Colour all around on the allotment

A lovely sunny day! The allotment is at its most colourful just now with patches of brilliant yellow, mauve and crimson around bed edges and under trees.

The sweet peas went into their carefully made bed of soil, with added manure and leaf mould – sturdy little plants that will take on the colour baton from our Spring blooms over Summertime. We planted a mix of poetically named varieties – Blue Velvet, Ballerina Blue, Royal White alongside others, likely named after expert growers of the past – Robert Ovedale and Noel Sutton to name two. These were netted until more established, when we’ll build a wigwam for them to splay over beautifully.

The first main crop tatties went underground – Anya, a relative of our favourite Pink Fir Apple and like the sweet peas, put to bed with a mix of soil, manure and leaf mould.

Activity in the unusual veg bed continues. Mashua (Ken Aslett) a South American relative of the nasturtium can be used raw in salads, leaves sprinkled, and roots grated for a horse-radish kick or cooked, for a turnipy taste.  Oca (Giggles) puts down yellow tubers which again can be added to salads for a lemony flavour.

We watered the broad beans and our new, adopted communal bed. Lots of weeding as usual. The blueberries were pruned lightly and treated to a mulch of ericaceous compost. The honey berries are beginning to show delicate yellow flowers. We’ll keep an eye on these and net the bushes before a beady-eyed blackbird notices emerging fruit.

Jobs for next week: plant more main crop tatties; put fleece over the strawberries; possibly net the honey berries; weed; get the mower out for a first cut.