You don't need a picture...

My friend Trevor told me, the other week, that we don't need a picture in order to write a blog entry. Well of course, he is right! Our cable which transfers pictures from the camera to the laptop has gone missing, so I've been unable to post any pictures at all for ages! 'SINCE OCTOBER?!' I hear you cry. Well yes and no.

We decided not to visit the allotment during November, December and most of January as the weather wasn't great for digging and other commitments just got in the way. However my kind Dad did put some weedkiller down on the 'bad' side of the allotment in an attempt to help us along with the weeds. My mum (who has the next door half-plot to ours) sought advice from the Parks and Gardens team at the Council who suggested some weed killer which won't harm any growing vegetables, but will calm down the weeds. So no, we won't be organic. This year.

In the first week of February I got absolutely obsessed over the allotment. So much so that I didn't do ANY knitting! I think I scared Helen a bit with my organisation! Don't worry guys, that organisation went just as quickly as it came! Anyway we spent our first Saturday of the year potting up some seeds.

My friend Laura gave me a Paper Potter (or Paper Plotter as I call it - why can't I say it right?) which enables you to create small seed pots out of newspaper. Very green! As the weather was awful we didn't actually venture down to the allotment, we just made tons of these pots and started some strawberry seeds, peas, onions and a few herbs (which died). The herbs died because I didn't use the Paper Plotter for those, I used mini terracotta pots. These terracotta thingies just dry everything out if you don't water them a million times a day! Because newspaper doesn't dry out as quickly, it keeps the compost nice and moist, so I'm definitely blaming the pots, not me, for the herbs dying. I now have a little seed factory in my front room and I have also recently purchased a mini greenhouse so I can harden them off.

By far our best day at the allotment was two weeks ago. We managed to begin chitting our first early potatoes in Helen's front room. We used egg boxes and loo roll to stand them up and put them in a nice sunny window. Actually at the allotment, we planted our Jerusalem Artichokes, created a Pea and Bean net and planted red and blackcurrant bushes. The allotment is really taking shape now, with exactly half of the plot ready to go. I have created a new allotment plan using an online planner called Growveg.com. which is quite detailed and enables us enough time to get the other half dug as we need more space.

The next couple of weeks will not be very eventful as Terracotta Armies and Council works will prevent me from going down to the plot. However I will carry on with my seed factory so that we shall have some nice 'plug plants' for later in the month.