Today's work

Nettle tea preparation

So today Will and I went to the allotment in the morning and did a bit of work on it.

My first task of the day was to inspect the plants and how they are growing.

The potatoes are coming out nicely, so are the garlic and onions. The tomato plants and getting a nice dark green colour. Rocket and radish are coming out too.

On the not so good side, the courgette plants don't look very well. I think they are lacking a bit of water, but they'll be fine once they settle down in the soil... The lavender doesn't look very healthy either, we'll see.

Then after my inspection, I put the gloves on and went in the surroundings to pick some nettle to do some nettle tea. I shredded the leaves in a bucket and poured water over. Then I sealed the bucket and will leave it rot for some time. once it's ready, it will be used to fertilise my tomato plants...

Once this was done, I planted some strawberry plants, yeah! 16 plants all together. They probably won't give a good harvest this year but I can't wait for next year and the strawberry jam I'll be able to do. I have also 10 plant in the post from Gardener's wold offer. Can't wait to plant them down.

While I was looking, chatting tot he neighbours and doing my nettle tea and planting my strawberries, Will was very hard at work and placed 3 patio slabs in front of the shed and did some more digging.

Bird scarer for broad beans and tomato planting

One of our allotment neighbour told us a few days ago that pigeons are quite a nuisance around here, so today I built some bird scarer with some old hard disks. Let's hope they resist the wind.

I also planted some of my tomatoes, the ones that were the biggest. I grew them from seeds. My dad told me to used shredded nettles as a fertiliser at the bottom of the hole, so I did as i was told. I am planning of doing some nettle tea too to water and spray them with. Apparently it fortifies them and also keep them disease free (doesn't act on blight though)  

I'm growing three varieties. From left to right on the photo below: 'Gardener's delight', an old favourite (cherry tomato), then two 'Morden yellow', as it names says, they are yellow tomatoes (got the seeds at a seed swap) and right is a Tomato 'Alicante', a medium size red tomato. It was rather windy tonight so let's hope that the tomato plants will resist and do better than my courgette Cavili F1 plant who was destroyed by the wind, or my impatience to put it in the ground while it was too young.... I shall sow another seed in a pot, as it is not too late...