Asparagus and more shallots

The asparagus is looking good this week – definitely enough there for a couple of meals for us both.

The shallots are doing well:

And so we have planted some more. We did put netting over the bed after I took the photo to prevent the birds from pecking at them.

The French climbing beans are slowly getting there so we’ve tied up a couple of the taller ones with string.

And one of the peas has definitely grown taller so that’s good news – I tied that one up too just in case.

The beetroots are really struggling at the moment though, but at least they’re still just about there.

Meanwhile, the lilies are looking good though still no flower buds yet.

The roses are quite happy in the perennial bed.

And the dahlias have so far managed to avoid the slugs.

Whilst there, we did a thorough water of everything as there’s been no rain at all this week and the sun is quite hot – there’s no shade anywhere at the plot. And here is this week’s harvest – just asparagus this time.

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend, everyone!

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Seasonal planting and a poor harvest

Last week, there were some lovely & caring people worried about my one lone pea plant, but all is now well as it has a couple of friends which have come to join it! It’s a shame that there’s nothing at all so far from the other peas we planted, but we live in hope.

In the fruit cage, we put down another strip of weed suppressing fabric, but will need to bring more from home to finish off the job. We were thrilled to see that the gooseberry plants both have fruit on them already! They’re always the first to produce any fruit (which is why we’ve lost all their crop in the past to the birds as we hadn’t got round to netting them) – and as they’re safely in the fruit cage this year, we hope they’ll be fine. It will take a while for them to be ripe enough to pick though.

We have now planted some of the French beans – but we ran out of useful sticks for them to climb up, so we’ll have to do the rest of them next week:

I also planted a courgette in one of the old daffodil beds – I lifted those bulbs first and put them in the shed for next year.

And a very poor harvest this week! It’s a shame about the lack of flowers – all our tulips peaked way too soon though they were a lovely bumper crop. We will have to think of getting some later season tulips for next year if we can. So here are some asparagus we found – am hoping for more next week though!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

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The Glory of the Tulips

A quick Easter Day visit to the allotment today as we ran out of time to visit yesterday – and the tulips are amazing!

Such a joy to see – we will definitely have to get more of those gorgeous tall red ones next year if we can.

The daffodils are also hanging on in there:

I’m also happy to report that the lilies are on their way too, which I’m super-excited about:

The fruit cage is definitely putting on more growth:

As is the rhubarb patch:

Whilst there, we planted a couple of rows of shallots, as they’re always useful to have – we store them in the garage and they last for AGES. You can just about see the tops here but K put on netting before we left to discourage the birds:

So here is today’s colourful harvest of tulips and daffodils – some of the latter are scented which is wonderful:

And here are the vases at home:

Happy Easter, everyone!

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Slim Pickings and a new Nesting Box

We were once again the only people at the allotment this morning! Not many daffodils in bud today either – I was hoping for more but perhaps they’ve been put back a couple of days with the snow and frost we’ve had?

The other beds on the plot don’t have much in them but then again it’s still early in the year!

However, in exciting news, we do have a new nesting box near the bench – which has been put in place this week. I suspect it might not be camouflaged enough for most birds but it’s possible a robin might give it a go. Here’s hoping!

So it’s a mini-harvest of daffodils this week:

And here they are at home:

I’m also happy to say that last week’s daffodils came out beautifully and have already lasted for a whole week, go them!

In book news, this week I’ve received a new five star Amazon review for quirky romantic short story, Karen’s New Year, so that was really nice and unexpected. Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books at Amazon UK
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