Right, so where are we...?

So, the allotment we have is a half size one, and this is our first full year with it. We have had a seriously bad winter, and in early January when we were finally dug out of the snow, we went to see how it was all looking. White. It looked lovely though - mainly because everything was buried under a good two feet of snow so it was pristine. Underneath all that, it was unlikely that *anything* could survive...

Fast forward a couple of months and the snow has gone, and amazingly, there are survivors. The foresight (or laziness, if you're being picky) to leave the dead cornflower and calendula foliage in situ, has paid dividends as there is a thriving colony of ladybirds. The garlic and onions have over-wintered well, but the cabbage is a disaster. Slugs, of all things: pity, I was really hoping for at least one of them.

Anyway, the great thing about growing stuff is the opportunity to learn and start all over. New season, new slate.

Because of the lurgy I'm having to (learn to) delegate management of the allotment to D. So while I'd be at the Allotment most evenings to dig and riddle the soil in the beds, that's just not an option at the moment. So I've had to mark out on my sketching of the allotment where needs dug first.

So D has been and dug over the 7m x 2m bed where the potatoes were last year. There's going to be a hotchpotch of veg in there since we're giving over three of the 2m x 2m beds to potatoes. That bed will have carrots, cabbage, spinach, chard, broccoli and so on.

Astonishingly and wonderfully, D came home with a bag of potatoes which we'd planted for Yule but had resigned to no crop when blight struck. So that was a real bonus (and we had some that night and they were delicious :-) )

My contribution has been limited to potato chitting, and seed sowing. But that's still something, so we have a good supply of seedlings coming along and ready to be potted on and out in time.

Today has been a so-so day: out for an hour and then back to bed for three to recover... Mind you, it was a day that included being hit by a mobility scooter in the supermarket...!

On the hen front, two eggs today. Murdina's still recovering after a moult which really sapped her strength so she's only just started laying again (we've had two eggs so far this year from her), but she's such a chatty and sociable wee thing we don't mind.

Well, that's us up to date, the new game starts here :-)

                                                              (The bare bones)

"A garden is never so good as it will be next year" (Thomas Cooper)