Dad and Mum come laden with treats

Well with the beautiful British weather all set to give us a pleasant weekend, my Mum and Dad arrived with a car full of plants Dad had grown in his greenhouse. As I said, I wasn't sure what he'd have, so you can imagine my surprise and delight to see the car full!

We set off late morning on the Saturday and set to work working out where they'd all go and with Mum weeding the patch for the sweetcorn while I planted the strawberries I'd bought from ebay and Dad began with the cabbage and marigolds.

As you can see below the sweetcorn look great and we managed to squeeze some of the lettuce and salad leaves around the edge too.


You will also notice the raspberry poles we put up in the afternoon, in the background.

From the following photo you can see the tomato plants, cabbages and marigolds we spread about in the brassica and root beds.

....and here's the small strawberry plants, with a little bit of room left in that bed for something else.



and here's a shot of the main potato bed. I did earth them up last week and now look at them. They just keep on growing!



You can only imagine my pleasure in seeing all of these plants in the plot, as it really looks great with lots of different vegetables, fruit and flowers at different stages of development. As my Dad has spent so long getting them from seed to nice healthy plants, I now have the responsibility of making sure I keep them alive, nurture them and try to get as much out of them as I can.

I've got to update my plan and research how I protect them all from the pests and frosts, so I expect to make preparations for that this week. However, I have promised that I would start decorating of the hall and landing in May, so I'm going to be a busy boy over the next month or so.

I also need to finish staining the shed, (I did do half of it on Saturday afternoon after we'd sorted the raspberry poles) and fill the raised bed with soil for some more tomato plants (which I'm growing from seed), Ellie and Tom's seeds and anything else. Not to mention all the weeding and watering depending on the weather.

Anyway, not only did we have a lovely day in the Sun, but Swindon beat Bristol Rovers and managed to avoid relegation, so all in all a BIG RESULT of a weekend. Keep it coming England, I'm having a ball.

It wasn't warm and sunny 11 years ago today......

Yes, 11 years ago on Saturday 18th April , Karen and I got married and it was a cold afternoon that day. Not that it mattered of course as we had a brilliant day. Unfortunately, Karen picked up a sinus infection last week and is laid up recovering, at the moment and thus the reason I'm at the allotment with Ellie. Tom was invited to watch Crystal Palace play with one of his friends from school, so we are listening out for the score on the radio.

It's been a little while since the last update, during which we had a great week before Easter in Pembrokeshire with our friends and so with the sun and rain, the weeds and grass have grown with a vengeance, so plenty of work to do.

I have managed to pop down to do a little bit previosuly, but today, Ellie and I were planning on planting some peas and marigolds in one bed, some cabbages, leeks and broccoli in another, as well as see how the potatoes are getting on under the fleece, along with a bit of weeding.

As you can see from the next 2 photo's we've got plenty of labels in and not only was Ellie helping with the seeds, she also wrote most of the labels out too.



I took the fleece off the potatoes and by some miracle they are growing!!! Hoorah. I weeded the bed and 'earthed them up' as you can see below.


Of course, we deserved a break and Ellie got the chair, as she was supplying the mini eggs!



....and Ellie was keen to take a photo of me actually working so here's the proof.


We had a good couple of hours and have now got quite a lot of seeds in, including some carrots, lettuce and spinach which we put in last week. I'm hoping to get a few strawberry plants and put them in next week. Also, my Dad is coming over to help me with the raspberry supports and bring me some plants, with luck, so I'm excited to see what he brings!

It's all taking shape and as you may have noticed from some of the photo's a lot of the plots are being worked on now, so I expect to see more and more people around. Roll on next week.... from a happy gardener on his anniversary.