Mulching

The broad beans are still suffering from something eating them. I've sprayed the beans with watered down washing up liquid and that seems to of helped.

Now that the onions and shallots are a decent size we have covered the beds with leaf mulch. This should make it harder for the weeds to grow and when watered it will help keep the moister in.

Most of the seeds that Lin planted recently have started growing. The mixed lettuce (above), spring onions, beetroot, carrots and cabbage are all coming up. Only the parsnips haven't, they always take a long time to germinate.

I planted more seeds today, carrots (Artemis F1), red lettuce, parsnip (Place F1), beetroot (Alto F1), Romana lettuce, spring onions (Long White Tokyo) and rocket.

 The potatoes are all doing very well, these are the early Charlottes. The strawberries are getting more and more flowers on and it shouldn't be too long before we start getting fruits.

Leaf Mulch

First real visit of the year to the allotment today, dropped off some compost and a load of leaf mulch from one of Lin's customers. Most of it we left in bags to rot down a bit more, but some of it was in bags that had to be returned so some went in the compost bin and we covered two beds with the rest. It really helps to suppress the weeds in spring and will soon rot down in to the soil.


We also picked up some of last year's shallots that have been hung up to dry in the shed.