RAIN

First a light sprinkling on Friday, then a shower on Saturday morning, then I was woken during the night by quite heavy rain. At last!

At the allotment yesterday everything had grown, somehow rain is far better for plants than our attempts to water them. The kohl rabi has finally started to germinate after refusing to do anything for 3 weeks. The potatoes are doing well, and I earthed up the ones at the 'dug' end. I'll mulch the others. The first earlies, sown on 21st March, are already getting flower buds so I could be harvesting in a few weeks - need to sort out what is going there afterwards! Probably courgettes.

The soil was lovely and soft again from the rain, and I sowed lots of things I'd wanted to get done for weeks. Beetroot 'Soloist' (it's a mono-germ variety so it doesn't tend to grow in clumps) and white chard in the onions/roots plot; calabrese, kale, broccoli 'Raab' and turnip 'Snowball' in the brassica plot. The kale and broccoli will be transplanted our to the rest of the brassica plot when it's cleared of weeds.

Also got to plant out the module-sown beans and onions which were intended to fill any gaps. Well, I haven't got any gaps, so what I've got now is very little room left for anything else in the onion and legumes plots! Will have to look into interplanting.

The module-sown plants had been there far too long, if you look closely at the bottom of the photo above you can see a bean plant taken out of its module with its roots all going round and round. They'll probably be OK, if not they'll make good green manure!

Another thundery shower today, and more light showers predicted for the rest of the week, and unsettled weather for the future. So I guess I'll get to know what my weeds can do...