The challenge is on.

Yes the childrens giant sunflower competition has now begun! Last year they were a great success and I wouldn't have been suprised to hear they could be seen in space. Lets hope we have equal success this season.
It was the first time this year we have enjoyed being in the garden without getting buffeted by the wind and the sun was shining, so it was the perfect time to check what else needed sowing.
The next lot of peas are now done, some lettuce and brussel sprouts. Kohl rabi and celery were also done, a first for me so I am very excited to see how they do.
As the cauliflowers where looking a little large for their pots it seemed like a good time to re-pot those as well as the sweet peppers, dahlia's and parsley that are currently living on the kitchen window ledge.
As it is warming up so nicely I have moved the tray of onion, beetroot and Cauliflower seedlings out of the blowaway to start hardening them off ready for the plot. It has also made some much needed space in the blowaway for the very busy April sowing schedule. Phew, things are really starting to get busy around here, I love it!

(picture from 2016)

Planting out some Peas

This year we will be growing a few different varieties of peas on the plot. Mostly mange tout and sugar snaps as these are my favourite types,  I will be trying others too.
My plan is to make sowings every few weeks to have a constant supply until June/July.  Here is a list of my chosen varieties and some information about each one:

Havel
An early, short pea that grows to about 3ft, it is an old heirloom that is apparently productive, the peas hold well and they stay sweet for a long time on the plant if you don't get round to picking them.

Rosakrone
A very unusual heirloom from Sweden, this has beautiful red/pink flowers borne in 'crowns' above the foliage. It grows to around 4 - 5 foot tall, and looks stunning grown on a wigwam or traditional peasticks for a decorative feature that also produces lots of tasty peas.

Golden Sweet- Yellow-Podded Mange-tout pea
This is a rare, beautiful yellow podded pea that is very sweet eaten fresh or cooked.  It has, tall productive vines, and apparantly a delicious crisp flavour.

Bijou' Giant Sugar Pea-huge edible-pods.
A real old fashioned Giant Sugar Peas with 7 inch edible pods - used to be very popular but are now almost completely extinct.  The huge pods are apparently sweet and juicy.

It is part of a 5 year project from RealSeeds starting with a handful of peas found in a jar in a cellar, this is their own reintroduction of a proper Giant Sugar Pea as used to be grown in the 1880’s.

According to their website it matches the original description and engravings perfectly, even down to the pattern on the seeds and the number of seeds per gram.

Boddingtons Soup Pea - very rare. From RealSeeds website:
This is a vigorous and productive soup pea that performs very well for us.

This variety was first given to us by neigbours in the Clydach valley here in west Wales. We haven't been able to trace much of its history, but we've been impressed with its performance in the last few seasons, particularly the extremely difficult summer of 2012.

Let's be clear - 'soup peas' are - not surprisingly - designed to be eaten dried, in soup. They are not good fresh (far too starchy!) so you'll need to grow some normal peas too. But they do make a fantastic ingredient in soups, stews, curries and other pulse dishes. If you want a high-protein crop that can be easily grown and dried in UK conditions, then this is the one for you. This variety has smooth greeny-grey seeds, that make a traditional UK style pea soup or tasty mushy peas (if you prefer a darker coloured pea, look at the Latvian variety below).

I also took part in a charity fund raiser with on the blog 'mudandgluts' and will be growing Kent Blue and Magnolia Blossom tendril Pea, but I will give them a blog post of their own. (Here http://strawberriesandcreamplot.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/charity- seeds.html )

I started sowing about 3 weeks ago and these sowing came to the allotment today to get planted out. I git in a bit of a muddle following my 'pea plan' but managed to sort it out. Paronoid that the lot would get munced by the fat pigeons that happily patrol our site, we covered them with some chicken wire 'cages' we inherited with the plot. These aren't quite the right size leading to a discussion on making our own, watch this space! All the peas grow at different hights, so I will sort out supports on my next plot visit.
We akso transplanted the Wizard beans that I sowed back in January and after looking at the sorry state of the ones that have over wintered, decided they also needed some pidgeon protection for now.

The grass paths got a good mowing and the bed edges are now nice and tidy after a strim and a bit of cutting in too. The strawberry plants are looking very healthy after Sundays tlc and the sweet peas are still alive so far! Yay!
We came home with a tub full of Purple Sprouting Broccoli which is doing fantasticly, with the promise of a few more tubs worth to come, such a different experience to last spring.

Potatoes are In

As the tiltle says, the seed potatoes are in! Although we have a few winter crops growing, as well as garlic and broads beans, there is something about planting the potatoes that really feels like the start of the year at the plot.
I had my 4 year old helper with me today, on a rather windy but bright Sunday morning. Together we worked out how to plant the seed potoatoes with the least amount of soil disruption in line with the no-dig ethos. It seemed to work best if I put a trowel in to lift the dirt, whilst she darted in with her teeny hands and a spud, being careful not to knock off the chits hehe. It worked well enough,(I hope) I guess we will know for sure in a few months!
We planted Javelin, Kestel and Anya. There is 10 of each, so not a massive amount for the 6 of us, but enough not to have to buy new potatoes this year, and a couple of meals from home grown maincrops. Obviously we wont be doing the traditional earthing up, so I am probably going to have to raid the compost bins and earth up with that instead.
We also cut out a 3x9 foot bed from the plastic that covers the back part of the plot next to the compost area. This will became our asparagus bed. I have ordered 12 crowns which should be with us within the next month-exciting! Once the plastic was removed we covered it in an inch or two of compost, just to feed the soil a little before they arrive.
The next job of the day was a good tidy of the strawberry patch. This is having a slight change thus spring , or in actual fact, doubling in size. The 6 foot wide bed was far to wide and it needed a path down the centre to make harvesting/weeding/ general dealing with the plants much easier. It meant moving a few plants out of the way, so the children have inherited a few on their beds. I will have to be careful not to ket grass grow in the new path. I will just keeo it weed free, but bare earth. The grass paths are taking a lot of time to maintain, especuall as it tries to creep back over the beds. It would taje over the patch in no time!
Once the plants had a trim of runners and dead leaves my helper and I gave it a nice mulch of compost. The 2nd half of the patch will be uncovered soon, ready for some different varieties. I will make that a later post once they arrive.
When stopping for a cuppa today, I couldn't help but noticed all the digging going on around us. It made me feel very relieved we are going no-dig. I am really interested to see how we do compared to some of the hardy plotters who have been reslly grafting thus week and I imagine the next few weeks whilst we potter about with the mulching.
The plot is really coming together now, when I look back at this month last year, I really feel proud of our achievements!

Happy Plottersversary to us!

A year ago today we signed on the dotted line and got our keys for plot 28B.  So far I have enjoyed every-single-moment.
It has been tricky to juggle at times, especially as our youngest had only just turned one when the plot became available, a fact that almost made us turn it down! But we made it work and it is now a huge part of family life.
Most of my evenings over the last year have been spent studying veg growing, reading gardening books and blogs and being engrossed in vlogs. My facebook page is now 50% allotment groups and I can talk all day about the importance of saving seeds and herritage varieties. Be warned, taking on an allotment is a life changing event!
We have meet some great people over the last 12 months and feel really embraced by the allotment community.
There are certainly jobs I thought we would have completed by now, still sitting on the to do list and financially it has been a little eye watering, be we wouldn't change a thing. Feeling very proud of our little patch of heaven.

Blustery Days

The root trainers arrived yesterday afternoon so today my two girls and I passed an hour in the garden sowing the Boddingtons and some Quartz peas. It sounds joyous doesn't it? Two young children learning all about gardening with their mother on a Saturday. The reality was it was horribly blustery and I spend half of the time trying to keep hold of everything, the other half was spent being screamed and pulled at by the two year old because she wanted to nurse, whilst the four year old moaned non stop because she was cold, (yet refusing to go back inside) ...... sigh. We did manage to get the job done eventually and I think I was still smiling by the end of it.
The little blowaway is getting nice and full now. I am already eyeing up the garden to see where we could fit another?......

Spring has sprung?

I definately got the spring feeling when I looked out of the window this morning, clear blue skies and sunshine, perfect.
My heart was telling me it was a seed sowing day. I grabbed my seed boxes and allotment folder (my garden bible really-to remind me ofhow much of what to sow when, I would get nowhere without it hehe) and got busy in the garden, with my littlest helper, 2 year old Emily.
Despite it being unexpectedly windy and having to chase a few seed packets around the garden, we sowed Dill, Globe Artichokes, Boltardy Beetroot, Quick heading calabrese and peas: Havel, Golden Sweet, Bijou and Rosakrone. We placed them all in the little blowaway greenhouse in the garden. Unfortunately despite multisowing a lot of the crops  I ran out of module trays, so I didn't manage to sow the Boddingtons Soup Peas (which I am growing to use as dried peas for use through the winter,  in meals like casseroles). I have now ordered a root trainer from Amazon especially for them, but I may need to have another look at the space I have available for seedlings and possibly start more seeds off directly in the ground than I had planned, especially once the seed sowing gets into full swing in April!
Whilst in the garden I had a peak at the Wizard beans I sowed a week ago but there is still no sign of germination yet. Maybe the windy weather has put them off!
I have managed to spend a good few hours weeding and tidying on the plot this past few weeks,  Storm Doris luckily left us damage free, another plot holder wasn't so lucky though and their shed ended up under a rather large tree! I am hoping to finish spreading compost over the weekend and possibly moving the rhubarb crowns that were given to us back in October. I wasn't quite ready to recieve them and just popped them in a spare but if earth. I have decided they are definitely in the wrong place and although it would have been best to move them about a month ago, I am hoping they will survive my ameture aproach of moving them now rather than waiting until next winter and delaying harvesting for another year!
It feels glorious to be getting a regular dose of allotment life again, how do we ever get through those cold, gloomy winter months?