Yet More Rain on the Way!!

Well folks, I'm beginning to believe that this year is a non starter.  I look at some blogs and they're miles and miles ahead of me, their plants flourishing whilst mine are very slow to make any growth, well except the broad beans, they're doing pretty good.  Yet other blogs look like they're having the same slow start to me, I wonder if they are thinking along the same lines, make do and start again next year?

Today we are at the summer solstice, yet funnily enough we haven't had any summer to speak of, tonight the skies were dark when at the same time on other nights they have been bright and the night quite light and we are in reality now heading towards darker nights and towards autumn and winter.  Gosh somebody shoot me, I'm so pessimistic, I'm really beginning to get annoyed with the whole weather situation.  I took a fortnight leave over Easter and it rained, I took another week for the Jubilee celebrations/half term and it rained.... it's generally dry Monday through Wednesday and then it rains for the rest of the week, well this is quite exasperating when you work all week and only get the weekend to make any progress on the plot.  How are others feeling?

Ok, cheer up, look at the positives... Broad Beans - Yeah, Potatoes - Yeah, Strawberries - Yeah and even a couple of Gooseberries - Yeah, and a big YEAH to the bottle house!!!

I've done a video for you, this months tour, when I've managed to upload it onto YouTube i'll post it for you so you can see it... Here's a picture of how the bottle house is looking.

A Roof!!!

Welcome to Carrie and erickett124, it's nice that you have found me and I hope you find my journey interesting enough to stick around.

SO today I have done some more work on the bottle house... I have the roof complete now and am starting to fill in the sides.  Here is how it's looking.

A Roof in Place

A Bright n Early Start ...

Today I was on the allotment for 9am, I wanted to get the grass on the surrounding area cut down with the strimmer, the council haven't been into our section at all this year and it was getting ridiculous, every time you went to the water tap you got soaked (after it had rained), you couldn't walk around the area without getting the bottom of your trouser legs wet, and this isn't good when you have to go every morning before work to feed the chickens, as I do.  Getting to the bee hives was a joke, the grass was nearing 3-4 ft tall.  Anyhow, I decided enough was enough and strimmed it down, it took an absolute age, and was back breaking.  The stimmer is a petrol one that is used by the likes of the council, and professional gardeners, it was bought (second hand) using some of the grant money we attained last year.  It cut through the grass like a knife through hot butter.  I only managed to get one side of the area done (the side my plot is on LOL) and will finish off the other side another day as I wanted to get things done on my plot also.

So in between the strimming, I sowed some more carrots, not many of my first batch have come through, I did do them some time ago before the soil had warmed up and then we had all that rain for April and most of May so in reality most of the seeds were either waterlogged or washed away.  I've made myself a 'carrot' template, I took the idea from 'Annie's Granny' of Annie's Kitchen Garden, hope she doesn't mind.  Granny makes seed mats, but to be honest with you I don't have the time or patience to make these so I made my own version.........

 My Carrot Template

 Close Up of Sowing Holes

Carrots from 1st Batch Coming Through

The template measures just under 4ft by 3ft (if I remember rightly) and each of the holes have been drilled so they are 3" apart.  It gives you 165 sowing stations.  All I need do is place it on top of the soil and sprinkle some seeds into each hole, lift up the template and then scatter over some compost and water.  It saves (hopefully) the need to thin them out so much.  I also sowed some more broad beans and another 3 rows of peas, from my 1st lot of peas only 2 germinated, that's 2 peas from about 160, what did I do wrong?????? 

All in all a tiring day, I left just after 4 totally shattered, I've now got my feet up catching up on some blogs, watching Spain v Italy on the Euro's.  About to have some tea, and a nice hot bath.  It's back to work tomorrow, how nice! NOT...