Sunday On The Allotment - Sunday 24 April

St Ives Cornwall Allotment - April 2016

---

Pleasant and sunny - if a little chilly - in Cornwall this weekend.

I was pleased to get out to my plot and continue my Spring preparations and sowing.

First some seed sowing. Last year my French beans - Borlotti Firetongue - did really badly. We had an unusually cool Summer here in Cornwall. The temperature rarely rose above 20 degrees (C) - and the beans just didn't grow or crop well.

So - without a crop worth eating - I decided to dry and store the beans as seed. In Autumn I dug a bean trench and filled it with compost.
More - Digging A Bean Trench ...... 

I sowed a few seeds in modules in my greenhouse in March. these have germinated - so I know the stored seed is viable.

This year - under my crop rotation plan - beans and peas are going into the bed where I grew potatoes last year. I cleared this bed last Autumn - and added a mulch of compost - so there wasn't too much preparation to do.

I just hoed over the soil to remove weeds and made some small repairs to my bean cane "wigwam".
More - Allotment Calendar - Clearing Beds

Then I watered the ground - and simply sowed a bean at the foot of each cane.

It may be a bit early to sow French beans - seed packet instructions generally advise waiting until May. But Spring here has been fairly mild - and the soil is definitely warming up - as shown by my pea seeds starting to germinate and throw up shoots.



So I've taken a bit of a chance - and as usual maybe my impatience has gotten the better of me. But I've got plenty of seed left - and its free - so I can easily sow more. I'll also sown some more in pots in the garden at home - so I'll have some "backups".

More signs of Spring's advance elsewhere on the plot.

My potatoes - planted in early March - are finally beginning to show through.

Every year - around this time - I have an attack of "potato anxiety" - wondering if the shoots will ever emerge.

They always do. The next thing I'll need to worry about is blight - but not much I can do about that - we'll see.

So - a nice Sunday on my plot.

More soon - on sowing peas, getting my "Three Sisters" bed ready and general progress through a lovely Spring in Cornwall.

---

Visit my website - Allotment Growing
- for lots more information, growing tips and photos:
Allotment Growing

You might also enjoy:
Allotment Growing - Three Sisters