Allotment Diary April 2008

Tuesday 29th April
Mum and dad weeded beds ready for planting. Harvested a cabbage.

Monday 28th April
Mum put squashes, courgettes, pumpkins and cucumbers into larger pots and placed in greenhouse. (Courgette, De Nizza only one has germinated so far - left three remaining seeds in pots on the kitchen windowsill. Planted sweetcorn (Applause and Kelvedon Glory) seeds in pots.

Sunday 27th April
Me, mum and dad went down in the afternoon once the rain had stopped. We took many of the tomato plants down and put them in a greenhouse before they get too big. Once they were placed there dad watered them, edged the grass and we all set about weeding between various things on the fruit bed. I noticed a tree growing out of the middle of the blueberry, dad identified it as a silver birch and we have planted it near the edge of the top plot to see what happens. Mum harvested purple sprouting broccoli.

Friday 25th April
Mum and dad went down in the morning and discovered the wheel on the wheelbarrow had exploded (bits of plastic in the shed and the inner tube had burst). They cut the grass and weeded on the bottom plot by the road edge.

Sunday 20th April
Me mum and dad went down for a few hours in the morning, weather was cool and wet still. I did more flame weeding on the top plot and between some of the fruit bushes. Mum hand weeded between the strawberries to start finishing off that section. Dad concentrated on tidying up in the greenhouses and re-stacking the spare glass. He also harvested Rhubarb and tidied up the stick piles on the middle plot.

Tuesday 15th April
Mum and dad planted two almost full rows of main King Edward (49) and a row and a half of main Cara (39) potatoes, 15" spacing.

Monday 14th April
Mum and dad planted main Desiree potatoes (33), 15" spacing in the afternoon and prepared the next potato trench ready. Harvested purple sprouting broccoli.

Sunday 13th April
Mum planted four of each of the following squash and courgette:
Courgette Black Beauty
Courgette Grisette de Provence
Ball Courgette Di Nizza
Summer Squash Patty Pan
Courgette Golden Zucchini
Summer Squash Yellow Scallop
Pumpkin F1 Becky
Cucumber Marketmore

Later I planted the following in seed trays:
Celeriac (Monarch - 2 rows)
Brussel Sprouts (Trafalgar F1 - 1 row)
Calabrese (F1 Hydra - 1 row)
Cauliflower (Andes - 1 row)
Cauliflower (All The Year Round - 1 row)
Cabbage (January King 3 - 3 rows)
Cabbage (Primo II - 3 rows)
Cabbage (F1 Kilaxy - 3 rows)
Leek (Musselburgh x 120)
Leek (Autumn Giant x 60)
Radish (Multiple types over a whole seed tray)
Later we all went to the allotment, I flame weeded half of the bottom plot, part of the top plot and between some of the strawberries. The flame weeded needs servicing again as it has now carboned up a bit. Mum and dad continued transplanting raspberries to the half way points on the top and bottom plots to make it easier to divide them and to get a nice fruit supply in future.

Saturday 12th April
In the morning me and dad went out and bought some compost (6x75Litre bags for £20 and some different mash for the chickens. The mash looks a lot better with little or no grit and less big hard pieces of sweetcorn (which they were leaving).
I potted on the tomatoes so they are all in bigger pots in the greenhouse. Mum and I washed some pots and put them to dry. Mum potted on some more of the herbs which are now all in the greenhouse.
We moved the chicken house 90 degrees so that it is facing the house and put on two run sections.
We fired up the flame weeder to check it out after another bit of servicing and it is burning well now (as long as you don't tip it up and pour all the fuel back into the tank.)
The forecast is for a cool night so both heaters are being lit tonight so that the plants which are used to being in the house don't get too much of a shock.

Thursday 10th April
Mum and dad planted a row and a half of late second early potatoes (Wilja) 15" spacing. Weeded more of potato plot in preparation, bit sticky by small raspberry bed, quite a concentration of grasses and weeds, slow going.

Saturday 5th April
Me, mum and dad went down in the morning after the snow/sleet showers had stopped and dug trenches for the first (Pentland Javelin) and second (Nadine) early potatoes. Manure was put in the bottom, potatoes inserted at 12" spacing and then covered over and earthed up.

Friday 4th April
Mum and dad prepared ground ready for early potato planting. Moved compost from next to bottom composter bin into bottom composter bin.

Thursday 3rd April
Mum and dad planted onions (Red Baron, Sturon and Suttgarter Giant), shallots (Red Sun) and garlic (Fokyhama), put cloches over. Weeded between overwintered onions and garlic. Prepared some ground ready for raspberry transplanting. Harvested purple sprouting broccoli and rhubarb. One of the hens laid a gigantic egg today!

Wednesday 2nd April
Mum and dad dug up remaining parsnips. Weeded between spring cabbage and put fresh slug pellets in jars. Weeded lots of dock leaves.