Allotment Tales – Thursday 9th April 2026

We’ve managed to dodge recent fine weather, enjoying 2 overcast and chilly Thursdays – patches of sunshine and showers thrown in for good measure – along with a penguin ice sculpture, found over at the compost bins. Nevertheless, we’ve been busy – preparing beds, seed sowing, and planting out the first of this year’s crops.

Early and maincrop potatoes are now snuggled into their beds, on a blanket of manure and leaf mould (varieties: Swift; Pink Fir Apple; Cara and Kestrel). Tatties can handle the beds affected by clubroot, but we   are being careful to use separate tools.  Broad beans and peas, sown in The Caley Greenhouse, have been hardening off and will be ready to plant out next week.

Soil and compost were riddled today, ready for carrot sowing. We mined some fine allotment-made compost last week, though took about an hour deliberating on how to reconstruct the bin!   Today, we prepared the new brassica bed, digging in green manure (phacelia) adding manure and covering the bed in plastic sheeting to warm the soil up over the coming week.

Despite being 3 years old, the strawberry plants gave us such a good crop last year that we’ve decided to keep at least some of them for a further year. Today’s task was to spruce them up – removing old leaves and woody growth and to shore up the surrounding netting to prevent rabbit incursions. We’ll cover the bed in fleece to promote warmth and flower production.

As ever, we’re trying to keep on top of general weeding, most being recycled for future compost.

Jobs for next week: Net the cherry to deter the birds; plant more potatoes and the first of the broad beans; prepare the parsnip tubs and ground for the beetroot; weave the coppiced willow stems into the windbreak