The question this weekend was what to put in the blog? Well what isn't there to write about at this time of year? Everything except the weather is hotting up and the pressure on the small time food producer (ie allotment holder) is mounting.
Mid February it is. Shallots and onion sets in trays in the cold greenhouse to give them a head start.

They are already putting down roots and we expect them to shoot soon. We have a few early spuds in large pots for an early small crop (if successful), peas, carrots, cabbages, broccoli, cauli's, poppys and hollyhocks all growing away well. The photo below shows our early cauli plants which we hope will keep until March for planting out - proof that things can grow in the coldest and darkest months.

The sowing list gets longer. We have a sowing spreadsheet that details month by month what needs doing. We have just completed the Feb list and will be looking at starting March soon. Early March is of course when the chillis, peppers and a lot of the half hardy annual flowers need to go in so plenty to do there. Windowsills are filling up with trays and pots and kids complaining about plants everywhere. It's about to get worse because March and April sowing lists are long.
The over wintered chilli plants in the downstairs loo haven't done well. We believe they are well and truly RIP so they will head to the compost bin next week.  However we are trialing some Feb sown chilli seeds to see how they get on in rather cool conditions in a greenhouse powered by a single parafin heater.
Have finally admitted defeat with old packets of calendula and hollyhock seeds which didn't germinate. They were five years old so I reckon we've done well with them.
I would like to report that all of the plot prep is done but it's not. The beds that are dug and weed free need a cultivator on them and we still have digging to do. Have to get the early brassica and spud beds ready for planting and identify where all the early peas are going. We did eight pea wigwams last year and still eating those frozen peas now. Going to do more this year as they are out of the ground by May and we can use that space for other things planted later in the year. As the pressure mounts our available time to do all of this work doesn't increase accordingly. We just have to work harder in the seven hours a week that we put into our plots, splitting the jobs between the two of us and being clear about what we are setting out to do. Invariably these days we achieve what we set out to do because over the years we have learned all about unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Never a pleasure to leave the allotment after working like a slave and not achieving what you set out to do. Always a pleasure however to leave knowing that various jobs are complete and looking forward to the next weeks bit of plot time.
We had a single plot come up for let (what better time of the year by which to acquire a new plot) and a very pleased couple who have waited a while for a plot and are looking forward to getting stuck in. We wish them  every pleasure and much success with their trip into allotmenteering.