Allotment Diary (March – Week 3)

I’ve been tried this week and a bit lacking in motivation. I always get this way in March as I grow weary of sowing and planting, too much preparation and not enough pottering around and harvesting in the sunshine. I’d normally have mitigated this weariness with a holiday in February and another in March, these would be put a spring back in my step, but it’s not to be, so I’m weary.

Always nice to see the sun canopy go up and the chairs come out

Fortunately we’ve had a couple of days of sunshine and now the allotment is effectively finished I’ve been working on the back garden. Hoping for lots of sunny days in my future I put up the sun-canopy and it’s support wires and got the loungers out and I even enjoyed one afternoon of reading.

Eating a homegrown salad in the sunshine

I’ve worked my way through the garden: clearing beds, mulching them, cutting the lawn, laying out the potato tubs and planting peas and beetroot.

Planting mangetout and sugar snap peas (under fleece) the supports are added in a few weeks

I also fertilised all of the trees and raspberries (concentrated cow manure, seaweed meal and BFB) and mulched them and all of the paths with a few inches of wood chip. I will be working on the back garden now until the end of March when I take a rest from the garden until I start planting potatoes!

Debbie has started on her spring project, transforming the front garden into a ornamental edible garden. We’ve removed a very old hawthorn tree, which we will replace with a Concorde Pear and we are in the process of weakening the grass, before covering it with a thich compost mulch. The large stones you can see near the wall will be moved (by the kids) to contain the 6″ of compost and wood chip (paths) that will cover the grass.

Weakening the grass before smothering with compost

The only real progress on the allotment has been a little weeding, the first nematode treatment to control the slug population and the first planting of main-crop onions and lots more interplanting into every gap I can find!

The allotment has been getting a lot of air this week, ready for removing covers in a month

I’ve done a bit of sowing too.

Main crop brassicas

Other than that I’m pleased to see my main-crop brassica seedlings coming through, I’ve potted on the celery and another batch of potatoes.

Celery seedlings potted on

Harvest wise things are looking good. Less than last year of course, as we have a lot less land, but a wider selection of veg for the reduced number we are growing for, which is exactly to plan. In particular I worked hard to get more leeks and root veggies this year!

The Sunday harvest

I’m particularly pleased with the salad and the spinach harvest.

Wide angle harvest, with the spring onions taking price of place!

Here’s what I sowed this week:

Here’s what we planted this week.

Here’s our harvests for the year so far, with the most recent at the top.  We hit our target for last year and harvested over £12,000.

Here’s a list of the preserves for last year.

I always like to keep a track of or first harvest dates and you can find a summary of those here:

YouTube videos for the week can be found here:

Steve Richards

I'm retired from work as a business and IT strategist. now I'm travelling, hiking, cycling, swimming, reading, gardening, learning, writing this blog and generally enjoying good times with friends and family

6 Responses

  1. Dennis Morgan says:

    Its good your enjoying life and good times instead off working for Gov and tax man . happy days. im in the same boat, have not worked for years now Disable with failed back syndrome . I started garden 2017 to take mined off prostrate cancer it really helped me cope had it removed 13/10/2019 now all clear happy days all around ..im not to good with computer it takes me a long time sort thing.s out .take care man

  2. Good to hear you are all clear now Dennis, sadly tax man still takes plenty from me! : All the best – Steve

  3. I see your celery seedlings. Any tips on germination? I’ve had difficulty with regular seed and pelletized. I usually just buy starts of ‘Tango.’ Perhaps a comment on my blog if you’re headed there or I’ll check back here. Thanks.

  4. Well to be honest the only thing I buy is celery seedlings!!

  5. I like the idea of the ornamental edible front garden. Everything we plant has to be deer proof, which leaves out most all edibles and many of the ornamentals. I’ve been able to get out and work a bit in the garden lately and that has brightened my spirits a lot!

  6. We all have our challenges and opportunities, I suppose you trade being able to grow sweet potatoes for deer. The biggest wild life we have around us is foxes and the worst they do is dig around and use my coldframe as trampolines!

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