Allotment Countdown. T-6

There are now only six days until I get my allotment, so I have been working hard to try and get sone seedlings ready for transplanting as soon as I get a couple of beds ready.

Got some more veg plugs from Aldi today - I got Brussel Sprouts and purple Curly Kale, and I also picked up a tray of strawberries as I needed five more plants to fill up my hanging planter..

I have also sown nine modules of lettuce, All Year Round, and I have tried an experiment with the water retaining gel that came with the Aldi veg plugs by replacing the compost and sowing a couple of spinach seeds into each cell.

I also picked up an olive and a fig from Lidl.  The olive was in reasonable condition, but I don't think that the fig is going to survive long at all.  Still, I will give it a chance.

These won't be going to the allotment as they need to be brought in over winter.

Multi Onions per plug

After having transplanted all the veg plugs my blow away is absolutely full - I ended up with 59 onions as each plug had up to six separate seedlings - after asking for advice on The Grapevine I decided to carefully split them and give each one its own separate cell.



A very full blow away

 We have finally had a bit of sun, inbetween the torrential rain and hail, and this seems to have given everything a bit of a kick start.

Lettuce by the front door

The cut-and-come-again lettuce by the front door is looking great and we have already had three or four meals from it.  I am hoping that it will last long enough for me to get some lettuce grown down at the allotment.  I cheated a bit with this lettuce - I noticed a pack of 'living lettuce' in the reduced section at Asda marked down to 20p, so I bought it and carefully split it into eight sectios, each with a well defined root system, and planted them in a large tub.  Three weeks later they had almost filled the tub and we were popping out for some lettuce whenever we needed some.  I think I will give that a try again next year.

The tomatoes in the growbag at the front of the house look like they are finally starting to develop some flowers.

The thyme has almost doubled in size over the past week which is really good as it is the herb we use most in the kitchen.

A couple more kohl rabi have germinated along with two Sweet Baby tomato and two Oregon Sugar Pod mange tout  on the boxroom windowsil.

Still nothing from the Borlitti, Mammoth pumpkin or Anaheim chillis but it has only been six days.

I was expecting these to germinate faster than those outdoors - the Mammoth pumpkin in the blow away took 10 days to finally show - it will be interesting to see how long the one inside takes.


I have also decided it is time to plant out my aubergine and a couple of the peppers, so I balanced a grow bag on some greenhouse staging to keep the plants away from the slugs and snails.  I already have one pepper forming, and both plants look like they are about to produce a few more flowers.



Two Peppers flanking the Aubergine in the GrowBag



Not sure about the aubergine - it is going strong, but I can't make up my mind if it is about to flower or just produce more leaves