We have already had more produce off the allotment than we did last year. Think preparation, planting and time. We started at the end of February last year with no time to work on adding compost, making compost or getting to know the plot. Oh and of course we had the rains. Remember summer 2007?

We have eaten the rhubarb down, munched on the first of the lettuces which are now cropping in full glory of production, eaten the first tub of rocket back, munched the first sowing of radish, and are enjoying the height of the strawberry season!

We are looking forward to the first of the carrots in the next week or so, note that the peas are flowering, observe the longer term crops such as purple sprouting broccoli, onions, calabrese, swedes and wait for the runner beans. We have 1 pear (first year tree), some cooking apples, some eating apples, some crab apples, raspberries and loganberries ripening nicely. As well as all the other things that are growing in the odd corners - I see the first shoots of root fennel planted late along with a few cauliflowers!

Let us hope for nothing nasty in the way of weather now - rain is welcome between the sunny days to produce ripening, wind is not required. Meantime there is always weeding, hedge cutting and composting to do. Oh and I've got to go and do a photo session over the weekend for the records in the web album http://www.flickr.com/photos/flohewitt/ so that the family can show off the allotment as well as the improving photography skills of dear mother

Everyone has to take a day off from house and garden sometimes using an excuse that is better than "it was raining". I decided to take the camera to Carlisle on Monday. I don't need a reason to go to Carlisle - but a camera on a sunny day is always fun. There are lots of nice picture opportunities around the cathedral, market square, city walls and castle, a nice shopping centre and a lovely bus ride up through the area around Hadrian's Wall. The free bus pass allows me to take this ride at no cost. Oh and if you want to go shopping, it's not a bad place. So here's to the day in Carlisle that I enjoyed totally!

There was just too much hair - grow it longer, it looks nicer says the family. But the time comes when short back and sides type hair cut comes back into fashion for shear comfort, ease and lack of problems in a windy summer. In other words, mother does her own thing as usual.

Then sometimes a girl just has to go and sort out her wardrobe. All the bras were suffering from lack of working fasteners - could be the gardening improving the muscles The nighties were all suffering from wear and tear after years of service. And the socks - hmm not much better either. Think beyond washing clean and holes.

So a visit to the shops was called for - especially as the chain that I frequent for such things had a 20% discount day on Wednesday for putting it on the store card which gives me about three weeks to put the money aside to pay for the splurge. So Wednesday was a visit to the join the queue and wait for a slot at the hairdressers (managed to find a point where I was first in the queue - goody good). Followed by a bag filling walk round the shop. Gained a discount voucher for the in-store cafe but decided to splurge out, break the budget and go for one of the set price pizza offerings around the corner.

So yesterday was back to the allotment. Had decided to start taking down a length of hedge that looked like a camel with 3 humps by use of the loppers. I will see how far I get before I decide to call in paid help or just ask Stevie to bring his stronger saw for some of the thickest bits. Wait for further reports. It's a bit of a damaging job as the hedge is wide and deep but I'm not one to shirk a challenge.

Spent yesterday with the son-in-law and his hedge cutter sorting out the six foot tall hedges on three sides of the allotment including the tops of them. The picture shows how high and solid they are.

They have all been trimmed this year already but an astonishing amount of clippings came off. I spent a lot of time holding the ladder and sweeping up - Stevie had to disappear off to collect the teenager from school after his last examination - think mocks in preparation for GCSEs next year.

The compost heap gained a lot of offerings. It will be a real job to turn at the end of August - or before if we get warm weather to help it heat up under the plastic. It does need some help from the weather.  Rain stopped play around mid day - very wet rain and I don't think that I shall be attending the allotment today.

One of the neighbouring allotment holders has had a friend along to help him for two or three days this week and all of a sudden the derelict allotment shows signs of being productive this year and a really good allotment next year. He was very stiff when he went home last night.

Last year I planted a packet of nasturtiums on the allotment. They loved the wet summer and rampaged everywhere. They also seeded everywhere. This year it looks as if there could be another rampage if the sun comes out regularly enough to encourage them to flower. So if I leave them to seed again - problem solved next year - more nasturtiums.

I have given away at least 18 to other people as well because they were growing in the most unexpected places - like on the compost heap! At least they are under the fruit trees on the allotment where I'm not likely to grow vegetables in years to come as the trees will cover the space and keep the light out

A suitable day - Friday 13th - to have been here 4 years.

After all the decorating, carpet laying, repairs to kitchen floor joists, dealing with leaks from the flat upstairs and curing damp bathroom walls, the fitting external new doors and dreaming of new kitchen units which may arrive some day, it seems very mundane to say that there are no outstanding repairs and that the place is in reasonably good order.

But it's 4 years this evening since the furniture arrived through the front door from the depth of the south east and I spent my first night here.

The picture says it all.

Time to celebrate.

The salad ingredients - lettuce, radish, herbs, rocket, spinach leaves - are all now abundant so I'm able to eat plenty of greens from the allotment. The salad onions are very slow - a little investigation is required. The strawberries are coming along nicely along with the tayberries and raspberries.  There will soon be carrots to pull to go with the salad as well. When the nasturtiums come into flower it will be possible to add a few leaves to the salads as well.

The rhubarb is coming to the end of its season this year as we moved a quantity of it which was passed its best at the end of last season.

Supply always appears later here as the allotment is in the north east where there is a shorter growing season but it has been worth waiting for the fresh goods to come into production. I've even found some corners for 15 cabbages which will be ready just after Christmas. This will keep the growing season going a bit longer. I've also planted out some fennel seeds today - that's fennel bulb to grow on as a vegetable not fennel as a herb.

The plot is really full and the new compost heap is huge. Let's hope for a good growing season and neither drought nor flood.

With camera in hand I've managed to upload a whole lot of pictures of the allotment at http://www.flickr.com/photos/flohewitt/

It's quite a think this digital photography - especially as I haven't used a camera for 50 years and then it was a brownie box camera! There are three that I think are well above what I was expecting and the rest are not bad. I only had to throw out 7 of the 67 pictures I took today. I think I might just get the hang of this camera before the end of the year!

These are the three pictures where I think that I even got the sky right. And they are distance!

Strawberries, raspberries, tayberry all looking well and about to crop. All the herbs (thymes, sage, basil, parsley, mints, chives, coriander, rosemary and lavender) all thriving. That just shows that preparing the soil well before planting and re-working in autumn help to produce better results.

Carrots (first sowing), potatoes, radish, rocket, lettuce all in tubs seem to be thriving. Salad onions are very slow. Parsnips are also slow but these are not the most reliable of items with regard to germination I'm told. 

We used one side of the allotment last year and left the other side which had been well used out of production under green manures for the duration. It doesn't help when the allotments are let out in January rather than in October. You miss out on the winter soil preparation. Last year I bought in compost to help produce anything. We did manage some crops but with the lack of preparation and the summer no great harvest was gained. Over the winter all the compost available was used on the fruit and herb beds. The manure available went onto area that we had cropped in the summer. We have now planted fruit trees in this area and they seem happy enough as they were planted into good compost. I'm underplanting with bulbs and wild flowers in order to have flowers to attract pollinators come spring. The garlic and shallots appear to be flourishing  at the bottom of the "orchard" area but who can tell till these are lifted.

The onions are not thriving at all. This is because they are planted on the side of the allotment left fallow from crops last year - it was cleared of annual weeds and then kept under green manure. Beetroot, turnips, calabrese, swede, spinach, lettuce and purple sprouting broccoli along with the peas and beans have been planted out on this side as well. Compost has been added as required. Only the swedes and lettuce have shown great energy in appearing and putting in a spurt of growth. Everything else is slow despite the weather warming up and regular watering. Quite a good selection of runner beans are planted out but along with the peas but germination has been very slow despite being put in pots in a warm environment to sprout. I'll be looking at the type of peas used next spring and possibly changing the type.

Something suggests that the soil has not had the application of manure or compost over the recent past but that reliance has been placed on a liberal application of growmore. Nothing like dropped hints and comments. Now I'm not a great one for adding chemicals if good conditions can be created by organic methods. Therefore my thoughts at the moment are that we will not have the harvest that the work so far should produce. I'm using organic fertilisers at monthly intervals as suggested on the label. But fertility does not seem to have been built up over the years. 

There is therefore forward planning happening already at this early stange. I've been gathering materials for the compost heap from all sorts of sources as well as the house, family and allotment. There is already one compost heap which is large and which will be available for working in over the winter and early spring. Another one is in progress and growing well. There will be the spent compost from the tubs which can be used in the orchard area to help the soil. Manure for mulches will be another interesting item to source.

Of course I could be surprised and everything could suddenly catch up and we shall be swamped with goodies.