Tuesday

Good morning, everyone.  Sadly, we seem to be back to dull and gloomy weather again and right at the moment it's drizzling steadily.  Not great.

I did get to the allotment yesterday though and, cheers, I got the rest of the forking and clearing finished.  It takes so long to fork over a row and then go through each clod, breaking it up and removing all the larger stones, weeds and nasty looking roots (and the occasional half rotten potato) and it is very boring but it's worth it for the future.  We didn't do this with that patch last year because we wanted to get the potatoes in in a hurry and the difference between it and the larger area we did clear is significant.  Never mind, done now and from here on it is a case of dealing with the pernicious weeds as they break through until they give up and go away.  Ongoing but not difficult.

Today is a nice, busy day with little time for boring old housework!
First of all, my neighbour, C, is coming over for early coffee and a chat (she's as busy as I am so finding the time to get head to head can be tricky) after which I am off for swimming and an aqua class, something I am very much looking forward to as the last time I swam was last Thursday.
Then it is back home for some tuition and then Beth is round and, fingers crossed, we are taking some baby plants to the allotment to plant them out and sowing the mange touts.  I will push to go, even if it is drizzling because it is something we need to get done and I'm away next week.

I'll finish with some lotty photos taken yesterday.  No sun so they're a bit dull.

Here's the patch I have now finished, taken from the side.  It has a random potato and some bolted chard at the nearest end but the rest will be mange tout, runner beans, courgettes and cucumbers.  The chard will go soon and be replaced with more chard seeds.  It comes up pretty quickly.

This is the front patch, taken from front corner.  Potatoes, the newly planted out corn and, top left, the invisible asparagus.  :-)  Plenty of potatoes this year as we loved them last year and it was nice to have some to give away too.

And the back with strawberries and raspberries, taken from the front corner - we'll get a bit of fruit this year but not much, as you can see.  It should be better next year.  There's the rhubarb to the right and little friend's two beds to the left.

And finally, the fruit trees which seem to be doing well so far.  We've always been able to count the redlove fruit on the fingers of two hands but this year is is absolutely laden so fingers crossed.  The other apple and the plum are doing OK but nothing huge by the looks of it and the pear is also pretty full. 
The June drop has started so what we will be left with is anyone's guess.

And the complete view, more or less.  It will look a lot more productive in a month's time.