Sunshine, mud, onions and hail stones

Without a cloud in the sky we headed over to the plot today to get the rest of the second veg beg dug over. Last week the ground was as dry and solid as cement, this week it was back to sticky clods of clay and mud! We've learned that wet soil makes it easier to dig out bramble roots, however drier soil is easier when you are trying to actually plant things.

Not the most ideal planting conditions I must admit, however we managed to turn over and sort of rake most of the remaining bed and plant out 42 Senshyu Onion sets. I'll add in here a brief note about timing as it is a lesson that we haven't quite learned yet. When it comes to digging over, weeding and raking soil on an allotment-sized scale, take how long you think you need to do something then times it by, oh say five times, and you are probably just about close to how long it actually takes.

Continuation of the second veg bed which is now home to garlic and onions

We took a break early afternoon to head home and have some lunch, which always takes longer than you think and after driving half of the way back to the allotment we realised that we'd forgotten to bring the chicken wire we needed to protect the onions. Turning round we went back to get it and our final late afternoon stint on the plot was much cooler with the sun and light fading pretty quickly. Remaining rows of onions were hastily planted out and the chicken wire laid over to try and stop birds from pulling them out of the ground. Within an hour of being there it went from late afternoon clear sky to a think band of incredibly dark grey moody cloud and to our surprise hail stones started to rain down on us! We packed the tools away at lightning speed and as I ran for cover under a tree, James managed to lay out the latest carpet offcuts acquired from the upstairs flat being renovated.

There won't be any allotment action next weekend as we are going away for the weekend, however on our return there will be some strategic moving around of carpet going on...