Tidy up and more rhubarb and gosseberries

Just a quick visit tonight. Weeds not too bad but had a quick hoe ever the plot to keep them at bay.Potatoes are looking really good now, beans have started to germinate and the courgette plants are beginning to look established after planting out.

After the storm

We had a fantastic thunderstorm around 5pm today. There were still hail stones on the allotment at 7.30pm!

The plants seem to have largely survived and weed growth has not been too bad since the last visit. The potatoes took a bit of a bashing. No sign of bean germination yet and the brussels sprouts have been rather chomped by slugs & snails.

I planted the lettuces today. They look a bit sorry for themselves and probably should have gone out a couple of weeks ago.

A liberal sprinkling of slug pellets should hopefully protect the lettuces from being chomped!

I harvested some rhubarb and gooseberries as well as the last few radishes from the first planting.

Marathon session!

A 4.5-hour visit today!

I weeded around the potatoes and the sweetcorn and uncovered the second strip of land, behind the cucurbits and in front of the potatoes. That land took a lot of weeding and I pulled out huge amounts of taproots. I bet the weeds will be back before I know it though.

Using a trowel so much has left a nasty raw patch on the palm of my right hand which is extremely sore.

I built a frame from shrub stakes (dirt cheap - 35p at B&Q) with canes across the top and pean and bean netting over it (stapled to the stakes).

I've sown Peas (greensage), Dwarf French Beans, Climbing French Beans (Cosse Violette) and Runner Beans. In that order, anticlockwise around frame from back right as you face the plot.

Quick tidy up and first courgette

The weather was extremely nice and warm and sunny for the start of this week and is now turning colder and wet. I will use some slug pellets if the weather stays wet as I'd rather everything didn't get eaten by slugs and snails.

I visited on Monday and Wednesday just to water the new seedlings (as they are like plants in pots until they start putting roots into the ground) but decided that was too boring to blog about.

The weeds have certainly grown a lot since I last weeded so I gave the open ground a good hoeing today. I also raked some more soil around the potatoes. They are coming on very nicely.

The sweetcorn has germinated and is about an inch high and the first courgette flower has appeared, complete with tiny courgette.