By Anne Akers
Patience is the allotmenteer’s friend. When I’ve met any other plotholders over the past few weeks, we’ve just shrugged our shoulders and shaken our heads. No words were needed, just one look up to the sky at the never-ending rain said it all. What terrible weather, what a start to the year.
I’d usually be preparing the soil at this time of year, but I can do nothing except watch the water levels rise and saturate the earth. Although it seemed like it, it didn’t rain every single hour of every single day, just most of them.
I did manage to mend the shed roof (or rather my other half did) and rescue the last of the sprouts from their watery bed. Sprouts are resilient, these have been overwintering and were much less bothered about the weather. As are the one or two red cabbage which have survived.
There must have been a dozen spikes and dozens of sprouts to detach and freeze back home. That took a couple of evenings while we were watching the Winter Olympics, we’ll need no more sprouts until next lot are ready!
Meanwhile, as the weather does its winter thing, I’ve ordered my seed potatoes and vegetable seeds ready for planting. It’ll be a few weeks before potatoes can go anywhere near the soil, so I’ve put them in a cool place in the hope that they don’t sprout too much.
I’m going with Anya, second earlies, which are salad potatoes, all knobbly and waxy, they can also be roasted whole in their skins and slathered with butter. Cara are the main crop, they’re boiling, roasting and chipping potatoes.
It’s really temping to sow seeds in the propagator and greenhouse, but it’s still too early and too cold.
I’m itching to get my tomatoes moving, the lovely smell of the leaves always remind me that summer isn’t too far away, but I’ll wait.
In the propagator they’ll grow too quickly and then get very grumpy when they’re transferred to the unheated greenhouse.
Patience is the allotmenteer’s friend, spring will come, the soil will warm up and crops will be planted, like they always are. In the meantime, we can eat sprouts!
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