Thursday February 6^th

Nice big well-wrapped parcel arrived at work with some nice solid (and very cold!) seed potatoes in. Rescued a bag of International Kidney (aka Jerseys!) out of it and gave James his. Emptied them out and identified where all the rose ends were, and found I had 22 - two extra. :-) Now all I have to do is acquire some organic seaweed fertiliser (Maxicrop) to mimic the growing conditions on Jersey and my plan to fool Dad is well under way. Chelsea is 21^st May, so that's when he'll be down. Hopefully there will be some ready by then. Should really start digging them in June, but…

Saturday February 8^th

Busy day: quite warm out, but dull. Fortunately not raining. Spent the day sowing and planting things. Started off with the Long Keeper white garlic, which filled a 40-module tray on its own. Yikes – already have some 25 cloves already planted and growing merrily. Then graduated onto the shallots. I'd left these for so long I thought I'd have mush, but they weren't as bad as I'd feared and I have 34 of them planted in 6-celled trays, both Topper (globular) and Jermor (long). Put all this lot in the garden, then started on the seeds. By the end of the day had planted the cauliflowers (ATYR this time – longer season so hopefully not as prone to either frost or bolting), corn salad, some achimenes (one pot gave more tubers than I quite know what to do with – and there are two more pots untouched…) the pickling onions (modules), and a whole load of flowering plants.

Wednesday February 19^th

Afternoon off in lieu of last night's meeting, in yet more lovely clear weather. Took the afternoon as I felt it was likely to have thawed out a bit, and so went to the allotment armed with a spade and a fork and aiming to move the tripover apple. Dug a large-ish hole where I wanted it to go (the boundary, where the wheelbarrow lived) and then went to dig it up. Turned out to be ridiculously easy, as it only had two main roots, both have snapped at some point and so the tree was leaning over, unable to support itself. I'd never tried to wiggle it so hadn't noticed. So out it came and got introduced to a manured and woodchipped hole, and trodden down well. Watered it, and now I wait. It was probably dying anyway because of the roots, so if it goes, it goes. Still, now have the big space I need for the new currants in the middle of the orchard. Pruned a couple of surviving blackcurrants hard, and contemplated digging up the one close to the eater apple. But it has grown a lot of new shoots from the base after last year's heavy prune, so gave it another one and will see if it regenerates. Nipped out some big buds while I was at it – there aren't many on the remaining bushes – it was the giant one that was worst. Moved on to one of my patches of weed grass, and dug out a lot of couch encroaching on the plots from the pathways, then thought about doing likewise with the grass where the turnips were. Passed for today. There is a lot, and I suspect digging a trench and turning over the grass 12" down will be the best method there. Needs digging – it's getting French beans and carrots, so needs riddling, too. Need to do runner bean trench while I'm at it, but it's not as if I don't have enough manure… :-) Dug out the stalky broccoli (it would have done better by planting a bit later in the season) and took the barrow of rubbish up to the communal piles. There are still all the verbascum in that patch, which I planted in between the broccolis. This year the patch will be shallots, so I'll not dig it over this time, just weed it, and put the shallots in between the verbascum. Should be quite pretty.  There are also some tulips that I missed! Removed them to under the Bramley, where all the other tulip bulbs are happily coming up. Added the patch of crocus tommasinianus which was by the rhubarb (and is now a bit splintered as the clump fell to bits!) so should get a nice display to cheer up the place. The rhubarb is starting to grow now. Need it to get a bit bigger though so I can clear out the manure from the crowns! Took the spade to the dandelions in the boundary area, and found most of them are massively and deeply rooted old ones. Dug as much as possible out, but will have to glyphosate the remainder when they reappear. They'll have to grow through a foot of soil first though, and carpet if I can get some! So all in all a good bit tidier. Next to do: Plant the currants.

Saturday February 22^nd

Gorgeous day, as forecast, and so after the frost had melted, loaded up the car with the five new currant bushes and went up to the allotment. The planting didn't quite go to the plan, as putting the last blackcurrant close to the Bramley didn't quite give the right spacing. Dug up the last rosebush instead and put it there. Dug up the tiny apple stump too while I was at it.