One Family's Adventure at the Allotment : Waiting for spring

It feels like an eternity since my last post and I have been itching to get some work done on the plot. Every chance I've visited the plot several times over the last few months but have not done anything significant until this week.

I forgot how hard it is to dig one armed, but was reminded again yesterday. We decided to take full advantage of the sunshine and spent the afternoon on the plot.

We had two casualties over the winter:

At the start of December. Now:

Our 'caterpillar' has collapsed in the middle and in need of some tlc.

The net over our sprouting broccoli and salad bed was found at the opposite end of our neighbors plot in a tangled mess. Needless to say the sprouting broccoli is all gone now thanks to the local rabbits.

General tidy up was called for so I set the girls on the small beds while I dug the the first of the big beds.

They did a great job of clearing the weeds from the herb bed. They also planted the remainder of the coriander seeds, which were about to self seed. They gave up after this and decided to go water the greenhouse.

So literally single handedly cleared and dug over the top beds on the plot. Came across a few surprises, some good, some not so.

Rhubarb ready to go again.

In the salad bed, chard still going, but cut back to tidy it. Think need to do more but didn't want to kill the plants. I found rocket growing after ditching a tub with seeds that did not want to grow, they have eventually done something.

I also found this nasty mess

Thinking need to get the bed netted again asap. :-(

Pulled a few stray clumps of grass from the bark, rough dug 2 main beds and thinned out the weak strawberry plants and removed the dead leaves. Even found a strawberry plant that was flowering!
Not bad for an afternoons work.

Good surprises:

We netted the top of the broad beans to give them some protection from snow etc. If look closely can see they are starting flower.

It might not look much but the little shoot sticking out in the middle is our elephant garlic.

All of our onions and garlic are beginning to shoot. We have planted leeks, 3 types of onions and 6 types of garlic. Looking forward to finally getting to eat them. Will have some more leeks to go in shortly.

In the flower beds our bulbs are making an appearance.