The allotment is greening up for Terry Walton
And the warmer weather means I can carry on sowing with a smile!
May has nearly slipped away and hopefully the weather has now started to settle down. The days, weeks and months seem to go by so quickly.
If I stand at the top of my plot I can tell the busiest month of the year has just passed. The plot is full with my copious plantings and the brown landscape is turning green. The dry and cold April put many of my tender sowings of climbing beans and cucurbits behind schedule but these are now making up for lost time and will soon be ready to be set free on the plot.
There’s always something to do on the plot, weeding and feeding those crops in our charge. But the pace of life slows down now until those glorious harvesting days are with us. The amount of carrier bags full of produce going through the gate will grow rapidly soon!
The sunshine and warmth brings a different feel to the allotment, as people dress in their summer clothes and the mood becomes more friendly and light hearted. This good weather certainly lifts everyone’s spirits.
Early sowings of peas, started in my greenhouse in root trainers, have been duly planted out to hopefully give me a crop in the not too distant future. But my need for more means my pace of sowing has to accelerate. I soak the peas over night in water to soften them, then open a shallow trench lined with compost, and sow these peas in there. The soil is then raked back over the top and watered thoroughly – peas need plenty of water to begin their growth cycle. A few handfuls of blood, fish and bone are raked into this area to feed the emerging crop, and the row’s covered with a net to prevent birds pulling the seedlings from the soil.
The early potatoes were nipped slightly
by the late April frost but have made a strong recovery and need earthing up to encourage more underground stem, hence a bigger crop. My tool of choice for this is a swan neck hoe and the earth is dragged up into a mound, covering as much potato haulm as possible. The furrows either side of the potatoes are then sprinkled with chicken pellets to boost growth. This earthing up process also helps control weeds.