After my false start it was great to get out on the allotment this week and put some more veggies in the ground. It turns out that it wasn’t just me that fell foul to Jack Frost so I don’t feel too stupid – amazingly I heard the chillies and tomatoes in greenhouses even succumbed. But now I’m feeling confident again, so I headed off with the children and a wheelbarrow full of seedlings.

The children each had a packed lunch which helped to keep them busy and out of trouble, at least for the first 10 minutes. Typically the best looking part of the allotment at the moment is my daughters bed/old compost heap. I let her plant it up with a random array of seeds and they’re all (bar the parsnips which never came up) doing brilliantly. It was great to see how proud she is of it, showing each row of seedlings off to her little brother with so much pride! While we were there, she added a tomato – it is a currant bush type so I’m hoping that it will scramble over the edge of the bed and cascade down but we’ll see! If it does do well I know that they will love picking and eating the little gems and doubt any will make it home.

I did some much-needed weeding and then put in 2 types of runner bean – Simpsons Many Stems and Blackpod, and 2 dwarf French beans - Hopi Black and Mr Brooks’ Blue Bean and some Devoy beetroot. Blackpod, Devoy and both dwarf French beans were part of my germination tests and all had excellent germination so might just make the next HSL seed list. I’ll let you know how I get on with them!
While I had child labour available, I set the children to work stripping leaves from the comfrey plant to make a liquid feed. I’ve never done it before but was inspired by David Garrett’s facebook video. We have a massive comfrey plant on the allotment, so it makes sense to use it to make a fantastic, organic feed. The leaves were squished into a bucket which was topped up with water then weighed down with a brick and is currently soaking at the end of the garden. I’ll check in on it in a few weeks and fingers crossed will find a useable feed concentrate for the garden, if not at least the children had fun doing it!

More about Lucy...
Lucy is part of the fantastic Heritage Seed Library team, working hard to grow and preserve seed varieties that are no longer available so that our members can enjoy growing them at home. Raising two young children, Lucy is keen to grow an array of fruit and vegetables to become more sustainable and to encourage her children to get involved in growing.

Click here for a full list of our Organic Gardening Blogs. There's something to interest everyone, from frugal gardening, wildlife and starting out, to wellbeing and allotment growing. Each series is written by a member of our staff, touching on their own personal experiences. We hope you enjoy reading.