They had to go out into the big world one day!

As well as having lots of baby birds in our garden, over the last three weeks we had been watching lots of young birds fledging courtesy of Springwatch cameras.

Well the time has come for our tender plants to fledge and face the cruel outdoor world of our allotment plot. Like the young birds theses plants will have to take their chances with hungry predators and harsh conditions. - this is after all a UK summer!

The first tender plants to leave the coldframe were our runner beans - Desiree, Lady Di and St. George,  and climbing French beans - Cobra ( as recommended by Mark over at Mark's Veg Plot 

These have been planted up four bamboo teepees at each corner of a large squarish bed.

Along the sides of the bed in between the teepees are four squash plants.

The space in the middle of the bed is filled with sweetcorn so the bed is a sort of three sisters bed but where the sisters keep their distance from one another! Although I guess the squash sister will try to be more friendly as time goes by.

More squash have been planted in other areas of the plot including, as an experiment, some growing on heaps of a mixture of soil and manure sitting on top of weed control fabric.

Planted against the hazel poles are cucumbers which will be tied in as they grow.

The first lot of French beans have been planted out - like many of our other plantings these have been planted through weed control fabric.

Another row of peas have been sown alongside them. The first ones -transplanted from pots - are now flowering and the second ones - planted direct  - are just germinating.

The last of our recently fledged tender plants were three varieties of courgettes - one green, Zucchini, one yellow, Jemmer and one round, Tondo Chiaro di Nizza. These have also been planted through weed control fabric which has been covered with well rotted manure. The manure has been arranged to form circular mounds around each plant in the hope that this will afford a little protection from the wind. We're also hoping that the manure will give off a little heat which will in turn slightly warm up the soil beneath the fabric. The idea is the come next season when we move the fabric, the manure can be incorporated into the soil.

Yes I know we will have far too many courgettes but we may try using the flowers this year and, like all birds know, to make sure of the survival of a few we often have to produce a large number of offspring.

Now our tender plants have fledged they will be left to face the perils of the great outdoors alone. Good Luck little ones!

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett