13/4/26 - Anyone For Chips?

 Good evening, and welcome to the weekly update for Allotment Madness!  And madness it certainly is at the moment.  We're not out of the woods frost wise yet.  In fact, we had one this morning, but things really are chomping to get out.  So, what I have been up to this week?

In no particular order, this week, we have very kindly had a load of woodchip delivered to the site, and so I have taken the opportunity to redo some of the paths between the beds and spruce things up a bit.

Germination of carrots in the bath tub has also been reasonably successful.  This week, I've taken the plastic off the top as the seedlings were starting to touch it.  Also, last week, I discovered a load of ants have potentially taking up residence in the bath too, possibly due to it not only being warm under the plastic, but also dry.  So, the plastic is off, and the enviromesh is on to stop any root fly.

It's also been a week for removing the last of the covers off the beds.  I made use of the last wheel barrow full of digestate that was left on the site, and added it to the bed where the cucumbers are going this season and run the hoe over the top two inches to help work it into the surface.  The last cover also came off the squash patch too.  During the winter, something has been making itself at home under all these covers because under almost all of them, I've been finding small burrows.  The same happened last year.  I think they are too big for mice, but also, not too sure if they are too big for moles.  Rats maybe?  But then there is little else in terms of evidence for them either.  Anyway, they are now fully exposed to the elements again.

The flowerbed on the plot continues to add a much needed splash of colour too, as the tulips do their best, and the wall flowers put on their final displays before I look at replacing them later in the year.

Elsewhere on the plot, I noticed that the early potatoes in the spud buckets are beginning to rupture and push out some growth.  It will soon be time to add a couple more inches of dirt on top of these buckets, and then I will leave them until they should be ready to harvest.

During some quite impressive hail downpours, I spent quite a lot of time in the polytunnel over the weekend too.  The ongoing game of allotment Tetris provided it's usual entertainment as I moved plenty of things about off the staging onto the floor, back onto the staging, then out into the mini polytunnel, before then moving another load of things from home into the polytunnel, where the whole cycle seemed to start over again.  The upshot of it is that I have been able to take down my grow tent, heat mats and lights at home, and find a home for everything else so far be it just in the tunnel, in the tunnel and under a cloche or in the tunnel inside the indoor cold frame and under fleece.

I've transplanted some things into the ground in the large polytunnel.  It's way too early, but I've put 4 pepper plants in already, but I also have a number in reserve.  And, to be honest, if I don't succeed, I've got plenty of tomatoes that I can put in their place later on.

My job list and plan also tells me that it is time to sow some Pak Choi seeds too.  We don't grow a huge amount of it, and so we only really need 4 plants total.  So, I've prepped a tray of 6 cells, and once they have germinated and put some so early growth, they will go into the polytunnel beds.

My job list for this month also tells me it's time to sow the cucamelon and water melon seeds too.  I have a busy couple of weeks coming up and I won't be able to go to the plot very often, so despite it being a little bit too cold at the moment, I've risked it and sown seeds for both.  If that doesn't work, then it will be around 3 weeks time before I get chance to prep any more sowings.

Still in the polytunnel, I also noticed that it was time to pot on the sweetcorn too.  Or at least, the sweetcorn that had germinated.  I need around 16 to 20 plants and even though I'd sown around 20 in the first sowing and a further 10 in a second sowing, in total, only around 15 made it through germination.  I decided to sow the rest of the packet (around 8 or 9 seeds) and see if I can get some of them germinated too.  It will mean that the sowings are pretty spaced out time wise, but they will all catch up eventually.  It might even prolong the harvest a little while, giving me a couple of weeks between picking later in the Summer.

Finally for the polytunnel, I've put the 6 bunches of shallots into the ground.  I figured that they were sitting in the polytunnel anyway, taking room on the staging, so they might as well go into the ground.

On the flower front, I'm starting to see good germination in the seeds sown over the last couple of weeks, including the marigolds and sweet sultans.  Meanwhile, the calendula, zinnias and chrysanthemums are pushing on well.  We have lost a few seedlings due to temperature (I'm guessing) but on the whole, they seem to be doing OK.

That's the updating done for now.  I'm probably not going to be able to run out another update for a couple of weeks, and in terms of the allotment, many things are just going to have to be left to their own devices, except for a bit of watering.  So, until next time, thanks for reading :-)