Honestly the week has passed and we’ve done nothing except re-up the birdfeeders. This week we harvested leeks, kale and chard and bought seed potatoes. We have settled on five bags of nicola, one of pink fir apple and two of sharpes express. That gives us eight bags of potatoes, which is three more than last year. Ma says I’m obsessed with potatoes and blames my father, I would like more but note the compromise, they are all salad potatoes, which are the ones that she prefers. They are currently in the living room chitting…I also bought the remaining seeds we need, Ma’s favourite cucumbers Boothby’s Blonde and two new to us winter squash, North Georgia Candy Roaster and Burgess Buttercup. For those of you following along that’s four types of winter squash, which should keep Ma happy – her favourite things to eat from the plot are beetroot, winter squash and broad beans.

My extra purchase was the tree onions also known as Egyptian Walking Onions, I have a place to put them, as I don’t have enough space to grow onions and shallots at the moment this will have to satisfy my onion needs.The allotment looks ok and there is work I need to get to but realistically, we’re not going to do much more heavy work done over the next couple of weeks because we’re busy next weekend AND the week after so mid February we’ll really start, I want to set the cloche up, dig up the raspberries and re-site them, top up the beds that need it, and sow sweet peas, leeks and kale. I’m holding off until the light is better because everything gets leggy indoors (oh for a greenhouse or even windowsills!).