April - Very dry

I planted the 144 onions[sturon] and the shallots[] on the 18th with the help of T doing some more of the digging. We only watered them on 24th, I hope they will be OK. We haven't had any rain for about six weeks. Before then I had started weeding the strawberry bed and on 24th it looked brilliant with the strawberries flowering and the plants looking very healthy. The seeds at the bottom of the plot are not doing too well. The radishes are ok but no parsnips to speak off and the carrots have disappeared and the beetroot look weedy. The peas are however doing well. The potatoes are coming through and I have earthed up the first earlies. This year I am going to earth them up in stages rather than earthing them up when I plant them. I hope this will increase the crop.

We have watered quite a lot for this time of year, seriously on the 24th.

A little disappointed

Squash seed orientation is important, I planted pointed end down and this is the worst. According to this forum the best way is flat sideup to give strong healthy shoots. So now I know!
I went up today to dig over the top section where I am going to plant my squash family plants. I had dug some of it last weekend with the help of Mark so I continued and planted (from right to left) 2 pumpkin, 2 courgette [all green bush] and 2 more courgette[Nero di Milan]. Lucky for me another allotmenteer gave me about 20 beetroot plants they had grown at home so I planted those in around the pumpkin and courgette.

The potatoes and onions are disappointing (v.little) as are the parsnips which do not appear to have germinated but at least they are not engulfed in weeds so maybe I just need to be more patient. I think it has probably been to dry for them. I watered but it is hard to know how long to give them when it doesn't seem to go much below the surface. I even gave the raspberries a water. The redcurrants look good as do the strawberries. The runner beans look OK so maybe things will be OK. Mark's peas have not come up, they may have been past germination. The radishes sown with the parsnip 2nd row are small but delicious I must plant more next year.

More sowing

I went up and sowed a second row of parsnips, this time interspersed with mixed radish. I also planted a half row of Beetroot [Red Ace] and half of carrot [Resistafly]. It will be interesting to see how they do since this year they will not be near the onions(as per). I also dug over the area where the original compost pile was. Mark is hoping to plant sugar snap peas here. Watch this space...

Parsnips and Carrots

Two weeks ago we prepared a patch just below where we plan to plant the main crop potatoes. We added chicken manure pellets and removed as many stones as we could. It was raked to a beautiful flat area, never done before, I have always been too rushed(lazy?). One row of parsnips [White Gem], interspersed with mixed radish. The next row was half carrots [Resistafly o?] and Beetroot [Boltardy o?]. Another extra was the two lines of orange string above each row to protect the seedlings from the birds. Today the radishes are showing through and we gave the rows a gentle watering. There are seedlings in the second row but I am not sure they aren't weeds.

Prepared another patch for Mk. We planted five old onions, three rows of carrots [Resistafly o] and a scattering of chives [own seed]. The smell of the onions and possibly the chives will hopefully deter carrot fly.