It’s suddenly very busy on the allotment – both with people working their plots and with the number of jobs we have to do! The seeds we planted out in the greenhouse have had mixed results. The sweetpeas, cauliflower, basil and oregano have sprouted but there is still no sign of life from the tomatoes.  It is hard not to peer into everyone’s  greenhouses to compare their results with your own at this time of year! We have brought some pots and compost home this week to start some tomato seeds here in the warm with the hope that they might get off to a quicker start.

On Sunday I was on light duties to preserve my muscles for my training walk the next day but I managed to clean the greenhouse out, which was very satisfying and had been bothering me for ages. Everything has had a good sweep down, ready for Neil to start constructing the extra staging that we will need in the next few weeks.

Neil was doing more heavy duty jobs on 118 while I was tidying, as he was cementing in some of the concrete posts using a dry mix of sand and cement. Although he was a bit worried about one of them being wonky, we checked on them today and the cement has hardened nicely and they are all pretty straight. Only seven more to go!

We had some exciting deliveries over the last week. Our onion sets arrived, two white varieties (Fen Early and Hytech) and one red (Hyred) and so we planted really long rows on 118. Only a few are showing signs of growth just yet but at least none have been plucked out by hungry birds or squirrels! Even more exciting to receive was our asparagus crowns (Backlim) as this is a new crop for us. Bob has some growing which he started from seed but we weren’t sure we had the patience (or the expertise!) for this, particularly given that it is recommended that you wait for three years before harvesting even from crowns to allow for them to get established. Neil dug a long trench in a raised bed on 118 and we then made a small mound all the way along the trench as the spidery crowns need to be supported rather than squashed flat. We had ten crowns so we planted them generously apart and filled the trench in and added a little bit of organic fertiliser to help them on their way. We are hopeful that they will be successful, especially as we didn’t really have any opportunity to carefully prepare the soil in the bed, so fingers crossed.

We will have a busy few visits over the coming weeks as the pile of seed packets ready to plant is quite large! But as for the things already growing, there were even more signs of life cropping up all over the place. Each visit we are looking forward to searching out the new bits of greenery and it is amazing how fast everything happens, so no slacking off for us!

PS Thanks to Debbie for her kind sponsorship for my walking marathon!