A plastic bag conspired against me and a seedswap person by assisting white mouldy things to do their stuff on the nice Black Magic runner bean seeds. I have wiped off the white stuff from some of the beans and I think a few would be sowable. Others are to be consigned to the bin. Last year, only lost a couple of saved runner bean seeds - these were kept in plastic bag. I guess though that current lot of bean seeds weren’t quite dry. Maybe I’ll have to give the next lot of saved runner bean seeds a quick blast in the dehydrator.

I go away for a short break for the Spalding Flower Parade, and return to find my chervil have all been munched plus 2 dill plants too. Molluscs have also had a go at my currant seedlings, and leeks. Guess who’ll be armed with a sharp implement tonight? Will refill traps with beer and perhaps try Horlicks traps too.

Aphids are happy in this weather. They are on the hazelnut leaves and gooseberries. Squished a few. No sign of ladybirds though.

Plants coming along nicely on the plot, and unfortunately, this includes weeds! Peas and broad beans have been notched by the pea & bean weevil. Still, the plants should be strong enough to continue.

Still no sign of the strange roots, though am not sure what the young plants would look like. There are so many weeds & seedlings growing in the patch, I am not sure if I could tell the difference between a weed and oca/ulluco/etc.

OH dug some of the beds on the first plot. He unfortunately dug up some potatoes I had planted - he thought they were left over from last year. Mwah.

I decided to add a new page yesterday for vegetable (and herb) sowings for this year. I hope to chart the progress of each sowing, when it is transplanted (if applicable), and when harvested. Unfortunately, a few of the sowings have failed, and some of the seedlings have met with accidents/molluscs. The page may take a while to load, but it should be easier to follow than trying to find the earlier blog entry I said I had sowed something that the current entry said I just transplanted/harvested, etc.

Last year, I dried slices of orange. I decided to try them yesterday. The taste was more like marmalade than the taste of “eating oranges”. Shall be drying some apples tonight.

Earlier today with some leftover rice mixed in with scrambled eggs, I added in some seed-sprouted lentils. Yum. I wonder which sprouting-seed to start off next.

Where are the strange root things? They were planted out end of last month but no sign (?) of anything apart from weeds (and raspberries) coming up in the “strange veg” patch. I hope the Jerusalem artichokes, ulluco, oca, yacon, chinese artichokes haven’t all rotted.

Also, where are all my carrot/parsnip/beetroot seedlings from various sowings? I think I can see some beetroot and carrots germinating but nothing from the newspaper seed tapes (not even the radish as markers for the parsnip rows germinated..). The bulk sowing of broad beans have practically all germinated and look good. OH’s leaf beet and spinach and radish have also germinated. I also spotted a single lettuce seedling.

Yesterday, OH sowed two root beds with various carrots (Early Nantes, Chantenay, Flakkee, Amsterdam Forcing), beetroots (Ukranian, Detroit Globe, Boltardy), Swede (Marian), and planted out some bought Celeriac seedlings. He also planted out some flower seedlings plus some bought plants (a nice red pansy, dianthus, snapdragons, and son wanted chives and lavender down the plot). I planted out some brassicas, 3 Primo Golden Acre & 3 Kalibos & 4 small Greyhound cabbages, 3 Romanesco things, 3 Darkmar Brussels and 4 rather pathetic looking All the Year Round cauliflowers (they look only marginally better than the ones I put out of their misery last month). Those cabbage root fly collars are fiddly and almost lethal to the seedlings as they seem to chop off the first leaves and in previous years, have snapped the stem. I also planted out some module sown spinaches - 12 Bordeaux, and 12 Medania (which were planted out among the direct-sown ones).

The overwintered broad beans have flowers on, but no sign yet of little pods.

… and the slugs/snails eat your seedlings. Have lost some lettuce and chervil planted out in the garden, even though there are slug traps with beer in. I should put some more traps out, and go hunting more often.

Yesterday, sowed a load more seed. I started squashes and pumpkins, 4 seeds each of Black Futsu, Rouge Vif D’Etampes and Hokkaido. Also started in modules, Giant Prague celeriac, various salads including Webbs Wondeful, Lettuce Milan, Osaka Purple & Red Giant mustards, Giant Red celery, nasturtiums, marigolds and various herbs including sage, cumin, lime basil…. Yesterday, I also soaked some lentils, linseed, mung beans and adzuki beans for sprouting.

Today was a perfect day. I sat in the garden reading the ish Bible, as well as watching the bees buzz around. There were also quite a few wasps too.

At the plot, sowed a whole bed of White King parsnips, and chucked in some Sandwich Giant salsify and Amsterdam Forcing carrots for good measure! Decided that the newspaper seed tapes had failed so sowed some Chantenay carrots as a replacement. Also sowed some more broad beans - Vectra, beetroot - Boltardy, and Scorzonera.

What a week it has been. We’ve caught some sort of bug - cough, sore throat, blocked nose, hot/cold thing. I nearly lost my voice! Yesterday, I received the ish Bible but was too tired to read more than a few pages (what I read was good, well done Andy & Dave). I was even too tired to be enthusiastic about receiving the various sprouting (+other) seeds I ordered. The sprouting seeds I have  are Red clover, Adzuki beans, Fenugreek, Mung beans, Mustard, Lentils brown & green, Linseed, Chickpeas and Alfalfa.  

Saturday was a seed sowing day. I sowed in modules/Rootrainers: Shchavel Sorrel; Belize, Rubens Red Cos and Little Gem lettuces; Chervil; Russian Mammoth Sunflower; White Lisbon Spring Onion; Cauliflowers Violet Queen and All the Year Round; Romanesco and Romanesco Natalino; Cabbages Primo (Golden Acre), Greyhound, Marner Storing Red and Kalibos; Brussels Sprouts Darkmar 2, Bedford Fillbasket and Seven Hills; Waltham Calabrese; Hungry Gap and Ragged Jack heritage Kales; Glaskin’s Perpetual rhubarb; Crystal Lemon cucumber; Albarello di Sarzana courgettes.

OH had finished cutting the hedge down in the allotment. Above is a picture of the hedge taken in November last year. The flowers are nice but the hedge was getting a bit large and providing a dumping ground for rubbish. Below, hedge is gone. We’d like to put a new hedge there with currants - the early flowers attract bumblebees (have spotted mainly the buff-tailed bumblebee around the currants in my garden).

Yesterday, OH decided to mow the lawn I mean, daisy patch. He wanted a Horlicks before he finished the edges. This morning, I discovered he had forgotten to bring the mug in, and I found 2 dead slugs in the dregs. The big jar of Horlicks is empty, except for a teaspoon or so stuck at the bottom - perhaps I’ll put that out as slug bait as well as (or instead of) beer.

It was a nice day on Saturday. All the remaining seed spuds went in: Sante; Early Puritan; Highland Burgundy Red; Picasso; Robinta; Harmony; Record; Pentland Ivory; Pentland Dell; Verity; Pink Fir Apple; Golden Wonder; Kerrs Pink. Sowed Fennel, Ukranian beetroot, Walla Walla onion, Egyptian Turnip Rooted beetroot, and Amsterdam Forcing carrots. No sign of any of the newspaper seed tapes germinating - weather may have been too cold; will give it another chance later this month.

OH was chopping down the hedge (it was a bit wild and out of control). He stopped when he saw a blackbird nest on Friday (there was a chick and egg in it). On Saturday, apart from a partially hatched egg (chick died), the nest was empty. He feels bad about not checking to see if there were any nests…. Overhead, members of the crow family were flying with bits of twig in beak for nest building. OH saw another blackbird taking twigs for nesting in the main hedge down the length of the allotment site, and maybe “our” blackbird has relocated.