Spring green and blue

Our weather continues to be unsettled. I guess that we should see that as a bonus as now it just rains some of the time.

We have had some hail and rain accompanied by bitingly cold wind. We have had some sunshine but this hasn't meant that the temperature crept up although at times we have been tempted to shed one of our layers of clothing.

At the beginning of the week, the forecast was promising that the weather would improve, but of course, that changed, although the weekend was relatively pleasant.

At least, we have continued to make progress at the allotment. We planted a second bed of onions, shallots and garlic. The shallots were seedlings and so will only each produce one shallot each but last year the individual shallots were huge. Mal informed me that if I replanted a shallot the following year it would produce a cluster. Two of last year's shallots have shooted so I have planted them to see what happens. You may be able to spot these at the end of the far row, they may be too far gone but we'll see what happens.

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

Some progress

The weather has continued to tease. Some days have been positively spring-like but dark water-laden clouds suddenly appear in the sky threatening and often delivering more rain.

We made the most of the rain-free periods to work on the plot and in the garden as well as fitting in Ruby's walks.

One job was to plant more potatoes. One of our favourite potatoes is Elfe. For the last couple of years, we haven't been able to source any seed potatoes so last year we planted some of the ones we had stored over winter. We did wonder whether they would produce a harvest and it turned out that we had a better harvest from them than most of the other varieties planted. As a result, we will be planting our stored Elfe again. Last week we planted a couple of short rows.

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

A start to planting

We did have some glimpses of spring last week. Unfortunately, the rain hasn't completely given up the assault. Just when we feel as if there may be a chance for the soil to dry out a little, another downpour takes us back to square one. On part of the allotment, the paths are even more squelchy, so much so that we are trying to avoid walking on them. The rain doesn't even come as short showers, some days it lasts most of the night. As if that wasn't bad enough we have been battered by strong winds. Looking on the bright side at least the winds should help dry the soil a little, hopefully at least to the point where any weeding that we attempt isn't accompanied by a slurping soundtrack.

Despite the weather, we really did need to start planting. Onion sets were in danger of spoiling, one variety had, in fact, started to grow. The ones grown from seed were outgrowing the cells that they were sown in.

As usual, we plant onion sets and seedlings in shallow trenches filled with multipurpose compost. Fortunately, the bed planned for the onions was prepared last autumn and had been covered with weed-control fabric. It was also relatively workable.

 

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett