Sunday, 3rd April, 2005

First shallots poking through; several garlic well through!

Amazing what a difference a couple of days makes to a clay soil.   Only on Wednesday, the soil was so wet and claggy that Ayman and I spent the afternoon cutting the grass paths at our end of the site.   Any real allotment stuff was simply unrealistic.

But today, somebody has waved a magic wand over the onion bed.   All right, it was just my rake, but the soil has fallen apart into what could almost pass as a tilth; so my onion sets can go in later this week.   I've also sown a leek seed-bed (King Richard, Musselburgh - both favourites - and Swiss Giant Zermatt, Monstruoso de Carentan), a broad bean bed, and some Swiss chard.   For all these, I've drawn the drills, sown the seed, and covered with bought compost; hopefully easier for the seedling - and certainly easier to see where the seedling is supposed to come through.

But, oh it is frustrating that ALL the beds don't respond to the same treatment.   The bed I want for my peas is still stubbornly thuggish, cloddy and wet; ah well, patience is a virtue.   Worked it over again with a fork - we'll see how it goes?

This is what the plot looked like on Wednesday afternoon - a couple of the lazy beds in the foreground, the enormous turf heap back in the centre.

Monday 4th April, 2005

Got the Stuttgarter Giant and Sturon onion sets in.   That's my first bed to be filled - even though part of it is the herb transplants (looks even more like they have failed).

Spent a good two hours lifting the manure mulch off what should be the potato bed, and digging it AGAIN.   Still, the "soil" remains huge intractably stubborn divots - it needs the same "magic" as the onion bed (if only I knew what that was).

Tuesday 5th April, 2005

Full of plans to attack yesterday's clods with the rotovator - but the clutch cable is broken.   Rather than waste a lovely afternoon, I prepared yet another 9 foot lazy bed - only two hours and I've got a bed hacked out of the rough couch grass ready for sowing!

Also prepared and sowed the brassica seed bed - swedes, cabbages, caulis, calabrese, romanesco and brussels sprouts - all under a fleece tent.   Again, I'm using the trick of drawing a deep drill and filling it with an inch of compost.   For a couple of short rows of carrots (Autumn King and Early Nantes), I cut a deep V with the spade, filled the gap with a mixture of sharp sand and soil, and sowed into that (and covered with a fleece tent).   I've also got a couple of rows of parsley seed in - Italian giant and flat-leaf.

Not a wasted afternoon then!

Sunday 10th April, 2005

After the last few days' bitter weather (a dusting of snow on Friday?), today was glorious; pleasantly warm, dry - perfect weather for a long day on the plot.

The site's rotovator is still out of commission - it was [b]very[/b] good of Don to lend me his Mantis tiller.   I'd never have believed it could cope with the clods, but it's made a pretty good job - as good as much bigger machines.   Doesn't get very deep - but that's not what I wanted.   You could only use it in soil already dug, but for all that, not a bad wee machine at all.   And all the noise and smells of a 2-stroke boy-racer!

Got the Majestic maincrops in, and the last of the Kestrel - and the bed's ready for the Pink Fir Apple to go in this week.   The pea bed's ready to sow too; a job for tomorrow, assuming the weather holds.

Sunday 17th April, 2005

Another week of cold, wet weather.   Yes, today was glorious, but one nice day can't make up for the rest - especially when all the spring kids' activities have to be crammed into just a few hours.   Went out a bike ride this afternoon with Ayman, instead of spending the whole day on the plot.

If nothing else, for all that my plot is at the high side of the site, it is full of water - all the lazy beds across the slope look like this; sowing beans was more like working a paddy field.

The water in the "up-and-down" beds is not nearly so bad - it's only lying at the lower end.   So - channel it off, and lose the moisture?   Or leave the water to soak in slowly as a reservoir for later in the year?   Our bike ride took us up to Eccup reservoir - looking very low indeed.

Anyway, I took a couple of hours in the morning - beetroot is sown (Forono, Burpees Golden, and Choggia Pink), a row of Lobjoit's green cos lettuce, a good row of Alderman peas, radishes, spring onions, Swiss chard (the plain-white-stalked one, for a change), and the Medes broad beans (in the lazy bed pictured).   Can't help feeling that I am way behind this year - only the garlic and shallots showing?

Looking back at previous years' diaries - it is much colder and wetter, this year.   Unseasonable?   Or perhaps I've been spoiled by recent springs?

Wednesday 20th April, 2005

Over the last ten days, I've been watching from my window great drifts of snow-blossomed thickets on the wild area across the road.   They're just past their best, but I wanted a photo of the "hawthorn" for this month's page header; and of course, lots of readers will spot my mistaken ignorance.

It is in fact Blackthorn (aha, that's sloe gin planned for later in the year), which apparently often blossoms just as an early spring cold spell strikes.   Hence the phrase "blackthorn winter".   It may look like a dusting of snow - but it's a definite sign that spring has arrived.

The Hawthorn should blossom next month.

Digging around this identification brought me to The Friends of Beckett Street Cemetery; lots of information on the first Corporation burial site in Britain, its history, ecology, and preservation.   It's just along the road from me - somewhere else to explore.

Sunday 24th April, 2005

Glorious day - and I was daft enough to sleep in!

No leeks or parsnips yet; one single potato plant popped through; no broad beans or chard - aha, but the carrots are germinating well, and a few of the brassicas.   Patience and fingers crossed.

Sowed some old scorzonera seed - not at all sure it will grow in this soil, but we'll see; sowed them the same as I did the carrots, cutting a V-groove and filling it with a mix of sand and soil.   Also sowed a bed of Little Marvel peas and the rest of the packet of Ezethas Krombek Blauwschok peas from last year's abortive attempt - looking forward again to violet flowers and pods (with green seeds), which can be eaten whole when young.

And planted the Pink Fir Apple this afternoon.