First taste of Spring

Yesterday (3rd March) was the first properly warm day of the year.  It's been dry for a week or so but yesterday was glorious, so, enough procrastinating and off I went, fork in hand to get started on the double sized allotment I share with my family.

Half of the plot is mostly covered with a 26 foot polytunnel I inherited in 2009 when I got the allotment, and the other half is newly acquired, was unused for a year and has had a partial winter dig over.  There are a few leeks growing outside, and some onions planted last November along with some hardy peas which aren't looking so great, but may improve with warmth and sunshine.

In the tunnel is a row of parsley and some spinach which looks like it has been feeding a bunch of creatures over the winter, but has some new untouched leaves coming too.

Hardy onions.  Sue planted these in the cold ground in November and I was amazed when they were sprouting  proper green tops by Christmas.  She may have been a little over-optimistic with the peas though.  Although lots of plants appeared at first, few seem to have survived and I have a feeling the slugs are going to enjoy the remainder as soon as the wet weather appears.

Great to see some perfectly usable parsley has made it through the winter in the tunnel .  I've watered it  on the rare occasions I've visited the plot - maybe 3 or 4 times all winter, but given it a couple of good soakings now.

Hooray!  Always great to find some spinach left in the polytunnel.  This is the  perpetual type which is extremely hardy  and keeps on growing the more you pick.  We had heaps last year so I don't mind feeding some creatures who have clearly been helping themselves!  Some new shoots are coming though, and I feasted on these during a particularly hungry period today :)

Polytunnel 

First thing that needed doing before anything could be planted was the polytunnel doors which were in tatters.  The plastic used on them had lasted 3 years, but wasn't real polytunnel material and had perished with the sun and frosts.  Also the hinges were inadequate for the weight of the doors and had given up the ghost.

Mark and Nigel appeared with cordless drills and sheets of blue plastic, and with surprisingly minimal arguing got on and and repaired my doors.  Ta-dah!

While they were doing that, I dug over a plot in front of my tunnel which had a reasonable crop of  potatoes last year, unsuccessful butternuts the year before and onions before that.  This year I want to plant mange tout there later on, so I covered it up with plastic.

Bonus!  A few spuds left from last year :)

After that I got down to weeding and digging an area on the new side of the plot, and planted four rows of shallots, one row of quite big shop-bought ones, and the other three rows of teeny ones that my Auntie Dodge grew last year.

First dandelion flower I've weeded out.  Zillions of buttercups.  

Leaf Mould

The biggest problem with the polytunnel is lack of moisture, so last weekend Oscar and I went to visit a friend at Dolgoch Falls and dug out ten very heavy bags of leaf mould from the banks of her stream.  I have no idea if oak leaves make good soil, but by digging it in to the dry earth of my polytunnel, the texture seems to have improved dramatically.
  

I prepared a section of the tunnel by digging in the leaf compost and removing as many stones as possible and planted  4 rows of carrot seed.  I did this because I've had no luck with carrots planted outside in the past, they've gone rotten later in the season as the wet summer sets in, and in the tunnel I can control the water they get.

I sowed another row of spinach seeds too.

Help arrived!

Help arrived as I was starting to flag and the boys got on to clearing an area of brambles and getting them ready to burn.  

All in all we've made a good start, but as usual it was too much done in one day, and I again have promised myself that I will get over there to work little and often.  Next jobs - dig in the rest of the leaf mould, get more seeds on the go when it warms up some more, and plant some of the seeds on that I've got coming up on my windowsills at home.