Good to be outside working on the allotment

Posted March 3, 2014

Good to be outside working and enjoying the sunshine. We spent most of last week and this week putting leaf mould through riddles. It is an excellent soil conditioner but full of nettle and other roots so it needs to be cleaned up before we can spread it.

All the fruit now has had a feed of the organic general fertiliser of fish, blood and bone as well as a spadeful of manure or compost to give them a good start to the growing season.

We had a good picking of the kale today – the mild weather has brought on a good growth of the young shoots – delicious to eat raw as well as cooked.

The beginning of March is time to think about sowing winter veg for next season and the first of the broad beans for succession sowing. These are sown in pots at home since the ground is too cold for direct sowing but we get a head start and having young plants to put in later in the month means the mice don’t eat the seed. The potatoes are all bought now and are in a cold light place for chitting or encouraging them to shoot. We aim to plant the early varieties around the beginning of April so we need to cover the ground shortly with a sheet of black plastic to warm up the soil.