Six Nations slacking

Only one trip to the allotment this weekend. I blame the rugby for keeping us entertained all day Saturday.

First things first... Potato Chitting Update!
Compare this to last week's pic - thou shalt be amazed.










Planted a row of broad beans today. It's a confusing matter, actually. The books we've got all say to either plant broad beans in August or September to overwinter for a spring crop, or plant them in spring for a summer crop. But our wise old allotment neighbours assure us that right now is the time to sow them, straight into the ground. And who are we to argue? Anyway, we've done one double row, and will do another in a couple of weeks, and another row a couple of weeks after that, and see what happens. I was going to take a picture, but broad beans, once they're buried underneath a layer of soil (no matter how skilfully it's been raked to a fine tilth) really isn't that exciting to look at.

A bag of beans was only 60p from the oh-so-cheap allotment shop, so even if nothing comes up the only thing we'll be missing out on is a bit of plot space, which I guess we can bung something else into in a couple of months. We also bought some mange tout today - Oregon Sugar Pod. Same variety as we had last year cos they were so tasty.

The garlic is all coming up nicely, the new cloves are just starting to poke their little green spikes above the soil, but no sign yet of the shallots and onion sets we planted last week. Also weeded the cabbages and turnips today. Beheaded one cabbage plant, but it wasn't my fault because it had grown with a wiggly stem which got in the way of the hoe.

Didn't spend quite as long down on the plot today because oooh, it was windy and, oooh, the wind was freezing. Siberian, in fact. But it was a good time to try out my new gardening gloves, which sport a natty yellow and black colour combination, with three layers (count them!) for waterproofing, thermal insulation and something else, I forget. Toasty hands, I had.