For me, the onion is king of the vegetables. Its gets used in my cooking more than any other. It’s versatile, comes in lots of different types (big, small, white, red) and can be stored for months. Onions a year long veg ingredient.

Sure, some veg may be more tasty. I’m thinking of Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Asparagus and the like, but these are more like pop stars - great for a short period of time, but they fade quickly and become tiresome after a while.

No, an onion has substance and longevity. It wont win prizes for looks and it’s influence often goes unappreciated, but when it comes to the crunch the onion can always be relied upon to do what is expected of it. A king amongst veg.

All hail the onion.

I really should be digging the weeds and rubbish out of the second side of the allotment. It was left to its own devices last year as we cleared the first side. So much work was needed to clear just half of the allotment we thought it realistic to put off the other half.

Now all of the plants have been put into the clean half it’s time to start on the last bit of mess. And boy, what a mess it is! This is much more hard to get dug than before because the weeds are so thick and so deep. And, of course, there is the huge amount of rubbish to be dug up also.

So the last few times I’ve been to the allotment I’ve managed to find other jobs for me to be getting on with. Weeding, watering and the like. All good things, all things that kind of need doing, but it’s just putting off the big job.

The second side needs clearing because I’ve got plants which will soon need to go in there - sweetcorn, runner beans, leeks. I must stop putting it off. I must!

Oh, I think the carrots need watering again…

I went to the allotment after work today. I don’t normally do that because I’m usually knackered from work and have more work to do in the evening. But the load is becoming lighter, so I have more time for the plot.

Little did I know that the allotment is a hive of activity at this time of day. All of the regulars that I see on a Saturday and Sunday were down. Do these people never leave?! A lot of the new people were there also, one family were even putting up a greenhouse (which makes me the only one on my row without one). Most, like me were watering and weeding. It’s nice to be out when the weather is good and the sun is shining. The long evening shadows make the allotment look and feel very different.

A comment from Philip on my recent post on peas and another post from Mostlywillbegrowing got me wondering about slugs. I don’t want to sound too smug but I have virtually no problems at all with slugs or snails. Initially I considered this to be down to my fantastic gardening skills, but the more I think about it the more I have to admit that the lack of slug action on my plot is primarily due to the presence of these guys.

Unless I am very much mistaken these two are Common Frogs (Rana temporaria). We have found loads of frogs and toads on our plot recently. I have no idea where they are spawning because there isn’t a pond nearby, but they are defiantly reproducing as we found a mini frog a couple of weeks ago.

They love the plastic sheeting that is lying around. They also loved the old compost heap until we dug it up and disturbed their hibernation - sorry guys. After all you do for us (and the peas) we could have been more considerate. We did relocate all of the frogs and toads we dug up to somewhere safe, and they have obviously survived because I have yet to find a slug.

I haven’t been down the allotment all week due to work. I was worried about the carrot seedlings which had just began to grow last weekend. I was worried because they have been put into the raised bed which dries up easily and so, without visiting the plot to water them, I feared they may have shrivelled up and died. Thankfully, as you can see, they are perfectly happy. I thinned them out a bit, watered them and covered them again with glass. I’ll pop down again on Monday to give them some more TLC.

More seedligns, of the brassica variety this time. Purple Sprouting Broccoli seedlings. These were only sowed two weeks ago and just look at them. I’ll prick them out shortly into individual pots. There are loads of them, but if we have the same luck this year as we had last year then we’ll need this many!

More T shirts from Howies, the ethically minded do-gooder organic clothing company. I like them. I have allotment envy on my site, but I’m not sure I want to advertise the fact! If you’re not sure about this one, then check out this other T shirt from a previous post.

Keep up the good work chaps.

I planted out some pea seedlings yesterday.

Now, I had planned to germinate the seeds in a bag of compost so that I would pot on only the ones that germinated. This is a technique I got from Terry Walton’s Podcast, and it worked well enough for the broad beans. The idea being that you don’t waste your time or compost on seeds that don’t germinate.

Unfortunately I forgot to check the peas in the bag. By the time I peeked inside they had already put on an inch or two of growth. I tried to separate them but the roots were intertwined. I’d left them far too long.

Oh well! I decided to plant out the young peas, trying not to damage the roots too much as I prised them apart. I planted them in clumps of three (or four or five!) so that I disturbed the roots as little as possible, but also so that if some of them die off there should be another one standing by. I’ve also heard that peas like to grow in groups, their roots intertwining. Well, I had so many seeds that germinated that I thought I might as well put them all in.

Hopefully there is safety in numbers.

I’ve been tagged by Simon at The Plot Thickens in one of these tell-us-about-yourself things. I like them, so here goes.

Rules

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

• I prefer cats to dogs.
• I move around a lot. Darlington is the sixth town I’ve lived in in just seven years.
• I don’t read books as much as I should do.
• Since discovering chorizo sausage three years ago it has changed my life.
• I’m never happier than when scrambling around looking in rock pools on the seashore.
• I once wrote a sitcom pilot called ‘Adam’s Apples’ - It came to nothing!

I will pass the tag onto the following people:

Allotment 5 1/2

Our Pint Sized Plot

Clearly this isn’t a list of six as the rules dictate, however I can’t think of any other blogs that I know that either a) haven’t already been tagged, or b) know me well enough for me to send them a random tagging comment. Sorry for letting the side down!

The plan was to spend today at the allotment, but the rain got the better of me. The soil, already wet from the rain this week, was no good for digging and the dour weather was no good for morale. So I went home without making much progress.

On the positive side, Miss M also come down today and bought the cloches she had made from corrugated plastic sheets, given to us by a departing allotmenteer in the winter. A bit of DIY later and we have some sexy shelters for the timid spinach. They have no proper ends yet so we shoved a bit of broken glass (RISK ASSESS!!!) at either end to keep the heat in.

I think they look great and serve a useful purpose - so bonus points to Miss M for the bright idea. Now the spinach have no reason not to survive.

As for the weather, the sun came this afternoon, not long after I had packed off home. Just my luck.

I planted some spinach plants last weekend. It’s a bit foolish really as I’m sure its too cold for them. I bought them on a whim when I was at the local DIY store. I’ve had them sitting in my backyard greenhouse for a couple of weeks, but they looked like they were wanting to be moved on.

I don’t expect they’ll survive, but it’s worth the gamble now that I’ve got them. I’ve put milk carton cloches over them to give them some protection. We’ll see…