lot of broad beans we put out as a bit of a punt have started to produce pods, so we may actually have successfully extended the season pretty well.

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I potted on the melon plants that were in the old greenhouse and put the watermelon plants into the cold frame. Next time I’ll plant them outside, which surprised me as I imagined they would need to stay in a greenhouse, and they like having a ridge to grow up so a bit of digging will be required. I also planted some more savoy cabbage seeds. It may well end up being far too late but the plants that we have so far have spent too long in the greenhouse while we were away on honeymoon etc and so I don’t think they will be great, so I’ll try to catch some up and put them out as soon as possible and see what happens.

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Next week we will be looking at planting any of the late sowing varieties we have, such as peas and beans.