Growing season starts in earnest

Beautiful sunny days and allotment season has started in earnest. The view from the top of the site is gorgeous, greens and blossoms and fields in the distance. I could hear birds and buzzing bees when I sat up there today with Sammy. Mum and Dad gave us a bench which is proudly sitting under a tree and I am looking forward to sitting on it after some hard weeding! I have been up with Sammy every other day as we are into the stage of planting out climbing beans and courgettes and they need attention if they are to survive the dry dusty soil which takes up most of the plot that has been dug over. Trains have rather taken over Sammy's life and he is very happy watching them on a daily basis. Here he is at his favourite spot having scooted there in his helmet.

BBQ and hot dogs

Neil is hobbling about on crutches after a knee operation so after he had been lying down all day (!!!) we took him up the allotment with a BBQ and sausages oh, and a chair and something for him to put his foot up on. Grandma joined us and we all had hot dogs and apple juice and did a spot of weeding and chopping down tall grass to find the shed again. The boys were getting too up close and personal with the nettles so we chopped those away too.

A gorgeous end to a day which all too frequently involved hot and mostly stressful small boy wrangling. Just please do what I ask when I ask Louis and Sam!!!!!

And Squarecrow Jack was born

What a scorching day (well 20 Aus rellies but hey that's great for us here!) and we had Granddad to visit so we went up the allotment. We went to a local farm who donated us some straw for our Squarecrow (a Sammy term) and our Squarecrow named Jack was born. He is a slightly dumpy and fat cricketing man with a strange shaped head. Lou and I enjoyed making him though courtesy of Daddy's old cricket whites as he is now semi-retired due to shoulder, knee and heel injuries.

Whilst Lou and I stuffed straw into old clothes Granddad used the hoe to get the big bed ready for planting and Neil watered and weeded with Sammy. It was hot work so after a bit of sitting in the shade with Sammy and discussing the sticky weeds we couldn't remember the name of, we decided it was time to have sausage sandwiches at home.

Good progress though and the potatoes had popped up again so we covered them with more soil. After lunch Neil and Granddad took Neil's homemade fruit cage up and planted radishes, onions, carrots and I think Brocolli and Cauliflower (which went under the fruit cage). All in the prepared soil that Graeme had worked on. Loads achieved today. Thank you Granddad!!!

Just look at those tree roots pulled from the newly appointed herb patch. Those plum trees have been there a while by the looks of things.
I can't wait to get up there next weekend, it gets better each time.

Spring has sprung

Mothers Day and a chance to get up the allotment in between a family swim and having a roast dinner. It doesn't get much better than that! The plum trees are coming into a beautiful white blossom at the back of our plot, a perfect shady area with bluebells and stinging nettles and weeds of course. I love the ramshackle part of it though. The kids went on a toy dinosaur hunt today and sat in the storage shed whilst we hid them. Whilst they were running around on a hunt Neil and I weeded and covered the potatoes which have started to come up. We placed on a third tyre to the boys potato project and weeded some more!

The boys made some new friends through a garden gate which backs onto our plot. The little girl on the other side of the wrought iron gate has a plot too so no doubt we will be seeing a lot of them. It was very sweet watching the boys close up to the gate and the girl on the other side chatting away. We attempted to create a makeshift wormery with an ice-cream tub and put some worms into some soil to see if they make new worms by the next time we visit.

A quick watering of the potatoes and herbs and we were ready to potter home muddy and ready for roast dinner. Bliss.