MY WEEK : 17
(W/E 29/04/07 )

Hello all and welcome to this week's update. It is with an element of regret that after several weeks of struggling with my health that I have had to leave the Kitchen Garden project as it is just to big for me to cope with and the work and pressure load was damaging my health, after listening to advice from my Doctor, Family and Friends I decided that my health was the most important thing to consider and I have now gone back to My Allotments, Website and Writing. I must say that my fellow plot holders were really pleased to have me back on site and they also pointed out that my health was the most important thing to look after, my friend and neighbouring plot holder Brian welcomed me back with my usual chair being placed on his decking overlooking the allotments, we then set about our usual routine of having a cuppa and a good old natter before doing some work on our plots, stress free !!! it's great to be back.



This is my neighbour Brian's plot, I must say he has got it very ship shape and it looks like he is going to give me a good run for my money, I will have to get cracking with my sowing and planting to keep up with him. Joking apart since swapping from having his allotment as one large area to having beds and paths like mine he has found it much better to practice crop rotation and he also finds it easier to weed them, his crop production has also improved as he is able to look after the crops better, congratulations Brian it's looking really good.





The last part of my allotments that needed clearing was my Brassica cage, I had still got the Purple Sprouting plants in there which I have now cleared along with a few weeds, I hand weeded the area as Brassicas like well consolidated soil to grow in and if I had dug the area over with a fork then I would have loosened the soil too much. I then applied Growmore general purpose fertiliser to the whole area in readiness for planting up with Peas and various Brassicas.



I have erected my supports for my Runner Beans, last year you may remember that I painted the bottom 6" of the wooden laths with bitumen paint to see if it helped to prevent them rotting in the damp soil and it has worked very well, I have been able to re-use all of the laths from last year again which saves a bit of money as both the laths and Bamboo canes are not very cheap anymore. I have spaced them about 8" apart and I have fastened them using cable ties instead of the poly twine that I have used in the past which seems to deteriorate in the sun and rain causing some of the laths to come loose before the end of the growing season.




The fruits are doing very well with the Gooseberries already forming although there are not as many on the cordons as the traditional bushes but I have been informed that this is because it if their first fruiting season and next year they will be more prolific. The Strawberry plants have almost doubled in size this week as a result of the warm sunshine and showers that we have had, in addition to this they have started to produce flowers as you can see in the above photograph.




This week I harvested the first of my Rhubarb stalks which will be used in a delicious Rhubarb crumble at the weekend and then the rest will be washed and cut into 1" chunks and frozen in 1lb bags to be used for crumbles during the year ahead or for stewing or jam making, the leaves of Rhubarb although poisonous can still be placed onto your compost heap and if you have a couple of good size clumps as I do then these will generate a good amount of compost material for you. The Gladioli that I planted a week or two ago are already coming through which as with many things in our garden are much earlier than usual.

The rest of the week I have spent collecting all my tools, pots, trays and propagating equipment from the Kitchen Garden and getting myself organised again for seed sowing both at home and at the allotments to catch up with my usual schedule. The plan next week is to get stuck into all the sowing and finish planting the remaining Potato tubers that I have chitting at home.
Well that is it for this week, hopefully I will be putting in a full week at my allotments next week so I will have plenty to tell you about in next week's update, thanks for all your support especially over the last month or so while I have been struggling to cope with everything, speak to you all next week, thanks Steve.