Peas in

I have planted my first rows of peas and mangetout under fleece in bed 2.

Spring is here!

This is my first allotment and my first ever blog.
I got my 1/2 allotment in September 2007 and it hadn't been cultivated for about 9 months - it was full of couch grass and weeds and looked a mess. The council strimmed the plot for me which improved things somewhat however I rotavated the plot before I removed the large dandelions - of course this resulted in hundreds of pieces of root.
I covered the plot with weed suppressing fabric and started to prepare the plot.
I decided early on I was going to use a series of raised beds but with the least amount of expense as possible. I have managed to get quite a few scrap pallets from where I work and although it involves some effort, I have managed to get quite a lot of 4 and 5 foot lengths of wood from these pallets which I have then treated with a water based wood preservative and used these for the raised beds. I have managed to get 4 main beds done so far - they measure 4 x 14.5 feet and I have also made a raised Strawberry bed and used the remainder of the pallets for some compost heaps and the start of a windbreak. I will need more pallets to do the next set of raised beds but I can only get so many!!
The photo above is from 11 Feb 2008 - I need to take some more!
So far I have managed to plant some strawberries, raspberries, onion sets and some garlic in October.
This was followed by some early carrots in Feb.
I have since planted some early potatoes and am preparing another bed for some maincrop potatoes.
I have loads of seedlings at home waiting to be planted and many more seeds waiting to be sown.
My trailer load of horse muck arrived yesterday and I spent a back breaking morning shifting it about.
Roll on Spring.....