Potatoes Arriving, Greenhouse Area & Allotment Garden Shop

The big job of clearing the area where the greenhouse is going is finished. The soil isn’t as bad as I feared and my Merry Tiller was quite enough to dig down aways. The problem is the stones, there’s that many fist-sized and larger rocks that you can’t get the spade down.

Greenhouse Area Cleared ready to dig the footings.

The tines on the Merry Tiller are, like the rest of it, as tough as a tank and just churn up the rocks to the surface. Then it’s going over and picking the stones out. The plan for this area is the greenhouse, possibly a shed and a mixed border of perennial herbs and decorative plants. Being near to the house, a salad bed would be nice as well.

I don’t accept that you should split decorative from food plants except decorative plants often prefer a more acid soil with less nutrients than our greedy, thorough-bred vegetables.

Oriental Poppies popping up through other plants.

Just a matter of waiting for some fair weather again to get the greenhouse base in. It’s raining again and still quite chilly for the time of year. There’s a long raised border to the rear of the house which is in shade for a good part of the day. Despite the weather, the flowers are out including this pretty oriental poppy. Last year we got nothing from it and thought it had died, probably drowned. This year a surprise in that the flower heads have appeared through other plants and isn’t it flowering well.

Potatoes Cropping

I planted some Arran Pilot in a raised bed with a coldframe over back at the start of March when we had a warm spell, which promptly turned into a cold snap. After 16 weeks I thought the bed would be heaving with potatoes. First earlies like Arran Pilot are normally ready in 12.

Sadly the crop isn’t heavy at all. The ones in the open bed seem more ahead if anything. The only thing I can think is that the cold snap checked them and put them back to the same level as those planted out later. Great taste though!

On the Allotment Garden Web Site

Having decamped to a new web site, we’re taking the opportunity to improve on what we had in the old. It’s taking longer than expected but we’re getting there and in a month or so should be where I want to.