OK, let’s keep this brief. The allotment post I did a week ago was the first since October 2022, a gap of nearly two years.
The seeds I reported on in the tunnel last week are growing apace and I have planted out small lettuce plants beside them. Three have been eaten by slugs but I exacted revenge and have lost no more in the last few days.
All the lilies that I had in pots and plunged in the garden are now in the tunnel and will stay there until they are a couple of feet high in the spring. The rest of the waifs and strays from the old tunnel are outside the new one and quite a few will not be getting a spot inside.
The ground being on a slope, there was a fall of 67cm from the bottom of the tunnel to the edge of the plot so I have sunk a water butt at the edge of the plot so that its top is just below the base of the tunnel and run a length of gutter (scrounged from next door, who just had theirs replaced) to the water butt. The tunnel roof should give me a 210L tank-full for every inch of rain and we get 49-59 inches a year.
Two nights ago it was windy enough to collapse my runner bean row. I’ve propped it up enough to carry on picking for a bit but the whole lot will soon go through the shredder and be returned as mulch. Since much of my allotment blogging has been about soils I have created a new category, allotment soil management, which brings up all the posts where that has been the main focus.
Today I sowed cover crop species in a bed in front of the tunnel and another at the side of it. I sowed a mixture of Italian ryegrass, Phacelia and buckwheat and I’m hoping they will at least germinate and give me ground cover well into winter. It’s late and I’m not sure they’ll grow, so I’ve also sown 60 small cells with the same mix and will plant them as plugs as and when needed.
garden ruminations 
When I had various allotments in Seattle, the program (it was city run and low income people could get a free allotment) strongly encouraged use of cover crops year round. I used to use buckwheat in summer and crimson clover in fall/winter, No way to do winter cover crop where I am now, unless snow counts, but I still do buckwheat just because I like it. I always let some bloom. Also leaf cutter bees cut their little circles out and it is fun to watch.
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This is the first year I’ve grown buckwheat and it won’t be the last. It’s taken me a while to find a range of things that will fill the gaps in time and space that I have, especially over winter. It isn’t natural for ground to go bare in winter here, but most of what is growing is perennial grass.
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The flowers are so delicate if it gets to that stage. I love having it and hopefully the soil does too!
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I like your living roots idea. They have a better instinct for soil than we can ever hope for.
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How big is your allotment and home garden?
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I’m glad you’ve been successful keeping the dreadful slugs away from your lettuces. You’ve been very busy!
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