There was more planting going on today as Lynn got the last of the spuds in. We have been given some onion sets and bought some pea seeds (Kelvedon Wonder), so we prepared a short bed for both of these and built a support frame for the peas and got both the peas and onion sets planted.

Back at home I pricked out and potted on the large sweet corn and butternut squash and learnt a valuable lesson about sweet corn.  The plants are much less robust than they appear and I managed to snap half a dozen of them as I tipped the first batch out of the seed tray.  I got all the rest out safely by being very careful, but in future, these will be sown into a pot big enough to give decent root development and then be planted out once they are quite substantial.

We planted the mini sweet corn in larger cells in the first place so this will be easier to deal with.  Mind you the books say that sweet corn hate root disturbance so even this may not work.

Sweet corn – minipop

We have made a lot of progress already, but will not be able to get down to the allotment again for a couple of weeks, so a job at home will be to get further seeds going tomatoes (Roma. Tamina, Tumbling and Marmande), peppers (Numex Twighlight), gherkins (Parisian Pickling), aubergines (Black Enorma) and sweet peas (Air Warden, White Ensign, Noel Sutton, Beaujolais and Mrs R Bolton) will be all on the way for when we get home.  Once we’re back from France I’ll be able to make more regular trips to the allotment to keep things going.

We also re-measured the plot so that we can start making firm plans for the way that we will set it up this autumn/winter so that we can set up a manageable rotation system and also get in some long-term features, like the greenhouse and some fruit trees/bushes.