Paying the price?

Last week we took advantage of the better weather conditions and worked on the allotment for another two afternoons.

We haven’t started any planting out yet so we occupied ourselves with more tidying and getting beds ready for the growing season.

I replanted the perennial plants that were left over after replanting a border in the garden. These were added to the mixed border along one edge of our plot. There are still a few spaces where I can plant some of the lupine that were grown from seed last year. This was a mixed packet of seed sio I’ve no idea what colours the flowers will turn out. I’m hoping for some nice surprises.

Martyn, rotovated several beds so once we are ready to start planted we will have some beds ready and waiting.

I tidied up our strawberry bed. The plants are in their third year so once they have fruited these will be discarded. In the meantime we will be starting a new strawberry patch.

Last week, on their blog Thompson and Morgan linked to a page on our website describing how we grow our strawberries. As a result they have offered us a gift of some strawberry plants. We’ve chosen a variety called Albion as this is one that we have never grown before so it’s an opportunity to try something new.

They also linked to our page describing our potato growing technique on another post on their blog. For that they offered us a gift of a pack of potatoes. Again we chose a variety - Royal - that we hadn’t grown before. As we didn’t manage to buy any trial potatoes as usual we will plant these as this year’s trial variety.

We had already removed some other strawberry plants that were past their best from another part of the plot. The bed was one of those that, Martyn rotovated. After being planted up for a few years the ground was quire rough but once dug over and then rotovated it isn’t too bad.

Our remaining parsnips, were beginning to regrow and so these were dug up. We didn’t want to waste them so these were - prepared and frozen.

To add to the parsnips, gathered together a small harvest of Rudolph broccoli and a small bunch of daffodils. I chose stems that had buds that had just bent over. These quickly opened once placed in a vase. They’re the first cut flowers of the year.

Not all the parsnips brought home last week were frozen, some were used in a pumpkin and parsnip cassoulet along with some onions and Crown Prince squash.

Another meal that used some of our vegetables was a vegetable curry made on the slow cooker. Into this went a few of our remaining potatoes and some runner beans and peas from the freezer.

We used some of our frozen vegetables t9 make a chicken, vegetable and Parmesan orzo dish. Along with a onion, frozen runner beans, peas and. sweet corn went into this dish.

Chopped parsley was scattered over before serving.

It would seem now that I am paying the price of entering into battle with obstinate weeds as I think that I have pulled or strained a muscle in my left shoulder. It’s amazing how this hurts doing a variety of things that you wouldn’t think had anything to do with a muscle in your shoulder. I can’t sit up straight without back support and can only sleep on my back. I’ve had to write this blog on my iPad - which isn’t my preferred meth9d - as I can’t sit at my desk. I’m hoping it doesn’t take too long to be back to normal as we have a busy time ahead.

Just a quick update on my eye hospital over the telephone. This really was just a general discussion about how I felt my eyes had been. Fortunately I could feedback the outcome of my optician’s examination. The drops that I use for my dry eyes was adjusted but otherwise the consultant was happy to leave it at that and will make another telephone appointment in 4 months time.

As always in these uncertain times keep safe and well.

This week I'm joining Harvest Monday on Dave's Our Happy Acres blog so I have linked to him this week  

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