10 July - Seeds and such

I had today off so after a morning spent doing useful things indoors, I thought the time right to go in search of more seeds to plant and to really resolve the issue of winter vegetables. The challenge is that with the allotment half plasticked up and with only two workable beds that are protected there are limits to our creativity. Once the fence is properly up, and the other beds dug, then we will be able to fly.

I had already sown some more radishes and lettuces in Bed A quickly at the weekend. What is good about the plot is that even if you only do a little bit you feel so much better. It's similar to the "clean sink" syndrome which I read about in some magazine. Apparently, keeping your sink squeaky clean is very good for the internal karma - you are at least able to control the state of your sink and from that, the rest follows.

A trip to Homebase yielded two possibilities for expanding our harvest. One was quick growing leeks called Atar (as opposed to the overwintering ones which we yearn to do but we are too late this year) - and peas. It is not too late to sow peas and we had some twiggy sticks from the garden that I had saved for I knew not what. As we have been going through a phase of eating peas from the pod bought in supermarkets, I thought that these would be great. We had already bought some Italian Raddichio seeds, which promise full heads of lovely red crispy leaf in the winter.


Carefully considering Plot B, I sowed some more carrots into the carrot half - some had come up but not as many as we had hoped. The other half I sowed two small rows of peas, with twiggy sticks, and a bit of compost from the recycling centre (100% Hertfordshire garden waste), a long row of raddichio (they need more room) and two small rows of "quick" leeks. (The white thing you can see along the side of the bed in the picture is carpet. We have put down some of our carefully scavenged carpet in a bid to create walking room and to kill the weeds. Allotment people are apparently divided about the benefits of carpet - if it kills weeds, and it ain't poisonous, I'm all for it.)

After weeding the raspberry patch (one plant doing very well, the other sulking), I checked the courgettes and pumpkin in the compost. Sad to say that I knocked off one of the courgette flowers by mistake - aarrgh. Hopefully the courgette will forgive me. The pumpkin plant looks lovely and expansive (see left). And then I watered it all, as strange to say there has not been much rain in the last few days. Interesting to see the mark of little paws over the black plastic - obviously the damnable rabbits.


Good things: chatting to nice allotment chap; looking at other people's efforts and thinking that we weren't doing too bad at all (though there is plenty to aspire to); thinking about overwintering onions.

Bad things: bad plot holder killing courgette flower; running out of twiggy sticks for peas.