Allotment coming along nicely
By tomdevlin18
4 comments
With the recent warm weather I’ve been able to make some progress with the weed clearing and digging. So its was time today to put in a few things.
Actually my enthusiasm ran away a little last month and I started sowing some seeds and experimenting. Some old lettuce seeds were planted to see if they were still viable….. Largely they were but now needed either killing off or transplanting. I couldn’t bring myself to discard them so in the ground they went!
Some strawberries Elsanta and Sonata bought from Lidl @£2.99 for six plants. These had been nurtured in my conservatory since late February and hardened off this last week. I planted them poking through black plastic I will see which does best on my plot and more importantly tastes best!
Some early potatoes bought from Wilkos (Charlotte and International Kidney) sown in pots in early March and already bursting with growth. They needed to be put in asap.
And some parsnip seeds. I’ve read that these can be slow and reluctant to germinate so I laid them on damp tissue about 2 weeks ago and kept them in the dark in the conservatory. Temperatures about 8c at night rising to about 15c some days. After about 14 days I noticed that most had germinated and were clearly showing roots. By today I reckoned the roots were getting too long so in they had to go. Again I will post on how well these do.
And lastly I made a cold frame out of half our old bed frame and the polythene cover that our new bed came in. The polythene is a good heavy grade and I’m hoping to get a number of seasons out of it. I’ve put two large opening on the top so that it doesn’t over heat in summer. I think it will be fine for starting seeds off this time of the year and for providing some shelter for courgettes later in the summer.
3 Apr, 2016
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Previous post: Still Digging
Comments
That can be a problem. Apparently strawberries are the most likely to be taken. But life's too short to worry. If I lose a few strawberries to light fingered visitors then I'll write it off as just one of those things.
Actually I've placed the strawberry plants right in the middle of the plot so that might disguise them a bit - although conversely I've put them next to my three large paving stones to allow easy access!!
4 Apr, 2016
I once lost a lot of raspberries I was saving for some visitors, and another time one of my gooseberry bushes was stripped. I retaliated to that one by putting a notice on the other bushes saying they'd just been sprayed and shouldn't be touched. Neither allotment was next to a public road either. Makes you so cross.
You could put your strawberries under a fleece tunnel?
4 Apr, 2016
Fleece tunnel sounds like a good idea. As does the "Just been sprayed" sign. Might try both in July.
4 Apr, 2016
Recent posts by tomdevlin18
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25 Mar, 2016
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What a briliant idea your cold frame is! I hope it proves to be very useful. Isn't your allotment near the road - do you have problems with people wandering in and helping themselves?
3 Apr, 2016