Beets off to a good start

Like the calabrese next door, the beetroot's also got off to a flier in the polytunnel. It's much, much stronger than the few seedlings which have made it through outside, while the beets are already starting to form.

One thing I've noticed is the amount of weeds coming through, meaning I seem to need to be on my hands and knees pulling them on a daily basis. Apart from this, I'm a tunnel convert.

The peas are also growing away strongly and producing a lot of pods. I've picked a few and while they're great-tasting fresh, they aren't quite big enough to make a meal of yet.

The plan is to grow them on the opposite corner next year to rotate them around, while their current home will probably be part of a whole side devoted to tomatoes.

I say probably, because I'm starting to wonder about rotation. Whatever you try to do in a relatively small space regarding moving things about, you're kostly growing plants from the same group.

This has started me thinking I may go for containers next year or the big growing bags, after covering the floor with landscape fabric.

Calabrese in polytunnel

At least the calabrese is looking good in the polytunnel. For good read strong, thick plants which have grown away strongly from the spindly seedlings I planted a few weeks back.

I set some outside from the same batch when I planted these two in the poly. Just look at the difference. They're growing a lot slower.

Straw barrer

We have a help yourself area near the entrance to the allotments, where plot holders leave surplus and unwanted items for others to help themselves to.

All kinds of treasures turn up here. This week's offerings have included tomato plants, seed potatoes and a mat from the front passenger seat well of a Vauxhall Astra.

Best of all was a lovely bale of straw, which I purloined to mulch my strawberries and courgettes with.

Lovely or what..?

Strawb made me smile

Loving this strawberry, which looks a bit like Micky Mouse. Cheered me up no end it did. It did.

Onion smut

I noticed the first signs of this a few weeks back - dark, smutty patches on the leaves of some of the onions I planted last autumn. Now it's spreading thick and fast on the crop.

According to the books, smut only affects young plants. Yet it's rapidly gaining a hold on onions which by rights should be ready to harvest in a month or so's time.

I'm not sure whether to dig them up and burn them, or see if the plants last long enough to harvest the bulbs.

It's clearly a fungal thing of some sort. Probably my fault for growing them too closely-spaced, helping whatever it is to take hold and spread from plant to plant.

Bad news as far as growing onions in future is concerned. If it is smut, they reckon you shouldn't plant them on the same ground for at least eight years.

To add insult to injury, we enjoyed a bumper crop of onions and garlic last year with no problems at all.

Give peas a chance

When I look at what a shaky start the peas got off too, they're flying now. I honestly thought the mice would get the better of our efforts in the polytunnel, not only chomping every shoot that emerged, but digging up seed before it even had a chance to poke its head above the parapet.

All that, as they say, is now history - at least for now, as the recovering survivors flower and pod up, after making it through their ordeal. I can't say for certain but the yield looks like it's going to be better than last summer's outdoor efforts.

It certainly seems like there are plenty of pods, which in turn have tiny peas visible when the light catches them through the poly. Now all we can do is cross our fingers and keep them well-fed and watered.

I found another pleasant surprise in the tunnel, in the shape of tiny courgettes. I forgot that the yellow variety we planted only produces female flowers.

Plants we've set outside have hardly got going yet. But this baby's making up for them. Roll on ratatouille time.

Corn's in

I set out the first of the sweetcorn yesterday, after looking at the weather for the next week or so. The plants have come on to a couple of inches high in the polytunnel, and there are enough spares left if there's some unforseen disaster.

The variety is Incredible F1 - the one we grew last year which produced around three bucket-fulls of cobs when it came time to harvest. We're going to try smaller batches (if that makes sense...) on three or four smaller patches of ground this year; partly because the plot's filling up fast, partly to see if we can succession sow and not end up with quite such a big glut.

Hotting up

What a difference a few days can make when it comes to the weather. They reckon it hit 25C yesterday, today the mercury wasn't far off 30C.

A neighbour's plot (pictured, above) looked lovely first thing. I love the weathered old blue wash on her fence and shed, which leads the eye into a busy garden with plenty growing. Perhaps it's the variation in layouts, colours, smells - you name it, as summer finally looks like it means it in our corner of Norfolk.

The clematis shed has burst into flower over the last few days. One of the prettier features on the ramshackle track through the allotments, this corrugated tin structure brings life to its surroundings and always makes me pause to take a picture if I've got a camera on me.

Elsewhere, things are kicking off and growing nicely. The early spuds have got over the shock the frost gave them, growing back nicely.

I harvested three buckets we'd grown new potatoes in, kicked off early in the polytunnel. Nothing massive, but enough for a nice potato salad, to go with one or two other bits from the garden.

After a few problems with mice, the peas are now going for it in the 'tunnel. They're now 18ins or so high and either flowing or in pod.

It hit 100C in there today. Ditto the greenhouse, which has the luxury of automatic vents, which at least make a token effort when it comes to preventing the place from getting too hot. I'm hopeful we might get a pea or two soon, despite many previous failures when it comes to trying to grow this crop.

Tomatoes are also looking like they mean it in both the tunnel and the greenhouse. Those in the latter have their first flowers coming, so give it a month or so and we should be on track for our first toms.

I've also snuck some sweetcorn in, sowing seed in nine stations with canes already in to lash them up against to protect them from the wind.

Today also saw completion of the herb bed, as I dug a load of dirt for a feature elsewhere which provided enough muck to fill the remaining central section.

Instead of herbs, I wanged in alternate rows of red spring onions and those little round carrots to see how they get on.

So much to do, but there's half the fun of it. Sunburned, knackered, top day I'll end with another picture of the amazing clematis shed...

Warming up

I saw these bluebells growing in a shady spot on a neighbour's plot. They seem to do well on the plots which have areas which aren't tended or some of the ancient trees which date back to the original allotment holders of the 1930s.

It's warming up here fast now and we've hopefully seen the last of the frosts. I have a few courgettes I may risk outside over the weekend and will also try a sowing of sweetcorn to see if it does anything.