My allotment mojo is back – hurrah!! I was worried for a bit it had gone for good. I am in the doghouse at home though, for forgetting the time tonight and failing to make good my promise to make fruit salad for Him Indoors…

I spent 3 hours at the plot this evening, racing against the sunset to get everything watered, checked on, and some of the 70-odd strawberry plants into the ground. Through some weed membrane that was determined to be difficult. 26 are now in. all loaded with green strawberries, and I reckon there is space enough for about 16 more in there. They will be cosy, but that’s all the space there is for them. I need to beg some straw from a friend who keeps chickens, and then they will be properly snug under my new bird netting – from Nutley’s Kitchen Gardens, who are so helpful and will send any length & width of netting you want. Last year’s looks like new still, despite my various attacks of the clumsies.

Other things on the plot – my cornflowers are about 3ft high and looking like they might burst into flower soon, the borage is putting on a growth spurt, the broad beans are nearly ready for a first harvest and the chard is 5ft high and flowering madly. I can’t quite bring myself to pull it up…The rhubarb is still going well, and I might be able to get one last harvest from it this year. I’ve mulched it with manure so I hope it’s getting some nutrition into its (potted) roots. The horseradish donation from a neighbour is flourishing, as is the apple mint.

The potatoes are so far a mixed bag though. The charlottes and main crop are poor but ok, but the earlies (Duke of York) are still incredibly small.  They are in a bed that I manured with masses of fresh manure last October, and I think that the quality was pretty poor – mostly shavings. My neighbour’s noticed the same in her beds that had the same manure – her red cabbages in the non-manured bed are great, the ones in the manured bed are really small. I’ve got some comfrey pellets and some organic potato fertiliser and I’ll try watering some of that in. I don’t think I’ll bother with manure till it’s matured for a year or so.