In between the apparently endless deluges of rain we have had a few fine days and today was one. So back down to the allotment with a giant amount of Things To Do some of which you can see below:

What we have here are:

• stronger stakes to mark the plot boundary
• edibles to plant including rhubarb and shallots
• pretty things to plant including bee friendly summer flowers and wildlife plants
• there was also manure which needed to be dug in

So once again here we are with the before pictures. This is the main part of the plot where the individual beds will go.

Dug over roughly before Xmas, then again a couple of weeks ago. If you peer closely you can see there are still quite a lot of bits of flint and stone in there which will have to come out.

There’s absolutely no way to get them all at once, or in this case even after a third dig and sift. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be pulling them out next year and the year after!

The plan for today was to mark out some beds and get the bags of yellow horse/mushroom manure spread and lightly forked into the soil.

This is the opposite side of the allotment.

The two mini beds up at the top continue to survive the constant battering rain and high winds.  The onions and garlic are looking a wee bit worse for wear but still growing away. And the cunning plan of putting a bag of manure on top of the compost bin has worked to keep it in place and stop it blowing across the plot!

The plan here for today was to finally plant up the small bed at the bottom left of the photo.

Eventually that path will have the weeds and stones removed, be properly compacted and have a thin layer of bark chippings laid to mark it out.

Most of the afternoon later and this was the result:

All the stakes marking the plot boundaries are in.  Next time the plan is to paint the top of these white and write my plot number on them.

Two beds marked out, manure dug in and paths between them compacted and covered with bark chippings.

Bed three is marked out but I ran out of energy to dig in manure so just dumped it on top and spread.

Down at the front end of the plot some planting has been done and that can be better seen in the pics below.

This is the final one of the mini beds (the three small beds which run down one side of the plot). The first two were planted before Xmas with red and white onions and two different types of garlic.  The third and final one has been planted with:

• Shallot Jermour (in the area where the three bamboo stakes are)
• rhubarb ‘Timperley Early’ in the bottom left hand corner near the wooden stake
• herbs – the bushy green plant in the top left is a thyme, there’s a golden thyme in the top right with a sage plant between the two thymes. Coming down the right hand border is Purple sage, parsley and silver thyme.
• the middle bit is the wildflower section with a couple of cone flowers, a self heal, a couple of ox eye daisy’s and two night flowering catchfly.  They may be planted too close together but I can always move them next year.

The front part of the main bed still needs more prep work before it can be properly planted but I had bought a couple of plants I wanted to get in so I’ve planted up the corners.

Again the very bottom left hand corner has another rhubarb raspberry red.  Arranged around it are a couple of foxgloves and a poppy.

You can just about see the opposite corner of this bed in the middle of the photo at the top which has two poppies and a foxglove.

The rest of this bed will be planted up with bee friendly flowers so anyone walking along the main path on the right sees the flowers and behind them the main veggie beds.