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Thanks! Sadly not as busy as we should be. The growing season is so poor it's very off-putting going to the plot and seeing how badly the crops are doing. Thankfully the flowers cheer the place up. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks Ali! You too! 🙂

It's always a pleasure, even if it gets a bit too hot!

Thanks Nick! I share your same hope for better weather. Maybe when Wimbledon starts, it might actually bring some sunshine for once! 😁

@@SoilToilAllotment I wish I had a roof for the allotment 🤣👌👍🙏❤️

We're hoping the birds leave us some! 🙂

Thanks Ali! Gosh, 4c is very low. We might drop to 9c, which isn't great for outdoor tomatoes but they ought to pull through. I hope you haven't got the UK's slug and snail problem to go with your cold spell! They've been quite rampant this year, even eating things they wouldn't normally be fond of (like tomatoes). All the best, David

@@SoilToilAllotment sadly too late for 90% of my outdoor tomatoes the slugs were rampant last week luckily I have loads of spare ones 👍👍

@@myrustygarden This is what we learn as gardeners - have lots of spares. 🙂 If it's not the pests then sometimes the seed fails to germinate. I hope things improve for you and you end up having a good growing year. Mother Nature is a fickle pickle these days but I feel like she owes us a good one, perhaps 2024 being the year!

🙂🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🙂

Thanks Ali! I'm doing a little rain dance for you in my mind. Here in the UK we've had a tendency in recent years to have a drought period in the spring, and it wont surprise me if it happens again this year too. It can catch me out for things like watering the potato pots when hardly any foliage is showing yet. Mother Nature keeps us on our toes! All the best, David

You're welcome! Thanks for dropping by! 🙂

Thanks JB! Those darn cover crops! This time last year they had the excuse of not surviving a bitterly cold winter, but not this time! Hopefully the germination in the meadow wont be as bad. As for the peach, I think it's had the perfect storm of a milder winter combined with better pruning last year. Unfortunately all the fruit that's set is above the top of the pallets, so they'll probably get blown off during our frequent storms, if a late frost doesn't get them first! I'll protect them with individual Organza bags if they reach a reasonable size, just so the birds don't get them. All the best, David

@@SoilToilAllotment good luck with them!

I hope your garden survives! It turns out I was doing the video this morning in 3C, so perhaps we're not as clear of the frost as I'd though!

Thanks Helen! 🙂

Thanks Ali! Sorry to hear about your elephant garlic but I'm glad your normal garlic is doing well. Hopefully the rain will ease up soon! All the best, David

Thanks for the comment Helen! I've added in more things since the video - a new rose, four varieties of hemerocallis, ajuga and more heucheras. It's getting a bit crowded! 😁 All the best, David

Cheers Michael! 🙂

Many thanks! Once you've redefined a 'weed' as an 'essential living root in the ground to help with soil biology', life gets soooo much easier! 😁

Thanks Ali! Hopefully your freezing weather wont last much longer. There's definitely a sense of spring in the air. I have a feeling it's going to be an excellent growing season this year. All the very best, David

Many thanks! 🙂

Many thanks! Have a wonderful growing season! All the best, David

I hope you never catch it! Unfortunately, without free vaccinations for the under 65s and non-vulnerable, people like us are becoming more vulnerable. And there’s a much more care-free attitude going about, which is wrong because COVID has been far worse than the last flu I had at the Millennium. I caught COVID off someone in their early 70s who had been out at a Hogmanay party. He’d had the COVID vaccine. It was only when I turned up to see him that he said “Oh, I’ve got a bit of a cold”. Unbeknown to him this was COVID, but because he’d had the jab it was only presenting as a cold for him. Personally I feel people who are still getting the COVID vaccination need to become more consider and avoid the non-vaccinated if they feel slightly under the weather (or at least give them the choice not to see them!). Stay well and all the best! David

Thanks Ali! It's just the lingering cough that I could do without. Glad to hear you're on top of things with the seeds and plans. Hopefully nothing will get washed away and you'll have a drier spell soon. Have a great growing season! All the best, David

Thanks Angela! We're connected! Sorry for the delay in replying. I've been struck down by a New Year virus. Thankfully there's no urgent things to do at the allotment! All the best, David

I'm sure they forget about a lot of the acorns they bury, hence seeing all those new sapling oak trees in the spring. We certainly don't want an oak growing in the compost bin! 😁

Cheers Michael!

Thanks Ali! I forgot to point out when I got near the bench area, the blueberry pots are riddled with holes dug by the squirrels. One of our neighbours has a fence around the whole of her plot to try and deter the foxes. Personally I prefer to let the foxes have access across the entirety of our plot because they keep down the rat and mice numbers (just netting specific areas). It's an ongoing battle. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for 2024! David

Cheers! 🙂

Many thanks! I hope you had a good Christmas too and best wishes for 2024!

Thanks Sox! 🙂 I hope you enjoyed your plotathon! 😁 Squirrels are more of a problem in our back garden, probably because there's more tree cover for them than on the allotment. They do love hiding their nuts in our urns and plant pots. It's a bit annoying when this means they dig up bulbs and disturb roots. They're still cute though. 🙂Even though they were once famously described as 'rats with good PR'. Oh, and yes, the bench area is a delight to sit on during the summer. I've tried to engulf it with flowers on all sides, with a view through the archway to the plot. We have a small, north-facing rear garden at home, so the allotment doubles as our relaxation space as well as our growing area. All the best, David

Many thanks! Would that be a 'plotathon' perhaps? 😁 We may have created a new thing. Enjoy!

@@SoilToilAllotment YES a plotthaton !!

Thanks Heidi! After I said "meadow" I thought it was rather too grand a term. Probably not the right word for such a small area. It will have a 'meadow mix of seeds' is what I should have said. 😁 I'm a great believer in creating compost and mulch on the plot from the plot itself, and avoiding imports as much as possible, which might be contaminated. It's also cheaper than buying stuff in and better for our unique soil biome. Thanks for stopping by, and the sub! All the best, David

Many thanks! 😁

Mainly to make room for the potato pots to be part of the same bed space, but also because the rhubarb crowns were needing to be reduced in size (two of them were getting very congested). We don't actually eat that much rhubarb but I've still kept 5 crowns, mostly because they'll look good as a wall of green behind the flower bed (and mask the potato pots in the opening shot of my videos 🙂). Thanks for the comments! All the best, David

Ours is 70' x 30', which I think is fairly typical. Our plot is quite square compared to longer plots on our site, which are more like 90' x 18'. I believe there used to be a standard size for UK allotment plots in days of yore measured in rods but I don't see that being adhered to on our site or most of the others I see on CZcams.

👍 Cheers Michael! 😁

Me too! I think it's been a ground frost and the height of the nicotiana and pluot (5' +) that have saved their flowers so far, but not for long! 🥶

Thanks! Our council don't allow woodchip, and last year they banned the use of bark as well. Grass would be too much of a maintenance overhead (we only have a push mower). Gravel would be too expensive, plus it would be uncomfortable to kneel on when doing some impromptu weeding without a kneeling pad. So we're stuck with the plastic. It's not my favourite but it keeps things neat and low maintenance. Cheers! David

Not that hard, thankfully! But we could be doing with it so the parsnips get that special sweetness. I do love roast parsnip season! 😁

Thanks Martyn! It's been a very mixed bag across the country, and even within short distances. The flowers in our garden were fine but the allotment is in a bit of a frost-pocket. All the best, David

Indeed! Thanks Helen! 😃

Many thanks! 🙂

Thanks! 🙂 We just need the yellow ones to stop dying on us! It's only the pink ones that seem to survive.

Thanks Helen! 🙂

Cheers! Not quite a leisure shed but it does the job! All the best, David

Thanks Helen! I think we still have an example of the salvia 'Blauhugel' but I definitely know one or two of the more common 'Mainacht' are still there. The labels have long since succumb to the weather, or foxes chewing them up and making off with them! 😄

Thanks Terry! Yes, our spinach has been the latest thing to bolt. Getting the timing right has been quite tricky when Mother Nature is so unpredictable! All the best, David

@@SoilToilAllotment 👍❤️👍

Thanks Helen! 🙂

Thanks Helen! That's what I thought I remembered you doing. We've also got the feathered critters pooping on the back of our bench so we're going to devise a removable strip of cable ties that we can take away when we're there and put back before we leave. All the best, David