Well just over a year on !

I can't believe how quickly the last year has passed us by.....2013 had a lot of up's and down's , with more down's than up's it seemed. That meant that we ended up neglecting the plot and the bind weed beat us into submission.
Anyway we've knuckled down over the late winter period and hopefully the bind weed won't be so much of a problem this year. We've filled bags and bags with the dread bind weed roots but it really does feel like the corner has been turned.
There are new neighbours on both sides this year and all of them are cracking on , so hopefully we won't get overwhelmed by weeds invading from either side this year. Our neighbours seemed ok to start with ....well two out of the three are ! The lad who has taken over the bottom corner plot though is a tool that you don t need on the allotments.I said he could help himself to a few of the left over pallets that I had stacked at the side of the shed,but he decided that he would help himself to all my stock of wood, a metal drum and our burning bin.....along with helping himself to the society manure pile......he's been warned and he will definitely be getting his fingers wrapped if he can't keep them off our stuff !

We've got all the ground dug over and instead of us having just one bed working , we know have six beds !
Still a lot of work to do over the next couple of years improving the quality of the soil with plenty of manure to be added at the end of this year. However the ground is workable, if not perfect at least we will be growing this year.

The top pic is roughly a year ago, then as is now.....a bit of a difference !

We have a Victoria plum tree just planted, then two of the new beds I have just dug . I had to strip off the grass and then dig the beds over, then dig in plenty of manure and compost and finally rotavate over both beds. The grass patch in the fore-ground (above pic) is where we are going to put a picnic bench so that we can enjoy a nice glass of wine on a sunny day.


To the right side we have just planted a couple of trees that are being trained as Espalier's. There is a Comice pear and a cherry tree. We've put a couple of posts in and strung sturdy wires between for the branches to run along. It will be nice to have a bit of a natural screen to shield us from the tool next door...lol

We got some raspberry canes in quite early on and then we had a lot of rain and so we didn't know if they would grow or not. Thankfully they have started to throw some new growth up and so it looks like we might get some raspberries at some point,

I'm going to put some boards around the edge of the raspberry bed to box it in and hopefully keep the weeds at bay and make it easier to strim around the bed without risk of damaging the plants. I was going to do that today but ran out of energy after the previous two days of full on digging etc.........I was pooped so gave in......always tomorrow before work to get the boards in.

In the ground we have sown some peas and planted out some onion sets, oh and planted our selection of potatoes.....a sore point..lol
Kim had sourced a selection of blight resistant spuds and had them chitting away in trays in the shed. Come planting time and I tipped them all into a bucket to take to the plot ..........oops ! They had been in trays of different varieties , not any more ! So we now have lucky dip spuds ......as my mate Trev said, " Never mind lad as long as they don't grow downwards they'll be fine !" I like his train of thought.....Kim on the other hand was not impressed ......lol

The spuds have gone in where we had the bed covered with the black polythene , it had been covered over for a full year and boy has it made the soil good. All the weed growth was dead and when I turned it over it was just like black gold.....time will tell if the spuds like it or not .

Bed Two is where the spuds grew last year. The bed had been heavily manured last year so we haven't put any on this year. That is the bed that is going to be home to our onions, leeks, parsnips and swedes this year.
We've got a few rows of onions in up to now, they've been in about a week now and are just starting to poke some green growth up through the soil. I've set the paving slabs in as well to give us a better path in between the beds, we need a few more now for the other paths.

Bed three is going to be our pea and  beans bed, up to now we have a couple rows of peas in. I ve sown them quite thickly and followed some advice I read that instead of sowing them thinnly with two to three inches between them , I've just sprinkled the peas along the drill and so we'll see how they come up.....if they do at all. The remainder of the bed is going to house our broad beans and maybe a few french beans, we'll see.

So that just leaves our Brassica bed to fill but first there is a bit more work to do to try and improve the quality of the soil in that bed. It is very heavy clay at the moment. It has been dug but needs some compost working into it before we plant out the cabbages and sprouts.

The paths are all mown and the edges of the beds strimmed so that's just about all for the moment on the plot. At home we have the raised beds all readied for the strawberry plants and plenty of salad plants but we are just holding back a bit until the last of the frosts are gone.

So what a difference a year makes and this season we are full of confidence that we'll actually have some crops instead of just weeds. Watch this space.