New beginnings

So winter's properly here. A few inches of snow are causing calamity in the UK, work colleagues struggle to make it through the elements... unfortunately we live a mere ten minutes from our work so we have no excuse. Happily however, the allotment is ideally located between home and work, just a few minutes walk away, and easily-poppable to during lunch in the week. This week has been a mix of snow, defrosting and then bright blue skies and warming sunshine, so it's difficult to know whether to make it over to the allotment during lunch or not. More snowstorms are forecast so once again not much allotmenting taking place.

Lou has been drawing up the seed chart in readiness for the sowing onslaught later. We have differing opinions on how to do this. She prefers the good old paper and pencil method whilst I've been trying to persuade her that a spreadsheet will easily show her what's to be sown first. We've hit a stalemate and gone for both...

2009 will definitely be a year of MORE! We recently ran out of last year's potatoes and it has felt very strange actually having to buy potatoes from a shop. So that's what normal people feel like... The ever-growing list of what we'll sow this year follows... garlic and broad beans are in...


Radish (scarlet globe, nerckarruhm, rudolph, sparkler)
Aubergine (black beauty)
Pepper (californian wonder)
Lettuce (salad bowl, cut and come again, cruha, roxy, corn salad)
Leek (atlanta, carentan, hannibal)
Chives (Grodau)
Basil (Sweet Genovese)
Cucumber (Marketmore, Crystal Lemon)
Courgette (Nero di Milano)
Broad Bean (Witkiem, Super Aquadulce)
Dwarf French Bean (Speedy, Slenderette)
Climbing French Bean (Blauhilde)
Runner Bean (Scarlet Emperor)
Spring Onion (White Lisbon)
Onion (Ramrod, Siberian, Jetset)
Sweetcorn (Incredible F1, Sweet Nugget)
Beetroot (Detroit 2 Bolivar, Golden)
Leaf Beet (Rainbow Chard, Swiss Chard)
Spinach (Giant Winter, Perpetual)
Carrot (Rothild, Nantes 2)
Pea (Rondo)
Cabbage (Wintergreen, Marner Lagerrot)
Savoy (Vertus)
Brussels Sprout (Nautic F1)
Borecole (Westland Winter)
Broccoli (Purple Sprouting)
Swede (Magres)
Kohl Rabi (Logo)
Celeriac (Prinz)
Parsnip (Turga)
Pumpkin
Butternut Squash
Squash (Kiri)
Potatoes (Cara, Colleen, Maris Bard - all chitting)
Tomato (Gardener's Delight)
Green Manure (Fenugreek, Vetch)