Fresh veg 2011 - April (post 1)

Having an unemployed husband has its downside, not just the lack of income,  but more importantly the lack of motivation for him to achieve, so when a friend of asked asked us about taking over an elderly couples garden last year to use as an allotment we jumped at the chance. We are on the council waiting list, still 54th this year so might be 90 time we reach the top of the list.





 We have an area of ground measuring 8ft by 40 ft, plus a back wall that gets the sun all day, and a big area around their rhubarb that we can use, and in return for us getting to use this for what we want to grow, we keep the flower side of their garden, roughly the same size weed free for them. We got this allotment quite late on last year and so really only grew potaotes, sweetcorn, peas and runner beans with any success, everything we planted underground didnt grow at all.

This year we are hoping for more success with more stuff as there is nothing nicer than home grown vegetable. We have had the advantage of having fertilised the ground over the winter, and to do this we covered it in seaweed that we brought up from the local beach. Some websites say not to use seaweed but many of the elderly local people swear by it not only to add mineral to the ground but also as a effective weed suppressant.

It has been very cold and wet in this part of the country over the last few weeks, and we were hoping to have the rest of our potatoes planted before now, but last week they would have needed wellies and aqualungs on to be planted as the ground is very very wet still, but I am hoping for dry weather in the next fortnight on which to get them under way. I did get the 2nd earlies in, but not so sure it was a good idea.


Bob and I made a start on seeds into pots this morning and we planted up 15 sweetcorn seeds to start them off in pots indoors  We have used Johnsons Incredible F1 .http://www.johnsons-seeds.com/seeds-plants-gardening/13181/sweet-corn-incredible-f1, which produced last year 4 -6 cobs per stem and grew to approx 5 ft tall and they were beautifully sweet and were enough sweet enough to eat raw. They should take 6 to 8 weeks to mature enough to go outside, which puts us at the end of May, easily giving them enough time to grow and ripen by the middle of September ( or earlier) if we are lucky.

I am fortunate this year as I dont need to bring anything else on from seed because my wonderful daughter, the mother of my grandchildren, won a http://www.rocketgardens.co.uk/showdetails.asp?id=392 which she has kindly swapped with me as she has nowhere to grow the stuff without the children running through it.
(mental note to self - do not remind daughter she not actually been given a swap yet).