The dry weather continued last week, and so we made the most of it by getting lots of planting done.

We now need some rain as, not only have we been back to watering but, we need to prepare more planting areas and the ground is too dry to work.

We were gifted some raspberry canes by Thompson and Morgan as a thank you for a link that they used to our website.  We chose a variety called Sugana which is supposed to crop twice during the season and also be a heavy fruiter.  T & M sent us six plants and although some have made more growth than the others, all have new shoots. They had been temporarily housed in a large pot but have now been planted in their permanent home.

Dahlias spent winter in the plot greenhouse. They were also planted out last week. Some had new shoots however, the tubers that were bought last year look as though they are unlikely to regrow. We have planted them anyway.

We sowed four rows of parsnips. Our method was slightly different to how we usually sow them. This year, Martyn made a hole with a dibber which was then filled with multipurpose compost. I sowed two seeds to each hole and will remove one seedling if both seeds germinate.

Twigs were placed on the bed to try to minimise any animal disturbance.

We sowed four varieties of carrots. The seeds were sown in trenches of compost. We used weed control fabric on this bed. The carrots spend all their life under enviromesh as a precaution against carrot root fly and we don’t want to have to remove the mesh too frequently in order to pull weeds out.

We’ve had problems with the weed control fabric fraying badly and so we are now using a different method of cutting the fabric using a little blow torch. It’s the type used in the kitchen. A video showing how this is done is posted here. 

We planted our second batch of onion and shallots sets.

The sets that we planted a couple of weeks ago are already growing.  It seems that every single set has now produced shoots. We used to start half the sets in module trays in the greenhouse, but these seemed to suffer a setback when planted out and never cropped before the ones planted straight into the ground.

The autumn planted onions are starting to produce flower spikes, which I am trying to snip off whilst they are small to try and prevent the onions from developing a hard core.

The early potatoes planted on the plot are now pushing through. Martyn earthed them up to give some protection if we have any frosts. 

Details of the varieties of vegetables planted, along with all the seeds being sown in the greenhouse, are posted here, if you are interested.

Most of the apple trees are loaded with blossom. We just have to hope that there are enough pollinators about so the flowers produce fruits. The plum, greengage and pear trees haven’t flowered well so we are not expecting much from them

Our Tickled Pink apple has pretty pink blossom.

If all the quince blossom sets fruit, we will have a glut of quinces. It’s early days and I’m not counting our quinces until they are picked.

It’s not only the tree fruit that is flowering. Our earliest blueberry has lots of flowers and the jostaberries are setting fruit. The blueberries will be netted but the jostaberries are too big so we will have to try and keep the wood pigeons at bay some other way. Last year they harvested the berries before we could.

The cherry tree is also setting fruit and so that too will need protection.

Also needing to soon be netted are the strawberries that are producing lots of flowers. So far they have avoided being blackened by frost. I’m snipping the flowers off the newly planted strawberries so the plants can build up strength.

The ornamental cherries, in the park where we take Ruby for a walk, are now dropping their petals.  The trees are lovely when in flower but their beauty is so very short lived.

At Nostell, more and more trees are turning green.

Mrs. Swan is still sitting on her nest, but she isn’t the only one nesting as a coot is sitting on a nest in the middle of the lake.

Now that the purple sprouting broccoli is flowering, our only harvest last week was some sticks of rhubarb.

We had a little drizzly rain over the weekend but not enough to do any good at the allotment. We expected a wettish Sunday so we stayed home and painted the upstairs rooms that we are refurbishing. Wallpaper is bought and ready to go but we now need to wait for the  new furniture to be fitted before we can move on to that stage in our decorating,

As always stay safe and well.

I hope that my modest harvest qualifies me for joining Dave’s harvest Monday post over at his Our Happy Acres blog