Ma and I went to the plot on Sunday and it was so cold. Despite that, things were happening…
Cornflowers…
Carrots and radishes
Raspberries
Plums
The warm and then wet weather meant that the grass had gone nuts and needed cutting, so that was on the list. Saturday had been so wet, a bonfire was out of the question, so we spent sometime composting some of the things we’d intended to set on fire.
I cut the grass, it’ll need a bit more next week and I need to spend some time weeding the edges to beat the couch grass back but thats for a warmer day.
Last week, we saw that one of our allotment neighbours had used pallets outside their shed as a patio and we thought that might work for us. So we moved the pallet we had to see if we thought it would work. 
We’ve decided that it will so we need to get more pallets and paint them to match the shed, then there will be somewhere to sit on the plot.
We used the three edging pieces that I had to paint grey last week, to edge the patch where the pallet had been, I totally forgot to photograph it but trust me, it looks good!
The rest of the plot is looking good (do I say that every week!), the peas are coming up
As are the beetroot and spinach and lettuce. I took the fleece off and netted them to protect from the fox.
The fox had a go at my bathtub of strawberries so I brought out the chicken wire to prevent them. 
All of the strawberries are flowering, so hopefully, we won’t have a late frost to kill off the flowers.
We did cover the potatoes in case we do have a frost this week.
We picked rhubarb and chard.
There is a list for next week but it’s not a massive list
- sow peas
- earth up the potatoes
- frame the bed at the top of the plot
- weed the edges of plot
- compost the squash beds – the two that have just been framed and the boxes
- plant new mint (yeah I killed a mint plant!)
I was scanning photos last week and I love this one, taken by my Mum way back in the 80’s. I remember this day, we went for a picnic at Richmond Park, there was paddling. We don’t have that many pictures from when B and I were children and given that Ma couldn’t get Dad’s head in, you can tell why!
We went to see the Avengers: Infinity War last week, I really enjoy Marvel films, but that one had a tough ending..
That wasn’t helped by his father’s decision not to let him stay on at school past 14. You see Grandad was bright (the maths thing that Ma and Ben do, that came from Grandad) but you had to pay for school past 14 in 1928 and I’m guessing that my great grandfather couldn’t afford it.
If you had asked me about him when I was little, I would have told you that Grandad worked three days a week, came for dinner on Tuesdays and came over on Saturday mornings, usually bringing us pocket money and lots of fruit and kit kats. Ma banned sweets, the other cousins got sweets (and I’m still not over it!). He belonged to the Salvation Army and he went to Belgium on the ferry from Ramsgate, for two weeks every year and came back very tanned and with Toberones for all.
We also watered everything. The strawberries have flowers
As do the broad beans
Everything else is doing it’s thing. Check out my blueberry sticks
And we got rhubarb and chard to take home
Amazing what a bit of hot weather does….
Last year, all my summer clothes and sandals pretty much gave up the ghost. A couple of weekends ago, Ma and I did some shopping and this weekend we’ve did some more. I now have 4 new pairs of linen trousers, 4 new tops and I’ve ordered 3 pairs of summer shoes and bought a pair of sandals for work. I feel very poor and now that I have summer clothes am expecting it to start raining any minute now…
Yesterday was a year since my lovely friends came and put my shed up. The shed has made having an allotment much easier, although Ma would still like it to be more tidy!
Plans for this week are very few, keep on top of the greenhouse in the living room. I’m waiting for the courgettes, summer squash, cucumbers and basil to put their heads up then I’ll sow more tomatoes, winter squash, kale, chard and sweetcorn although possibly not all this week. On Thursday, we’re going to see the Avengers movie but other than that I’m going to work at getting more sleep!
(If you realise halfway through that your stick blender as died, then what I did was transfer everything to the small bowl of my magimix and pray. That worked!)
I much prefer it to the stuff you buy in bottles and I will try it in potato salad when summer comes around.
