Some like it hot

We've been away camping for the weekend and we thought that the plot would be just as sun burnt as we are. Quite the opposite really, we returned to find that everything had had a massive growth spurt while we were away. Unfortunately so had the weeds, but our peas and beans are now all poking through and the spinach is growing really well too.

I've finally got hold of my Japanese Red Samurai carrots so i'll be getting them in before it's too late. Along with some radishes and various salad leaves and then in August I've got turnips and Japanese onions to plant.

Oh!! I nearly forgot that Charlotte got me some beetroot and mizuna for my birthday too. Better start digging!!!

The spinach is coming!!!

Success!!! Our little spinach seeds that we sowed last week are coming through. Perhaps not in a neat and orderly fashion, but they're definitely coming up!!!

All we have to do now is hope that the pigeons, blackbirds, slugs, mice, foxes, badgers, rats and insects don't eat them!!!

Finally...the perfect hangover cure!!!

Four hours up the allotment sorted me out. We dug over and weeded another bed and put in some peas and beans. Charlotte was really excited about having 'wigwams' across the plot, but we decided against it in the end and put them in rows instead because it was easier. Hopefully the risk of planting them quite late will pay off so fingers crossed....

I have to say though, I might not have a headache anymore but my back is bleeding killing!!!

Vegetable update....

The courgettes are coming along fine, especially the ones under the tunnel. The others are a lot slower as you would probably expect and have actually lost their larger leaves, but there is a lot of new growth coming through.

The celery has grown quite visibly since we first planted them out just seven days ago and are looking good so far.

It's only been five days since we put the spinach in so there is no sign of that yet, and today we've planted some peas (kelvedon wonder) and some dwarf beans (purple queen). We realise that time is getting on but we thought we'd take the chance with them anyway.

So we now have five types of veg in and we still plan to get some more stuff in over the coming weeks, namely, Japanese onions, chinese radish and some beetroot. Plus i've ordered some turnips, carrots and salad leaves off tinter web

Welcome to Ashington Grove

I thought it would be nice to post a pic of Ashington Grove.

There are 58 plots in total and this is the view from our plot back towards the entrance which is where the tree line is.......

Stuff the gym...

It was such a lovely evening that I decided to ditch the gym and get out in the fresh air.

I spent a couple of hours down the allotment and we dug over and weeded a new bed for our perpetual spinach seeds. It's the first crop we've sown directly into the plot so hopefully we should have something to harvest around October.

We also met another chap today called Dick, he's been at Ashington Grove since 1992, his plot is just full of stuff and again its nice to speak to someone who is willing to share their wisdom so readily. But that was not the only thing he shared because he gave us a lettuce and some onions too. What a top bloke, at this rate we'll never pay for veg ever again.

He has a strange accent though, so where is Dick actually from?

Stay tuned to find out!!!

The kindness of man

We were ready to leave when our very kind neighbours (we've not learned their names yet) rolled up and gave us 12 self blanching celery plants that they'd started growing at home so we stopped and planted them out. Something else to look forward too.

We also met another lovely couple, Bill and Shirley, they've been on the allotment for a couple of years now, and they gave us one of their first crop of cabbages (she told me what variety it was but I can't remember)

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the 'busking scene' in Nuneaton, but there used to be a bloke going round Nuneaton playing a harmonica and doing a little jig. He was really rubbish and basically all the kids just stand round pointing and laughing at him. You'd definitely know him if you saw him. Well anyway he has an allotment just up from ours. Takes all sorts I suppose......

First planting

Today we managed to work over our first beds, it was hard work weeding and digging (we both ache like hell) but we managed to get our courgettes planted out and we didn't get too wet in the rain. We've put the smaller ones in a fleece tunnel for the time being to help protect them.

Coming along....

We've still got plenty of weeding to do but it looks a lot better than it did a couple of weeks ago!!!

Mr Rotavator

Sanj has lent us this bit of kit to get us going. Sanj is now a.k.a Mr Rotavator......

Also, despite the weather being changeable I still managed to burn my baldy head!!!

A little help from Josh....

Courgettes anyone?

We'd already decided that it would be a good idea to start off a few things in our garden.

These are our 10 day old courgettes.....

Being the over excited novices that we are, we got ourselves a nice packet of seeds and planted as many as we could, not realising that courgettes grow very quickly and have a high yield.

Our mate Sanj laughed when we said we'd planted 12, he reckoned he only had a couple of plants last year and couldn't give the things away!!!

I've since read that the average yield can be between 12 and 20 courgettes per plant!!!

What the hell are we gonna do with 200 courgettes???

Strimming

David who runs the allotments is a top bloke, he's had his plot for over 50 years!!!! He lent me his petrol strimmer and last night we got started....

This is Charlotte getting stuck in, check out the raking action and her new garden bag from Wilko's

The day we signed up!!!

On 23th June 2008 we took the plunge and got found our own allotment in Whitley, Coventry.

It's a half plot of about 14 feet x 100 feet.....

This is me wandering what on earth we are going to do next!!!!