I think that May/June is my absolute favourite time! So many exciting things are happening in the garden and allotment and the weather is much sunnier. Great! I'm mostly going to write this blog in chronoligical order but have to start with the best thing that happened today. I was told on tuesday that I could have any fruit from a vacant plot that was about to be cleared - I asked about a fab gooseberry - old, so was going to be cleared, but FULL of fruit - and was told I could have it. So I went to the plot this morning (was there at 8.30am!) and dug it up. It's super! I am fully aware that it is totally the wrong time to transplant it, but prepared the ground well, and fully watered it in. I've got my fingers crossed that it makes it.
To the back garden. My beloved rhododendron is looking glorious. This fella hasn't let me down since I hacked it back when we first moved in.
The chives are also looking very healthy. The flowers are lovely with the purple flower heads bobbing around.
My blueberry bush is doing well. The little flowers have mostly dropped their petals now and the berries are starting to plump up nicely.
These little gooseberries are from one of my new gooseberry bushes. There are about 6 or 7 on the bush. I'm thinking lots of jam and pies mmmmmmm!
An arty (B&W) pic taken by the gal of my little gladiator. He did a great job of hacking up all the weeds he could find. They didn't stand a chance.
I understood why the leeks bolted - they are in their second year. But my shallots, garlic and onions are bolting too now :o( . I've nipped off the flowers and watered them well. They won't store now though. SO- lots of french onion soup!
I sowed five more varieties of carrot. We seem to having a lot of trouble getting carrots to germinate on our allotments this year. So for my second sowing of carrots I really gave them some TLC. I raked the bed finely again, scraped some shallow trenches in the soil, then filled them with compost. This is then what I sowed my carrot seeds into. Types I have sown are;- Parmex, Sugarsnax, Cosmic Purple, Yellowstone and Little Finger. The three other plants are my severely mistreated clumps of marigolds.
Beans got the treatment next. I planted the runner/pole beans and climbing french beans in fours - two on each side of the canes. I planted one bean at the base of each cane and also popped a sweetpea in there for good measure. Bean types are Pole Star Runner, Amishland True Cranberry Pole Bean & Amishland Heritage Pole bean (both from the USA), Mr Fearn's Beans, Coronan D'Ora, and Violette all climbing french beans.
The dwarf french beans I planted along the bed in front of the canes;- Kinghorn Wax, Borlotti Du and Annabel.
I planted my little sweetcorn babies amongst the pumpkins and squashes on the two beds. They will be happy with the squash romping around thier feet keeping them cool and weed free (hopefully!).
The broad beans are now plumping up nicely. I tried the baby ones whole as suggested in my book but it wasn't to my taste. I hope that the more fully grown beans fare better or they will be for the chop next year!
My peas are looking good now too. I have several pods that hopefully will be nearly ready to pick on my return from my jollies.
Spud update. 'Experimental' first earlies are flowering prolifically and I'm going to dig one up next weekend - whoooohooo!
Strawbs are beginning to ripen now. I really need to make a net covering to keep of the birdies. One of the next jobs!
And finally a plot shot. I'm off on my hols for a week, I really am going to miss it, so much happens every time I leave it for a couple of days, let alone nearly a week! I think it really looks great already though xxx
Another lovely sunny day on the plot. Today was a day of planting and I did loads. We arrived at 10.30, the Hubby and kids stayed until 2pm and I left at 5.
HUbby put up my two new arches, while I dug over the bed ready for the pumpkins and squashes. It was a doddle. Even though it was full of weeds when I started they lifted with mimimal effort from the bed that has carrots in last year. I planted Jack-Be-Little, Ornamental Gourds, Small Sugar and Early Butternut to go up and over the arches - two of each variety on each side, In Bed 2 I planted Turks Turban (2) (lots of room all round), F1 Sunburst (2) and another butternut whose name escapes me at the moment (2) (bit closer together). I'm going to plant my sweetcorn seedlings in the same bed when they are big enough.
Bed 9
My leeks from last year never really made the grade. They have very little white stem, mostly made up of leaves and have now gone to seed (as expected). I'll get it right this year hopefully and think I'm just going to let a few of the leeks run their course to see what the flowers are like and maybe save the seed.
I had been going on about needing a coldframe - until I realised that I actually already had one in the form of my carrot frame. With some plastic over the top if needed. It's working brilliantly!
And finally at home my countless varieties of beans (like the peas and toms!) are dtarted to pop up. The dwarf frenches are doing well and of the climbers the Cosse Violette are the winners! I cant believe how fast tehse things grow. Got up this morning they were like - this evening they are open and leaves out! They'd changed even in the first hour of being awake!! Fab!
Looking the other way you can see where I have laid my 'special' carpet and some of the fabric. I need to make LOADS more pins (wire bent into an 'n' shape), but it looks sooo much better already with just a few of the paths covered. I WILL NOT WEED PATHS ALL SUMMER!
On to other stuff - This is one of our resident robins. As they're so territorial I assume they are a couple. This one was so confident it came right up to us waiting to be feed. It did look rather skinny, but we soon fed it up. Favourite food (often ignoring worms while it waited for us to find them for him) was the grub (chafer?) he has in his mouth. 
While sorting out my straggly over wintered peas I pulled out one of my twiggy pea sticks to find that it has taken root and has started to send out buds. I'm not sure what it is, but it looks like a fruit tree of some kind. I got my twigs from a pile of cuttings so it could well be. Anyway, I planted it and will see what happens.
