Winter Pruning on the Allotment

Winter maintenance jobs continue with a bonfire burning up the various prunings and dead wood – the wood ash is a good source of potash and will be spread around the fruit.

The seed potatoes are all now in a cool bright place for chitting. The shallots and onions are also now in store and will be planted once the soil has started warming up – a soil thermometer is a useful tool here and putting down a sheet of plastic will also help to warm up the soil. The Caley plot is a cold and exposed one so it will be April before the first of the early potatoes go in. The onions and shallots are planted out earlier, usually around the middle of March.

Sunday 26th February was the day for the ever-popular fruit pruning workshop at which George Anderson demonstrates to a keen audience what needs to be done to various kinds of fruit in winter to keep the plants in shape and fruiting well and, following on from his advice, we volunteers will be very busy this coming Thursday pruning the allotment fruit.

Jobs for this week

• Winter pruning
• Finish the wiring