Although I am still feeling the nettle stings, today was a productive day at the allotment.
Dug over part of the bottom end where the carrots were last year, and two seem to have survived the winter underground! They looked ok so that prompted me to pull the small number that still had leaves on which I thought would have been all woody by now. The guinea pigs ate the leaves, and we had a bit of fresh carrot in with the rice at lunchtime!
Picked a few very small leeks, again left overs from the winter, they went in the rice as well. Picked yet more brocolli, which didn't go in with the rice, I cooked this separately as I really dislike the stuff! The rest of the family eat it though.
As well as picking I did some actual work! Got the rest of the onion sets in, and did a fair bit of clearance work, especially around the blackcurrants and raspberries. We did blitz the area with newspaper and guinea pig bedding to create a mulch to keep the weeds down, but now the grass is growing on top of the newspaper!
It's a long process as it's touch grass and the roots of both the grass and raspberries and indeed the nettles make for a very slow job.
The chair I rescued from an allotment that was getting cleared out by the brewery last year is coming in handy and was a very pleasant place to sit, south facing in the sunshine today, it felt very warm but I think it only got to about 10 deg C on the thermometer, more rain tomorrow apparently
Finally, I picked some rhubarb, the kids eat it raw with sugar or sherbet dips. Peeled and sliced up the rest , sprinkled with sugar and froze ready for jam making later in the year, although I may use some to make a chutney recipe I have in the Preserves and Pickles book I have.
Dug over part of the bottom end where the carrots were last year, and two seem to have survived the winter underground! They looked ok so that prompted me to pull the small number that still had leaves on which I thought would have been all woody by now. The guinea pigs ate the leaves, and we had a bit of fresh carrot in with the rice at lunchtime!
Picked a few very small leeks, again left overs from the winter, they went in the rice as well. Picked yet more brocolli, which didn't go in with the rice, I cooked this separately as I really dislike the stuff! The rest of the family eat it though.
As well as picking I did some actual work! Got the rest of the onion sets in, and did a fair bit of clearance work, especially around the blackcurrants and raspberries. We did blitz the area with newspaper and guinea pig bedding to create a mulch to keep the weeds down, but now the grass is growing on top of the newspaper!
It's a long process as it's touch grass and the roots of both the grass and raspberries and indeed the nettles make for a very slow job.
The chair I rescued from an allotment that was getting cleared out by the brewery last year is coming in handy and was a very pleasant place to sit, south facing in the sunshine today, it felt very warm but I think it only got to about 10 deg C on the thermometer, more rain tomorrow apparently
Finally, I picked some rhubarb, the kids eat it raw with sugar or sherbet dips. Peeled and sliced up the rest , sprinkled with sugar and froze ready for jam making later in the year, although I may use some to make a chutney recipe I have in the Preserves and Pickles book I have.
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