Back to the land

3 comments

Sunday May 5th and Monday May 6th

Back to the allotment and the gardening. Sunday was a good day to get the grass cut at home so more cuttings for the compost heap. Along with dead heading the daffodils and tulips, there was a nice collection of things to go to the allotment.

The rain we have had has done everything the world of good, the soil is still nicely damp underneath, so I did a spate of weeding and hoeing to clear things up. Is there anything more satisfying than chasing out a very long runner of cooch grass? If there is then please send it on a postcard to the BBC. I weeded the entire plot, which took about 45 minutes. I made sure I did the strawberries and the fruit as well, and while I was doing that enjoyed the lovely smell of the blackcurrant bush. Very nice. In all that was a job well done.

The swede have come through! The first swede that I have ever grown, and the nice little seedlings have appeared above the ground. That’s made my day really.

I did have some real work to do only the allotment, I put 80 beetroot seedlings into the allotment, that’s about a row and a half. There’s still room for another row and a half as well, so I’ll sow some more seeds and see what we can get in. Beetroot seed always seem to be strange things. I know I only ever plant 1 seed in each cell, so why do we get 2 or 3 seedlings from some cells? Odd plants.

The coriander is coming along very nicely. I’ve never grown coriander before and I am really happy about this. I probably have a lot more than I could want (unless I want to drown in carrot and coriander soup), but it’s good as a companion plant and can always go on the compost if nothing comes of it.

I brought back some rhubarb so we now have rhubarb crumble for tonight’s dinner

Back at the house I potted up the nasturtiums and some of the tagetes into pots so they can go the allotment later on and be moved around to get the most of the companion planting benefits that they provide. I still have more tagetes to dedicate to the tomatoes in the greenhouses as well. The marigolds aren’t very big yet but give them time.

I sowed some runner beans – ‘Scarelet Emperor’ which should be ready to into the allotment in late May early June. And the aforementioned beetroots were sowed as well.

I’ve also sowed some lambs lettuce and rocket into big pots for the patio, so we can have salad leaves nice and easily whenever we want them.

Coriander growing nicely…

Beetroots in and growing…

• 4 May, 2009
• 5 likes

More blog posts by muddy_knees