We still haven’t managed anything like a spell of good weather. We have to go back to the first 3 days of February for a run of 3 consecutive days without rain.

However, the good news is that drying is outpacing any new rainfall for now and the soil at the allotment is gradually becoming workable.

The three beds above are the first we plant each year. One would have a crop of early potatoes, another some early brassicas and the third one would be planted up with a crop of broad beans or peas. This year this side of the plot has remained stubbornly wet and so, with plenty of room on other drier parts of the plot, we have changed our planting regime for this year.

This year we are planting up part of the plot that would normally be planted later in the season. We’ve now planted all our potatoes, as well as onions, shallots and garlic. 

Our early brassicas went in over the weekend so as far as planting is concerned we are just about on schedule.

I am a little concerned about moving our tomato seedlings from the indoor growlight into the greenhouse. As you can see from the temperatures on the chart above, we’ve had some very low night-time temperatures almost falling to 0°C which is not what is needed for young tomato seedlings. I did notice that at the plot any potato volunteers had been blackened by the cold nights so it’s just as well that our early potatoes haven’t already pushed through the surface.

Despite the cold nights our tomato seedlings will need to be transferred to the greenhouse over the next couple of days so hopefully, we’ll have had the last of any cold nights by then.

The video below covers our weekend work on the plot.