Allotment Diary Me:26hrs He:25.5hrs

It was a cold, dull windy day, so cold that I had to dress up in my winter 'gear' - perfect for me up the allotment.  We hadn't been well enough to go up there for a couple of weeks and it was a bit of a shock when I saw the weeds!

Not a drop of rain for weeks and weeks, but the weeds still manage to grow!

And my lovely neat weedfree beds now need weeding again.

The lawns need cutting too - how do they grow so fast in a drought?

Mr Lottie mowed the lawns for me.  Look at the comfrey - it's like a hedge and almost in flower.  But I have plans for this so it's not a problem.

Now that the grass has been cut it is looking neat again.  The covered bed in the foreground will remain that way until I am ready to fill it up with squashes and pumpkins - I can't keep weeding it if it is sunny so this is the best option to keep the plot under control

So, here is the result of my work - the front bed which we fenced in this year, has now been weeded by me yet again it is so dry that it is just like dust!  Some potatoes from last year were growing - looking fabulous and healthy, but I dug them up - this is going to be my bean bed.

The trenches are dug for the climhing beans, and filled with well rotted manure.  I use a lot as we don't have running water - it's just a big field - so I can't water everything from my tanks, the plot is too big.

The early potatoes I planted which looked suspiciously like rows of buried bodies, are now 6'6" rows of lovely lush potato tops, grown through the heaped up soil.  I weeded in between and heaped them up even more so - they are looking good - again - without a drop of rain since they were planted - the manure sure works a treat. Hard work, but it's worth it.

The broad beans and onions have managed to grow too - again I did lots of weeding, still got a bit more to do between the onions, but the pathways are cleared

This is where I have sown the parsnip seeds today - we are due rain.   I weeded all this area yet again, sowed the seeds and sowed spinach seeds each side so that I know where the parsnips should appear.

Our soil is so very stoney. No matter how many times I remove the surface stones more flint just comes to the surface.  I am going to grow my carrots in my garden at home again this year.

Here is what I have done with some of the comfrey crop.  It is on the bean trenches.  I'll plant the beans in the well rotted manure and the comfrey will gradually rot down and feed the plants.  I have every confidence of getting a good crop.

So that's it for today - lots of hard work - but we will reap the results later.

I also took home a pile of rhubarb, so I'll be busy cutting that up and freezing it tomorrow!