It's all go!

These are mine. Smashing aren't they.

So with the whole of the top plot now dug over it's planting time again.

Don't worry this in not an exhaustive list of every time I put something in the ground. Lots of pics and only the key stuff.

As the greenhouse was not quite finished in time for February then most of the plants have been potted and planted at Coryn & Harry's home green house. Their green house is heated and will protect the tiny seeds from the extreams of the English winter.
pics to follow


So whilst everyone else has had plots that are filled with sprouting this and that, ours has been quite barren and bare.

One 1/4 is full of potatoes. You can't see most of these as they have only just been planted. Some have just started to poke through though.

One plot had purple sprouting broccoli and spring cabbage on it and rhubarb at the top. This has now been dug over and some carrots planted at the bottom ( that Green haze baby carrot leaves)) and onions. Mainly onions we will squeeze in some squash here too.

The other side is completely bare. This is because these 1/4s are for brassicas (top) and Tomatoes and Sweetcorn (bottom) just going in now.

The strawberries are planted in buckets around the site and we also have a bed the size of a parking space full of the little blighters. They look pretty good and my camera work isn't too shabby either. (I treated myself to a nice new tripod which was not as extravagant as it sounds)

and the beans are in. Whoop de do. Beans everyone!

No pictures of beans. Ever!

Everything else is too small to photograph at this stage and frankly it gets a bit boring without pics.

The fruit is up and running.

the trees have kicked off on time.
Full speed ahead. The frosts have past and a long hot summer is predicted. Free at last from the tyranny of English weather we might just have a proper summer. Nice.

Spring is here, and Stephen Morrisey is ringing in my ears

OK. I'm probably getting over excited but it has been a long, cold, bleak Winter and I'm very glad to have the sun on my back when I'm digging at the plot.


I'm less keen on the sun on my back when I'm on my way to work but until I can get my act together to become a professional sea fisherman, The Guardian's chief music critic, or vegetable and fruit consultant to the stars then I'll just have to quit moaning about that.

I'm my excitement, and to dull the boredom of long digging stints this weekend, I threw together some happy images of Spring in the beginnings of it's wiping the winter sleep from it's eyes, poking it's head out, reaching for the sky, fresh and zingy, blimey that sun is bright, blast I left my shades at home, Oh! First sun burn of the year.....glory.



I know we are likely to be due some gales, frosts and a rain storm or two still, but allow me my moment.

I suspect an infestation of infants is also immanent as I caught one in my Purple Sprouting Broccoli this week. There is no treatment for these, once you've got 'em you've got them for life. This one belongs to my brother.



As the great man said. Good times for a change. See the luck I've had could make a good man bad.

Morrissey in an Allotment blog? This is a dark place I find myself in.

Worth the wait.

So what was supposed to be the most exciting part of this veggie year turned out to be a bit of an after thought. Such is life, and I am reminded that life goes on every day despite everything.


So in rather short order here is the planting of the mighty Asparagus. I can't wait for the first crop. It will be in May 2011. I'm not kidding. This is a marathon not a sprint and the inclusion of the Asparagus on the bottom plot finally caps off the total transformation of the bottom plot to perennial plants. With some judicious mulching I'll hardly have to weed the bottom plot at all.

(Yeah right!)


I'm burying weapons of mass destruction in 4 ten feet long silos!



Once the trenches have been dug I part filled them with well rotted horse poop.





Then I dropped some soil back on top and hoed up the sides of the bottom of the trench.





Plant your Asparagus over the mound



and spread out the roots.


Cover with finely sieved soil. Now....................WAIT TWO YEARS!


The crops will start growing straight away.



Aawww look.

Don't bee fooled see that stone next to it.....



Tiny!



I need a manicure!


By the end of summer these tiny little shoots will grow into ferns about four feet high and about three feet across. I have to let them grow and die back this year and again next year and only at that stage can I start to crop them.

I've got 20 plants (10 early and 10 late cropping) so If you know me well and live local I'll almost definitely be dropping off Asparagus when I visit! But not any time soon.