9. Alone again

Unfortunately the volunteers have gone. Only went and got themselves an allotment didn't they? They are only round the corner though, so I am sure there will be seed swopping etc going on in the future. In fact, Dickon has already been round to borrow a few bricks for a fire pit.



The foxes haven't deserted us yet though. Despite us shutting the door to the greenhouse now, they manage to squeeze through a broken window at ground level. This time they took a fancy to Mark's plastic seed container, taking it half way up the allotment before giving up with trying to open it! A couple of my onions have been upturned as well, but I did plant 100 so a couple of losses is hardly worth worrying about.

The birds seem to have forgiven us as well. They are now racing through the seed we put out. I think the main reason they didn't eat any for a few weeks was more to do with the fact that there were loads of juicy berries in the hedges. Now it is getting more wintery, the berries are disappearing, so they are having to live on our boring cheapo bird seed!

Quite a lot of planting has been going on since my last post. I put some white onions in for overwintering and I had some carrots that I had grown from seed at home. I put some in the greenhouse in a planter and the rest in the ground. It was quite a cold day when I planted them, so I made a kind of fleece tent over them in case a frost gets them. Mark had also bought onions and as we had a hundred each, we swapped half red for half white. I also decided to experiment with some red onion seeds for overwintering. So far two have sprouted. I am keeping them in the greenhouse for now.

I also bought some garlic. I have some at home that I have been replanting every year, that came from supermarket bought garlic. But I thought I would try some different varieties this year, especially as it is so good at keeping bugs off other plants. I can plant my old garlic in among the other plants. I didn't quite calculate how much I would end up with though. I bought 6 globes and each had about 12 bulbs. As each bulb will give me a complete globe, I am glad that it stores well. I think I will be adding garlic to every meal and accompanying everything with garlic bread!