Paul Gillard

My runner bean canes are up and the beans they are a climbin'! Meanwhile, to the left, the sweetcorn seems to be doing a little better than I had expected given the relatively cold summer we've been having. There are a few cobs forming already. I think we'll probably be eating two from each plant, maybe even three from some.

All those plants with the white flowers at the front are...radishes! I let a few plants run to seed just to see what they'd look like. They're starting to fall over a little bit now and crowding my raspberries so this is probably the last photo of them this year. Talking of raspberries I've been eating the few berries which are appearing as allotment snacks. Hopefully next year we'll be seeing more than snacks coming off of them.

My onions are starting to die back now which means they're ready for harvesting. It would seem however that I planted most of them a little too deep and I've only got a few which are large enough to be called full sized. A lesson to remember for next year.

The tinge of red and blue on the right is netting protecting some of my recently planted brassicas. We've got white and purple sprouting broccoli and some brussel sprouts. All donated my generous allotment neighbour.

Oh, and you can see the asparagus for the first time. Tucked at the front left, just behind the now massive rhubarb.

Everything has greened up a lot. The rhubarb has started putting on a lot of leaf now it's more established and the raspberries have all taken very well. We might even get some fruit off a few of them this year. I've planted a block of sweetcorn seedlings recently after growing them on at home and they seem to be doing well. I'm hoping the summer will be warm enough for them to produce some cobs.

The broad beans have recovered well after a black fly attack, we may get some beans off of them after all. I've since learned that planting them in November time prevents the black fly getting them. The french beans are currently sprinting their way up my pea sticks.

I've learnt my lesson with planting old seed a few times over already. The runner bean and carrot seed haven't produced many plants. I've got some in date runner bean seeds which I've just put in so they should be up in a few weeks with luck.

The brussel sprout seedlings haven't done too well. Most were hoed up by the wife and the rest got eaten by birds! They're enough of a problem to make netting worthwhile.

Things are happening now that you can actually see in a photo!

You can now see the potatoes at the back of the plot and the garlic just in front of it. Half way up on the right are the broad beans with french beans on the left. Further forward on the right you can see where we've just watered the runner beans which were planted last week.

The greenest part of the plot is the rows of raspberries near the front which I took from the raspberry patch in my neighbours plot. You can see his, far more established, raspberries at the top left of the photo.

At the front are patches of recently watered (but not yet showing) asparagus, radishes and brussel sprouts.

Been a few weeks. Looks like I've not done much since the last photo but I've been busy planting. We've had six rows of potatoes, a row each of onions, perpetual spinach and parsnips, a patch of leeks and gooseberry, blueberry and blackberry bushes go in.

All five rhubarb crowns have proven themselves alive now and the row of garlic is now properly green.

I spotted the broad beans had broken the surface a few days ago and the damn birds had been at them already. Wood pigeons at a guess. A neighbour had cut back the branches from the base of some trees on their road and had left them in their front garden. They kindly let me have them so they are now my pea sticks for the year, they're currently covering the broad beans the keep off them pigeons. They should be growing up them in a few months and hopefully look quite nice as well.

So, this is my allotment. Acquired at the tail end of last year from my friendly allotment neighbour. I've suffered the winter months digging and picking out bindweed (it'll come back, don't worry). Now that it's flat and level and starting to warm up (slightly) it's time to start recording my exploits.

I'm going to try and get a photo up here once a week to track progress. Time lapse allotment photography if you will, but in blog form. We'll see how it goes.

Right at the front we have five rhubarb crowns donated by a friend and planted November time. Three have just started to show, the other two will be along shortly I hope. Half way back is a row of garlic planted a week or two ago and already an inch out of the ground. Just in front of them my first sowing of broad beans; you can't see them in the photo, they're a few weeks from appearing yet I should think.

At the back is my compost bin, filled weekly, and my canes.