Simon's Allotment

In case you've been hiding a stone and hadn't noticed, April has turned out to cool and wet - twice the average rainfall and colder ...

How it's done, just in case you're new to all this. In the potting shed I get together the seedlings from the greenhouse to be pot...

First sightings this year of the orange tip and speckled wood: Male orange tip feeding on honesty in the garden Underwings of th...

Last Wednesday on the plot - the blossoming plum tree looking surprised to be surrounded by snow: The temperature was 2 degrees - com...

Darley and Nutwood nature reserve on a cool and cloudy day so no sign of any butterflies - although the birds were singing and I saw the odd...

Hopefully we've seen the last of the fraudulant summer, we can do without any more of that. The odd day of temperatures in the seventies...

The sudden high temperatures in March forced the spring cabbage to bolt and start going to seed: Luckily I've plenty of perennial b...

Sinfin Moor nature reserve - lots of signs of spring - trees greening up and plenty of butterflies - small tortoiseshells, peacocks and comm...

So I've finished the digging, sown a few seeds, planted out some new strawberries. It's nice to be getting cracking again.

Hard to believe there was snow on the ground just a month ago. Comma White Tortoiseshell

First of the blossoms!

After the mild winter the purple sprouting broccoli is ready for picking about a month ahead of usual. It actually started producing floweri...

Records 2012 Ammi Majus (Bishop's flower) - Sown direct 21.4, 2 short rows. Broccoli "Early Purple Sprouting Red Arrow" - ...

A few recent pics from around our site:

Nearly Christmas, whoop de do. Plenty to eat from the plot - carrots, kale, leeks, Chinese mustard, scorenza, apples and sprouts too now tha...

It's that time of year again:

It's the first time I've grown this root - it might not look very appetising but tastes alright actually, and makes a useful additio...

Not much gardening to do at this time of year so over the past few weeks I've been faffing about building this - in between the showers...