March was a mixed bag. I spent quite a bit of time at the
allotment but I am now mostly relegated to weekends as I work Monday to Friday.
I finished off the herb bed and planted loads more strawberries in it; the
fennel and comfrey are growing up again and the raspberries are coming out into
leaf so I think they’re happy! I have also installed a bumblebee nesting tube
on the outside edge of the herb bed as I had a hole that needed filling. I’ve
used a section of terracotta chimney pipe, some roof tiles, and a bit of
plastic pipe as the entry hole.
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| It has since been covered over with soil and trodden down |
My early, eager seed sowing has paid off – I have radishes,
swede, carrots, leek, spring onion, lettuce and chard appearing already (!) so
soon it will be time to put more seeds in. My square foot bed is filling up
nicely. It is 6ft x 6ft, so I have 36 growing spaces. One has a permanent flower in it, so of the remaining 35 spaces I think I only have 9 or 10 left to
fill! I will wait until the end of April before I do more salad/quick crops.
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| Radish |
Growing and planning has stagnated on the rest of the plot. I desperately
need a large amount of compost to fill the other raised beds but I simply
cannot afford it. 1000L of peat free compost is going to cost me about £80
(which isn’t too bad a price) but I need to buy a lot of wood too.
I have planted four quince shrubs in a row along the edge of
my plot – these have been grown from seed by Momma P and we chucked them in the
plot to get them out of the greenhouse, but as things tend to do they have
grown, and needed thinning out. Two have gone to work, three have gone to a
volunteer at work, Momma P has had some, I’ve planted these four elsewhere, I have
one in the herb bed – and still l have three more to put in somewhere!
I still haven’t sorted the polytunnel…………
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| A male solitary bee buddy in my silver birch bee house |
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| White snakes-head fritillaries |
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| Plot 31. More tarp than plot. |
