A pretty wet start...

Well it hasn't been the best start to allotment season, we are at the beginning of May and during April we had all seasons in one day. Sunshine to thunder, hail to snow, wind, so much rain, warm dry spells but not enough to get young plants out, plus the frosts keep coming...

Luckily for my birthday my boyfriend, Rhys, bought me a poly-tunnel - I have called her Bertha and I am hoping she will become the heart of my plot. Bertha has enabled me to start growing even though the weather is still unpredictable, I'm hoping she will also mean I have red tomatoes this year (they are only ever green with our lack of sun - fine for my Green Tomato Chutney but a few red would be nice), hopefully cucumbers will do well with the extra heat and I may be able to grow more than one solitary pepper!

Presently there are sweetcorn, runner beans, french beans and courgette seeds starting to pop up and tomatoes, peppers, chillis, aubergine, sprouts, radishes, leeks and mange tout growing nicely. With the rest of the plot we are thinning out the strawberries and raspberries and generally tidying as much as we can.

Some of the cabbages were planted out today and covered with a miniature poly-tunnel to help protect them from frost. Last year all my brassicas got clubroot so I have moved their position and I am hoping we may be luckier this year.


So far the potatoes are not even showing! However the rhubarb is making up for it and last years crown is going from strength to strength!

All in all I am still enjoying the plot, but I would be enjoying it even more if the sun would make more of an appearance, everything needs some heat and will no doubt grow like billio once things warm up.

I hope you are all having a good time :)

Happy digging and much love

Tracey xx