We Grow Our OwnThe trials and successes of life on our allotment

I always get a little annoyed that after a few weeks watering, the labels for all my chillies have either faded or smudged, although thankfully I can still tell which one is which.

Today was time for some long overdue weeding at the allotment, but since it was a Bank Holiday, I had to do what everyone seems to do on a Bank Holiday and do some DIY … lottie style

The chillies and tomatoes were loving the weather today, but it was too hot to do much at the allotment, and it was touching 50 degrees in the greenhouse at times today!

I potted on all my chillies, and sowed lots, including some Papalo seeds, which is used in Mexican cooking.

I still need to dig over the other half of my plot, but that will have to wait until next weekend!

I decided to bite the bullet this weekend and plant up the rest of the broad bean and sweetcorn plants that were growing too big for the greenhouse.

Since the weather was awful yesterday, I spent most of it in my greenhouse potting things on.

I wanted to experiment this year with different ways of growing the seventeen different varieties of chillies that I am growing.

This year I’m trialling the Quadgrow system from Greenhouse Sensation

… everything seems to be growing so far after the frost last week.

I was a little concerned because when I came down to water one day, the plastic on my spray gun had cracked where water had obviously expanded, so I was more than a little concerned for my poor little veggies.

The lottie is taking shape, but there is still so much work to be done.

The encouraging thing is that stuff is starting to grow, so Spring has sprung by the look of things!

What a fantastic weekend. Sunny skies all the way through, and I ended up with red arms!

We spent all of Saturday building frames for the beans and peas to climb up, and then we planted the “Hugh’s Huge” peas and “Crimson Flowered” broad beans. I have a load more of both, together with runner and french beans coming up in the greenhouse.

It did seem that it was a very short weekend, even leaving aside that an hour of my sleep was stolen on Sunday morning!

Saturday was spent potting on the huge amount of seedlings that had sprouted, so the greenhouse is now full. I also got a refill for the greenhouse heater, just in case the predicted snow/sleet that is forecast for later in the week arrives.

Yesterday was a very grey day, so I spent the majority of the day inside the greenhouse potting on the many and varied seedlings that had come up in the propagators. I still find it difficult to be ruthless and have to constantly remind myself that there is not room for everything that has germinated, and that I can only pot on the strong seedlings!