The Never Ending To Do List

It's all well and good preparing the soil and keeping the weeds down until you plant your precious seedlings out however work on the allotment never stops.

We have done what we can now, preparing the soil, keeping the weeks in check and planting out our precious little greenhouse grown seedlings and are now in the hands of the weather fairies!

However there is always something to keep us busy on the allotment.  I started painting the shed and managed to paint one end.  Next time I will do another side until I get it done.  The shed hasn't been painted in ages and was a very thirsty shed indeed!

Mr R getting stuck in with the weeding using the Wolf-Garten claw tool with the new short handle we bought to make it into a hand tool instead of a long handled tool.  This is a very versatile way to get the most our of your garden tools.

There is a long list of projects to keep me and Mr R busy - clearing the area to the side of the shed, cutting back one of the trees in a garden that backs onto our plot, making a new compost area and so much more!

First few harvests

How exciting! The first few things we have brought home from the allotment.

The plot next to ours is idle so I picked some of the raspberries.

 

I have also started harvesting the rows of lovely summer lettuce.

And a rouge garlic which survived since last year!

Now to look forward to the courgettes, peppers, chillis, aubergines, tomatoes, beans, squash, carrots and potatoes!

Final Countown to Planting With Help from Wolf-Garten

Last weekend was the final countdown to the planting and we were very busy getting all the beds ready. I had loads of plants that I have started off from seed in the greenhouse and last weekend I wanted to plant most of them outside.

It is always a gamble that the weather won't drop below freezing over the next two or three weeks but you just have to take a chance and go with it.  The sooner the plants are in the ground the sooner they can become established and get on with growing!

Wolf-Garten have sent me a new piece for my collection - the rake. This came just in time to rake the prepared beds prior to planting out and to get a nice level surface.  These tools are so handy and clip on and off easily.  I think I will get another handle so we can both use the tools at the same time though.

After all the hard work digging the soil in preparation, adding in the compost and horse manure - using the Wolf-Garten soil miller to get it nice and evenly chopped up we needed to rake it level ready to plant.

These garden tools are so handy. We have one handle and now have three pieces to mix and match. they clip on and off easily and make storage easier.

At the Edible Garden Show we bought the three pronged fork and this one is fantastic for weeding in between rows. We pop it onto the long handle and do our weeding. Since there is a range of handles, long ones like in the photo, shorter ones and the sort of handle you have on a digging fork I thought I would like to get the handle that is about arm's length which would make it easier to fork the weeds if you were bending down. This will be my next addition to the set!

By the end of the weekend we had yellow courgettes, green courgettes, yellow dwarf french beans, green dwarf french beans, plum tomatoes, runner beans, beetroot, pak choi, carrots, butternut squash, potatoes and more.

Thanks to Wolf-Garten for the rake attachment for my system. I was not paid to write this post and all opinions and photos are my own.