18th - 19th May

18^th May

Well, we have had some good rainy days and the ground is much better for it. On Saturday I went to the stables and fetched 6 bags of horse manure which today I emptied out over section 9. I pondered at some length whether to begin putting my newly acquired netting around the posts to enclose the brassica patch. The netting is a fine green nylon mesh that I got from a builders merchant and is the type that is put around scaffolding to stop debris flying off and hitting people. Quite a few plots have it. I decided it was too windy.

In the evening at home I sowed some more squash seeds – 6 butternut squash, 4 pumpkins, 1 cucumber 4 green courgettes and 4 yellow courgettes (I presume that as there were no seeds left in the packet but 4 in the container – I deduced these had fallen out of the packet – we’ll see later in the summer). This was done because I seem to be having a poor rate of germination with the ones sown thus far. I scratched around in the compost and found some seeds that had just sprouted so I quickly buried them again, but still, I don’t want to risk bare patches at the allotment where squash plants could be – seeing as I have good results and yields from them. I potted on the last 4 sweet peppers, sowed a pot of parsley seed as my wife said she would like a supply of it and a large container with mixed oriental salad leaves and potted up a snowcap fuchsia cutting into the front hanging basket and the fourth basket in the back garden.

19^th May

So it was netting day at the allotment and I was rather pleased at how well I got on. I managed to surround sections 4 and 5 as one unit and screw on batons over the netting to the main posts to make a secure wall. I have left a good fold at the base so that I can tuck the ends under some chunks of wood that will be there anyway to hold down the weed suppressing membrane. This should stop butterflies getting in at the bottom.