A Busy Month

I thought it was time for an update on the plot.  After a LOT of rain last week (if you’re not in the UK we had the average rainfall for the entire month in just a few days, it was wet), its lovely to see the sun out this week.  Unfortunately, as always when I don’t get on the plot for a bit the weeds think its permission to take over but my parents came over at the weekend and helped me get it back on track.  The last time I posted in May, it looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

Busy Allotment Day!

I had a super productive day on the allotment yesterday.  The plot is really starting to look good now even if I do say so myself!  My mum came up for the day to help and we managed to get a lot of jobs done (thanks Mum!).  Here’s just a few of them:

 

Guess the Seedling

Way back in mid-April I sowed some flower seeds in my new flower bed.  One was California Poppies and one was a pack labelled simply as ‘Butterfly Mix’ with no further information as to what plants are included.  So, I did say there would be a round of guess the seedling happening!  Are you ready?

It’s been a bit tricky weeding them, I’m fairly certain these are all flower seedlings but it wouldn’t surprise me if a weed or two has creeped in!  I googled ‘California Poppies seedlings’ and none seem to match any of these so I’m not sure what happened to those  ones.  I’ve also googled some flowers I think they might be, but with very little luck!

Can you help?

Time For Planting

Finally, some warmer weather!  After all the rain we had last week I’m hoping to see a lot of growth happening on the plot especially with all the sunshine we’re predicted this week.

At the weekend, I planted out a lot of my seedlings that I’ve been hardening off in the full-of-holes plastic greenhouse. It’s exciting to see brown soil being replaced with greenery!

Propagating Rosemary – The Result

You may remember I started an experiment a few weeks ago to propagate Rosemary with half my cuttings in a soil/perlite mix and half in water.  Today, I potted on the ones that had taken.

Rosemary Roots

May Sowing

Is May the busiest time for sowing?  I think it might be.  There are a lot of plants that are too tender to sow before May outside and even sowing inside you have to be careful they don’t get too big before you’re ready to plant outside.

Its been very unseasonably cold this last week for most of the UK with a lot of places waking up to a frost.  Mid-May is the last frost date around here (you can look yours up here if you don’t know), but looking at the weather, while its not warm I think it’s highly unlikely we’ll get another hard frost so I’m going to cautiously harden off a few plants that I’ve grown on my windowsill this week and put them in the plot next weekend.

Beans in the Greenhouse

Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses

It’s not often that I buy books without looking through them first but this book was pre-ordered as soon as I heard about it.  I love Gertie’s books and I was confident I wouldn’t be disappointed.

National Gardening Week

It is National Gardening Week this week (29th April to May 5th) and this years theme is Edible Britain.  A theme I can definitely get behind!  I thought I’d join in by sharing some pictures and updates from my little piece of edible Britain.  We’re nearly at the end of the month and it’s been a very busy time on the plot!  With the sunshine and warmer temperatures, things have slowly been growing greener on the plot and I even have some flowers!

Stitching for the Allotment

It’s great when I can do something that combines two things I love.  In this case, sewing and my allotment.  The idea for this apron came from something I saw in a magazine.  It was a half apron that they had styled as somewhere to store tools, string and labels but I knew that something similar would be just perfect for harvesting my beans.

Modelled by Matilda the Dress Form

I usually harvest my pods with a container on the ground that I have to keep shuffling along as I move down the row or a bag hooked on my wrist.  This will be a lot easier!

Here’s how to make one:

A Bustling Windowsill

One of my goals this year is to be a little better at sowing successionally and both avoid gluts and hungry gaps (like when all my spinach decided to bolt in the summer heat last year).   This means being better at sowing less but more often.  I try to sow as much as I can directly as even on my sunniest windowsill seedlings can end up slightly leggy but its been quite cold up until this week so nothing I’ve sown directly has been germinating.  So my windowsills are full of seed trays and seedlings!

Does anyone else still get excited when they see the first little sign of a shoot poking out from the soil?  I love getting home from work and seeing what was just the tiniest hint of green has turned into a healthy new seedling.

Peas (Kelvedon Wonder)