I am still alive!

I wish I could say that due to the endless hours of sunshine we have spent hours at the allotment which has prevented me from posting on the blog, sadly we haven't had any sun at all!! We seem to have been really busy with stuff, we were expecting a royal visit from my father which sent us into a flurry of activity sprucing up the house and garden (so much so our neighbours thought we were preparing to sell and move!!) anyway he didn't manage his visit due to family problems, maybe another time (He lives in Sheffield and hasn't seen this house hence my mild panic!)

The plot has been turning out some fab produce, I'm such a sad git but I was so impressed by all that we got one night that I had to set up my own little harvest festival type display to show how much we got in one sessions picking!

The new pots have been quite good, not a huge amount but we've done much better than last year. I reckon the best were 'Belle de fontenay' and 'Winston' but I didn't really rate much the 'international Kidney' (Or Jersey Royal)

I've now dug up the remainder of the new potatoes so that the bed was available for the leeks that I had been growing on at home in tiny pots. This is an idea that Monty Don had on Gardener's World before he left. Three to five leeks are sown in small pots and grown on and then planted out as they are when the time comes, normally you dibber a hole for each individual leek but Monty reckoned if you just transplanted each pot as it is then you will get smaller more baby type leek. I've already got leeks planted at the plot in the traditional way so I thought this was worth a try, I'll keep you posted!

I also got rid of the Broad Bean plants as they had stopped producing and I have a nursery bed full of brassicas waiting for a more permanent home. Brassicas LOVE to follow on after legumes in the rotational plan as Legumes enrich the soil with nitrogen which will feed the brassicas well hopefully producing healthy and huge greens! I haven't transplanted them yet but I have Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Wok Broc (a summer sprouting Broccoli ideal for stir frying) Calabrese (what most people think of as broccoli) , Romanesco (weird spirally type cauliflower) and good old Savoy cabbage. How's that for your five a day!!!