More planting

I had to visit Doug on my own today :(

The allotment shop is only open on a Sunday for an hour or so, and I do feel a somewhat compelling requirement to purchase at least some of what we grow therein.  We knew they had garlic and onions (although they only had shallots left) and I found both those and some broad beans for my morning of planting.

I had cycled down to the allotment bearing a pot of jam.  When we visited yesterday, Doug had been generously adorned with two currant bushes so I wanted to thank the donor.  It turned out that the previous plot owners had provided the kind gift so the jam went to them.  It appears this is quite a common thing - the donations of spare plants, not the jam reciprocation.  It is a lovely community - plenty of people offering help and advice - which is wonderful and scary at the same time.  As the "new kids on the block" everyone appears to know who we are but it's going to take ages for us to remember who they all are.  I'm grateful that we have the obvious connection.  It makes trying to integrate easier for someone like me who finds using social skills such a challenge!!!!

And so I set to planting.

We bought a rhubarb crown and a blueberry bush yesterday afternoon so my first job was to inter each of those.   One of our plot neighbours, Jerry, generously gave me a watering can full of water with added food which would help the blueberry bush to settle.  He also advised me to plant some of the garlic between my rows of broad beans to help reduce black fly.  He said there was no proof it works because it's difficult to tell how bad the pests would have been without but he always did it, so I took his advice as gospel.

So in after the brassicas went a row of just garlic, two rows of broad beans with another row of garlic in between and finally a row of shallots.
My final task was to put the netting over the brassicas.  They're probably more at risk from frost, cold and slugs but at least we're pretty much taking bird damage out of the equation.  We said from the start that anything we got from those plants would be a bonus so we don't expect much.

Doug really is now beginning to look like a proper garden.  We have a very long wait before we can harvest anything but it's great to have the time to ease into the routine and hopefully begin to see what develops.  We'll be back next week to see what's going on :)