23 Feb 2014 - Seed Swap

The 3rd annual seed swap was today and this time, I'm determined not to lose my goodies!

Bumped into some old friends I hadn't seen for a few years, had a catch up with people from other allotments, and even from our allotment, which is odd, but I work shifts and sometimes have the whole place to myself!












I remember the first Seed Swap, it was very "Island-ish and Traa de loor", some signed in, everyone just threw their packets of seeds in a heap on the table and went to catch up with people they haven't seen for years/ages/days, grabbed a drink and finally got round to looking at the seeds!  These days, it's a bit more organised, althought last year I did notice that we may not have paid much attention to whether we'd put our seeds in the right boxes, because I remember someone checking the goodies and announcing that something wasn't a brassica and then sorting out all the boxes.....you'll notice that the unknowns either go into a "Random" box, or just put on the table to sort themselves out!  It's laid back and works well for us!

my friends ran away from the camera!

a runaway, still hiding!

Me & Jan, hadn't seen her for about 3 years!

This year I was organised ......... I even had a mental list of things wanted/needed, told my significant other to make sure I didn't come back with too much, a bag that I wasn't going to lose and raffle prizes brought along!

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that my plan went out the window!   To start with, there were no strawberries and I think I got the only bag of potatoes.  But there were some herbs and tomatoes, but then I got carried away with the exotics!

I'm not sure all these herbs were on the list....

Only the potatoes & tomatoes on my list!

I got carried away with "interesting"

and these were just plain bizarre!

splashed out on some new gloves too!

I'm fascinated with what a brussel sprout/kale plant looks like & then what it tastes like too!  Then there's the other thing which "tastes like Cumin or Salty Roast Beef" ..... fair enough, but what does it look like!!!

Well, as they say, curiousity kills the cat!

16 May 2012 - Seeds, seeds, seeds

I took today off work as an "allotment day", I'm guessing non-lotties won't understand how fab that is!

Well I ended up not feeling very well on Tuesday, not much better today, so packed myself off to the allotment with coffee and a packet of Tums and thought I'd do an hour of the easy stuff, go home for a bit and come back for another stint in the afternoon.  Yeah, like that's gunna happen!  Four hours later, I'm heading off home!

I forgot my camera, but here's what I got up to:

*  got 20 rows of seeds sown in trays, covered and put in the greenhouse (10 rows are pumpkin, courgette, marrow, melons.  10 rows are mini sweetcorn and late peas/beans)

* weeded the "fruit" bed and planted a lavender in a space there (a bee came along to investigate, but it was a dim one, it was at the wrong end of the bed!) - bed is just behind the blue tarped bed

* weeded round the "roots" bed, we've got lots of turnips and looks like some salsify is coming up too. - bed is just by the greenhouse

* in the "leaves" bed, dug over the rest of the bed, planted out the rest of the brussel sprouts, put in the leeks between those rows, sowed some UK bluebells, nasturtium, purple sprouting brocolli, cauliflower and celery parsley. - bed is under the green netting

* at the fenceline of the "leaves" bed I dug in a tyre, filled it and planted out some of the carnation sprays.

* watered the new seeds/seedlings in place and the ones in the greenhouse too.

I had my "ears" in and was singing away (using the term loosely) and decided at just the right time to stop and look around.  I'm sure the guy trying to mind his own business wasn't that worried about a bad rendition of Twisted Sister and failing to hit the high notes of The Proclaimers, but I'm really glad I decided not to sing along to The Bloodhound Gang!  I may never have lived that down!