Not Enough Hours In The Week

Sunshine At Last

Woo hoo, tonight im sitting in the garden to write the blog, as apart from a teeny tiny little shower earlier its been a lovely day. There wasnt much time for lotty over the weekend so yesterday and today have been kind of wow days. Yet again the sweetcorn is first on the list of wows. The best part of the last couple of days is that the peppers and chilis have emerged, and at the rate they're already growing it wont be long before were eating them. A few weeks ago the sickly tomato was planted out and I was happy to see that she now has a little fruit on her. She was re-potted without much hope but alot of love so it really is great to know that the time and attention was worth it. We have also found that all of the outside tomatoes are plum tomatoes.

Nettle Bug Spray

From an allotment forum I was told that soaking nettles in a bucket of water for a week would produce a good black fly spray. Well today the week was up and time for me to bottle it. Hmmmmm, if you thought manure stank then this was ten times worse. Despite that I carefully dipped a watering can in and transferred it to the bottle, which broke the second I tried to use it. There'll be other bottles im sure, but having washed my hands at least five times and them still smelling like manure I think we'll go back to salt and washing up liquid. Thats not to say the nettle water mix will go to waste. Iv got a bit of research to do, but im certain iv thought of another use for it. I have moved the bucket to the bottom of lotty as we tend not to go down there much and the greenhouse it was being stored in needs airing out.

Garlic and Onions

Last week John pulled up the garlic as they had collapsed and were ready to be eaten. They are now in our shed at home ready to use as and when. The white onions are also now big enough to be pulled up, and the shallots are jumping out of the ground at us. Yesterday I used the garlic, white onions and red onions to make pasta sauce and it was pretty good for my first try. Overall lotty is doing everything its supposed to and there are no major problems apart from the Philip pumpkin threatening to take over the place (including sickly tomato.) The Blur has been adventurous again and sampled a radish, and I was surprised to hear that she actually liked it. The sweetcorn still looks fantastic and at the speed its growing (its taller than John now) it wont be long before were eating those too, which all of us are really looking forward to.