Vinny's Allotment Plot

    Last minute decision to visit the plot today. It was bright out and my next door neighbours were busy at home pruning, him chopping off branches and her holding the ladder even though they are well into there seventies. This spurred me on to do a bt of summat and I had planned what to do, but as usual did summat else.!

I had been meaning to sow broadies for a while but never seemed to get round to it. Today I dug out the packet of The Suttion dwarf broad beans and decided to plant them. Some are missing from packet as the mice had been at them before I realised a while ago and put what remined of the packet in a sealed container. I counted them and there were 40 beans left so the mice can't have munched a lot of them. Just enough for two rows of 20 at about 4 inch spacings. I planted them through cardboard and grass cuttings, initially cutting a slit with spade then using a dibber to plant them in slit. Once planted I covered slit with a small amount of used compost.

I then decided to plant oiut some spring cabbage which were sown a bit too late into modules, 2 or 3 seeds per module. Because they are so small and may secumb to slugs/snails I just planted them out the way they were in 12 positions. The bed I planted them in had squash which were just recently removed. The squash were planted through cardboard with a layer of compost and grass cuttings on top, none of which remain. A quick rake over and the bed was ready for planting.

I hand weeded another bed but didn't plant anything in it just now as it is a wet bed and I did have a touch of clubroot there a couple of seasons ago.I tried torpedo onions in it this year but they didn't do very well either so I shall have to have a think about what to use it for in the future.The bed in the foreground had courgettes in it which did well on cardboard/compost and grass cuttings so sfter clearing courgette foliage I just added another layer of grass cuttings.

I think I have plenty of onions   and they seem to be drying off quite nicely on greenhouse staging.

I picked up part of my best sundlower to dry off the seeds for next year, out of the reach of those pesky meeces!  I also cut off my leek floering stem which I had shaved to encourage more vegetative production. The small grass plantlets should have been planted out in October but I will stand it in water indoors at home for a few days then seperate the plantlets and pot them up. I did this last year but the unusual cold spell we had made them run to seed in the spring, even though they were in greenhouse. The showmen heat there greenhouses but because I aint showing them I need to find an alternative way of growing them?

The last piccie is of some garlic/elephant garlic that is begging me to get it planted up as it is already rooting. A job for next visit to plot!