at this rate there won't be anything to do in Spring !

The Douce Provence early peas that I planted up into drainpipes a couple of weeks ago are finally just poking through the soil. The drainpipes are suspended from the metal railings lining my garden wall, to try and keep them out of harms way. My biggest problem so far has been the incessant rain that the UK is currently enjoying. The drainpipes don't have any caps on the ends, so at least the rain is draining away. So far so good - hopefully they'll stay safe from the meeces ... actually I think my cats will see to that. They have turned into trained assassins every since we moved and there is now a weekly line up of little bodies :( I'm hoping word spreads and the meeces find somewhere safer to live soon.

Douce Provence early peas:

Sweet Peas:

This weekend I went home to Whitby to visit my folks and we had a trip out to Reighton Nursery in Humnanby, Scarborough. I finally got a bottle of liquid seaweed feed - quite a difficult thing to find in Sheffield ! I also got some plants for the garden: a lovely purple honeysuckle - looks like it's first year and a beautiful white clematis called 'Henri' (a nod to OH's stepdad whom we lost during my early allotment days), some beautiful purple 'Verbena', a lovely silver succulent and something called 'dancing butterflies', which is a very pretty and delicate little thing. Apparently it may need some protection over winter. I also got some onion sets - 25 Radar (white) and 25 Electric Red and they are now nestled into bed no. 1.

"Dancing Butterflies":

There is a bit of space left at the end of the bed for the Broad Beans, Bunyards Exhibition, that I sowed last week. No sign of them yet but hopefully not long :)

My globe artichokes are looking superb, despite the little leaf burrowing bug. They are filling out nicely.

My leeks are safely tucked up under their metal 'cages' and it appears that the culprit was most likely naughty kittie no. 3, as all leeks are now thriving ! He came to watch me plant my onion sets earlier, wonder if I'll need to protect those next ! Something has dug up and eaten some of the garlic - a squirrel maybe ?? they are now also under metal cage protection LOL courtesy of Vic :)

Naughty kittie no. 3 ... loving the allotments as suspected

So season prep is going pretty well so far ! Off to look at the seed sites now to see what else I can sow before winter :)