Sunny Sunday morning

Popped up to the plot this morning, in bright warm sunshine. Just there to pick up my wheelbarrow, so I could shift the loads of compost I'd bought and delivered to home. Carrying them up the side path did not appeal - so the barrow was called for.
While I was at the plot I had a look around, and generally things are not looking too bad. A few of the leeks are starting to go to seed (the warm weather I guess), but the new season onions and garlic look healthy, and the winter salads are still OK (out from their cloches now).

Back at home I spent some time in the greenhouse sowing butternut squash, green beans, marrows, tomatoes - and potting on some tomatoes, aubergines, chillies and red peppers I bought yesterday. I also picked up a couple of rhubarbs this morning - which need to go in at the allotment next time I am there. There'll be (if all goes to plan) plenty of stuff to plant out at the allotment in a few weeks.

Otherwise spent much of the time in the garden at home - tidying, trying to sort the lawn out a bit, potting up the solanums for the deck - all jobs that needed doing.
Here's hoping for the decent weather to continue for a while, so I can get the allotment up and running properly for the season.

New season underway...

Went up to the plot on Sunday lunchtime for a couple of hours. I'd not been up since just after New Year, and was a bit apprehensive. Since last year both neighbouring plots have been taken, both have sheds, but very little else. Downhill has dug a little 'test' bed through the winter's covering of weeds, and Uphill has dismantled a load of edged-beds and rotovated the lot: so activity is stirring. On my plot everything has got through the winter unscathed. The shed is nice and watertight, and the raised beds are in good order. The rest is a bit of a wilderness though. If I only had the raised beds, which equates to about 12m x 1m across the four, I'd probably have enough anyway: it's looking after all the rest that's a pain when it's not got stuff growing. Maybe I should resort more readily to black plastic this year and keep things looking tidier? And I have the promise of at least four more raised beds for this season, so that brings another chunk of the plot under control.
I sowed a few rows of broad beans, a bit later than planned, but at least they're in. I'd also earlier sown some salad leaf in a leftover Growbag in the greenhouse, so they might get going. The winter salad at the plot has done OK: corn salad, winter lettuce, rocket all under cloches - I came away with a good bag full, as well as the last dozen onions from the shed. And the onions and garlic I put in November time have mostly made it through: it's pigeons rather than the weather that has uprooted some of them.
I finally felled the sunflowers, any seeds having been devoured by local birds, or dropped to the ground and self-set. There are thousands (slight exaggeration, but only slight) of nasturtium seeds about in the beds, so I won't need to sow any this year.
After a gloomy, long, dark and SAD winter, it does the soul a power of good to get up on the plot again. It's light in the morning, it's light at teatime - and the prospect of long weekend days up there really starts to feel good. S bought me a diary so I can keep all my allotment notes and records up together through the year: here's to looking back in 12 months' time at a job well done.