Due to our wild social lives we only had a couple of hours on the allotment this week. I was impressed and surprised with how much we got done in such a short amount of time. All the plants currently in the ground were doing well, with the exception of the cauliflowers. We had doubts about their survivability as they need a lot of water all the time, something we weren't able to give them immediately after planting. However, they might still (literally) come up trumps so we'll wait and see. The beans are growing very well, they're already winding themselves round their poles. How magical that they know how to do that, to know that the poles are there and how to use them to grow effectively. I think that's amazing. The carrots are flourishing, Mum and Sarah thinned them last week but they'll clearly need thinning again as we planted so many in such a haphazard manner. The leeks are also great, some of them really look like something you could actually eat! The lettuces and peas were also coming up, tiny tiny fresh greens shoots of goodness. It really is wonderful to watch things coming up from the rather stony, clumpy imperfect soil.
Mum and Sarah had cleared a patch last week so we had a good bit of clear space to plant in immediately we arrived.
We had, very luckily, been given some wonderful tomato plants by our friends June and Duncan. Thanks guys! Mum and I turned over the already dug plot while Dad got to work clearing some more ground. In their garden at home Mum does the decorative and creative gardening while Dad limits himself to what he calls 'clearing'. It's all about playing to your strengths, apparently, although he is clearly selling himself short as he told me lots about the care of the tomatoes we were putting into the ground.
He did amazing work on what was a very stony and grass covered bit of ground. We're learning that the grass is the hardest going when it comes to digging, and even when you think you've dug it all out there are stull huge clumps left. The lettuce bed had some big grass plants growing in it, even though we were sure we'd removed all the crafty bastards before planting. Clearly it's a case of following MadEye Moody's advice of CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
Along with the grass we also dug up some other interesting things. It's a bit like being on Time Team, you can see what the previous owners of the plot had planted in different places as we dig along. I pulled up this mammoth fennel, the plant above ground was about 3 foot tall and required a lot of arm strength to get it out.
With my (very dirty) foot for scale
Dad pulled up spring onions and we found one, lone intact potato plant that we left to see what happens.
We put in ten tomato plants. We did actually stake them up more effectively than this, I just failed to take a photo of that!
We also gave everything a good watering. We've been really lucky with the weather, a mixture of sunshine and (sometimes torrential) rain but I figure it's good to get into the practice of watering everything anyway.
Before .
And after!
Mum and Dad are going to do some more work during the week - god bless retirement! All the beds need weeding, the carrots need thinning and Mum has some butternut squash plants she'll put in. Those take up a lot of space but also help keep the weeds down which is clearly something that's really important! The next big thing will be to clear all the wild massive scrub that is down the left hand side of the plot. It needs cutting back and pulling out so we can use that part of the land. I'm not sure what it all is, some of it is weeds but some of it looks like previous crops gone to seed.
I felt like we'd achieved a surprising amount in a short space of time. It was a good idea to go early (we all skipped our various religious activities and communed with God through gardening) because boy, it was hot! It was almost too warm to do much strenuous digging even at 10am, being there at midday would have been very uncomfortable. I need to invest in some better sun proof clothing and a better hat. Hurrah for an excuse to go shopping!
