Can you dig it?

A spell of dry has thankfully allowed a spell of digging. Hmm, that’s not what my back thinks.

The easy bits are last year’s beds. Former pea and bean beds will be home to first crop potatoes. I gave them a quick dig over this afternoon. Similarly, the remainder of this year’s onion and garlic bed – site of tons of Desiree previously – had a turn yesterday.

Easy bits apart, I’ve got stuck into to the remaining fallow bits. These have been covered by old carpet over the winter. The carpet’s done its trick though the soil is still fairly claggy. It’s made digging hard work and removing the weeds has been slow going.

But, in February I’ll take any dry spell to get started on what will be a busy year on the allotment.

Pleased to say that the onions and garlic have wintered well.  A few garlic bulbs have gone walkies, which is a shame. I think all of the onions are still there. Once or twice I’ve had to replant sets that something or someone has pick up and dropped.

All of the above have been under protection – either netting, fleece or plastic cloche. Today, I removed the last of the garlic covers. I will give the onions a bit more protection before exposing them.

I am hoping my red onion sets arrive soon. I’ve booked time off in March to blitz the digging and early planting.

Allotment five and a half goes “tweet”!

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I’ve just seen a gritter lorry go past

It’s been snowing. Not nearly as bad here as elsewhere in the country, but very pretty all the same.

Amazingly, I’ve just seen a gritter lorry. The village road is not a through route and I’d doubted we’d ever see any gritting. But, with more snow forecast, getting to work tomorrow still looks a challenge.

Numb fingers

It probably wasn’t a particularly bright idea to go digging yesterday.

On the other hand, it was rather fortunate. The easterly breeze – aka gale – that’s blown continental air – aka frigid temperatures and snow laden clouds – on top of Blighty, whipped my carefully anchored cloche from covering the broad bean bed.

Damage rectified, I lasted about hour in freezing conditions. My core stayed warm, but feeling in my fingers disappeared. Still, an hour’s digging in the circumstances was a result.

In case I forgot to mention, those beds that haven’t been dug are covered by old carpet. In other words, I’ve very nearly tackled the whole allotment, or at least half-an-allotment.

I’m setting a target of the end of May to finish off the digging, That should allow me to fit in all the planned planting for this year.

In other news, my potatoes arrived last week and have started to chit in the spare room. After last year’s success, Desiree make a return. For the earlies, I’ve gone with Dunluce which look like being another very quick cropper – to beat the blight.

Onions and garlic are doing well despite the – up until this week – alternating sunny/frosty and mild/wet/windy weather.

Also doing well was Jim who popped up briefly to feed his chickens. No other mad people up at the allotments.