Things are gradually coming to life

In less than a week everything seems to be springing into life probably because the weather has been amazing here for the past couple of weeks. It won't be long and we'll be tucking into a rhubarb crumble. It's the second year for the 2 rhubarb plants so we'll be able to eat some this year. Just in case the slugs also start munching we've been making copper wire circles to put around some of the plants.

This is our homemade shed, which also passes as a greenhouse it has certainly helped with the seed growing. I sowed some of the seeds here and the rest at home. At home I've been taking them outside in the daytime and bringing them in at night as we are still getting quite heavy frosts most mornings.

Yesterday I potted on 30 tomato plants, 24 Pak Choi, 29 sweetcorn and 25 courgettes. It's hard to tell the sizes of the plants in the photos as they look smaller than what they are.

Here's some before(5 days ago) and after( yesterday) pictures.

Courgettes

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Broccoli and French beans

Runner beans

and my cucumbers that are in the shed 7 days from when I planted the seed.

In the meantime my OH has been coming home from work and spending his evenings making a chicken house, which hopefully will be finished this weekend. He has to make a door and a ramp put some waterproof black roofing stuff on and stain it a cornflower blue. I have asked that he cuts a heart window/vent in the side but we shall see, he didn't say no :) The chickens will be living at home as I now have the space where my vegetable patch used to be.

In comes the JCB!

A couple of problems with our little patch - number 1 it's a mainly unused field so it's rather overgrown, number 2 there is an abundance of greedy rabbits in the vicinity! Luckily number 1 was sorted last night. We happen to know a man with a JCB who very kindly cleared the area and dug two 9ft by 32ft strips out for us, he did it so well that we have no need to rotovate yay!!

The soil is beautiful and apparently very good for growing, so no excuses then, that's if the rabbits don't get the veg first.

Lily has inspected the soil and is looking forward to digging it, hopefully with a spade not her hands next time.

And problem number 2 - well we'll try and stop the rabbits with a chicken wire fence and I'm trying to research any other deterents but I think they are the bane of many an allotment holders life!

These are the 'neigh'bours so I don't think there will be much gossiping going on at this allotment. There are also 20 ish chickens kept at the other end of the field so plenty of company.

The beautiful bluebell hedge.

A friend popped in today with these plants - tomatoes, cucumber, basil, coriander, chilli and aubergine, all of which I hadn't sown already so that was very handy.

And all of my seedlings have had a growth spurt in the last few days and will really need to be planted soon.