13 June - Planting, weeding, planting, weeding!

Had a great holiday but came back to loads of weeds.

Just about on top of them now.

On the bottom allotment, I've put in the sweetcorn and a couple of butternut squash in one bed, some cabbages to go with the cauliflowers in another (covered with wondermesh) and more peas that I sowed at home to go with the ones I sowed in the bed. I've got a few more sweetcorn in the greenhouse at home but they need to be a bit bigger before I put them in.

I've also covered the strawberries with wondermesh to keep the birds off.

The carrots are going well but there's lots of gaps so I've sowed some more seed to fill in.

The red hot poker in the front bed is shooting now but I need to get rid of the other flowers - they keep taking over!

Everything seems to be growing ok just a bit slow - need more sun and warmth please....

On the top allotment some of the beans didn't seem to be coming through so I've put some more in from the greenhouse at home.

Another row of carrots has gone in - trying Flyway. The previous row is growing ok as are the pasnips now I can see them after weeding!

I've covered the area in front of the carpet at the bottom with some weed suppressing fabric and planted a Jack O'Lantern pumpkin, some courgettes and butternuts through it. There's one more butternut in a pot at home that was a bit slow to germinate so I'll bring it on a bit before planting. I've also moved a bit of the carpet off, got rid of the little bit of bindweed I'd missed (I hope!) and put the Atlantic Giant pumpkins in - they didn't look as healthy as I would have hoped - hopefully they'll survive. These have all been planted on top of a dollop of horse manure kindly provided by another 'menteer and they've had plenty of water - mainly from the sky ;-)

Photo is a bit wobbly - whoops...

The strawberries seem to be taking over on the top allotment - I will sort them out after they've cropped - looking forward to the first one.

I've had a few crops of salad from the front of the top allotment - it tastes lovely and dead easy to crop with some scissors.

Daughter's area has had various flower seeds scattered over it - wonder if I'll know which are weeds....

At home, I've used some old blocks to raise the waterbutt on the back of the Utility and have managed to run an overflow pipe to the other butt on the greenhouse (takes longer to fill). After the recent rain it was a good test and it worked brilliantly. The sweet potatoes in the greenhouse are growing a bit now, I've only lost 1 but it doesn't matter as I'd put 2 in each bag.

I've got a few Sungold tomatoes now and a few Alicante too.