Lotty Totty

Three hours up the allotment represents a monster session, but that's actually what was achieved yesterday: 1.5 English seaside-esque hours in the morning with E, then another 1.5 hours after lunch with my mum (see photo attached)). She went well dressed for the blustery conditions, although the hat came off pretty quickly after a bout of digging.

The morning session consisted of E complaining about the cold breeze whilst helping me shovel manure and transport tree stakes & netting from its over-wintered site to where we shallow-drilled two lines of peas: Sugar Snaps, Kelvedon Wonder and, new for this year, Purple Podded. Another short row of Bunyards Exhibition broad beans went in alongside them. Last year our peas were rubbish, not helped by the dry weather and late-planting, so any improvement will we welcomed.

The afternoon session featured my mum and me clearing 2/3rds of the end bed (#1) - it was riddled with turf, couch grass and weeds - and planting up six different vegetables in a matrix. We stuck down three canes to created six little areas and then planted them up with alternating rows of seeds to hopefully create an unusual and decorative bed. A line of manure was left untouched, as my mum had a great idea: just clear of weeds and then 'mulch' with some black plastic sacking, then plant our courgettes and gourds through sacking. Bingo! No digging required!

The six vegetables were:

• Turnip - Purple Top Milan
• Turnip - Snowball
• Spring Onion -North Holland Blood Red
• Rainbow Chard
• Fennel - Finocchio Montebianco
• Kohl Rabi - Purple Delicacy

We recut the border of the plot and discovered that the asparagus bed is about 4 inches too far in from the border edge, so we took the opporunity to dig over the gap and scatter some Black Ball cornflower seeds to bring some colour, height and bee-friendly blooms to the corner.

In the mini greenhouse the flowers are starting to germinate, as are the assorted salad crops on the windowsill. Some scorching on the tomato plants however :(