Some Flowers and Some Frustration.

It rained heavily during the night and a strong wind has been blowing all day but the forecasted showers did not materialise and it stayed quite warm.Kevin came to the allotment with me and Kathryn arrived with the three girls to get down to some serious weeding.The weeds just seemed to multiply and grow overnight with the rain!
I will get the frustrating bit out of the way first. I planted out the brassica bed a couple of weeks ago,used lime in the pots to combat club root and netted them against marauding pigeons and rabbits.A couple of days ago I noticed one of the cauliflowers had changed leaf shape to very ridged, thinking I had perhaps mixed up the plants and maybe it was a calabrese?!Yesterday it had died and when I pulled it out there was literally no root system. Today another one had gone and two of the calabrese which are next to them likewise.I checked the root remains and there discovered the larvae of the cabbage root fly!Tiny little white maggots for want of a better word.
I have no one to blame but myself as I had intended to make collars for the brassica but it was one of those jobs that got put on the long finger.I had just planted out the Derby Day summer cabbage today so it could not be put off any longer. It took me all of ten minutes to cut collars from some black weed membrane for these and the remaining brassicas, maybe a case of shutting the stable door when the horse has bolted?!The photo is the said bed and the collars can just be seen around the plants.
Enough of the rant and the woe is me,the kids climbing the old estate wall which surrounds the plots, built with toe holds obviously in the days before health and safety overtook us.
Sinead balancing on the stones built at angles to stand on
There are flowers on everything,I took the tomato plants out to the greenhouse and these are flowers on the 100's & 1000's
The lupin was grown from seed of a burgundy coloured one at home but this one turned out a lovely pale pink, I will save the seed of this just to see what colour the next generation is, the chives in bloom and just behind is the thyme with flowers.Blossom on the early potatoes
On the broad beans
Strawberry blossom and lots of fruit already set.
Sinead weeding her bed
The tomatoes in the greenhouse,I took the last winter lettuce home and moved the spinach out to the salad bed, whether it will survive the move remains to be seen
The salad bed is filling up, the garlic in the background after weeding and cutting off more rusted leaves.
The sweetcorn also made the transition to the plot today. I took out 3 bags of compost from one of the bins at home and put a windbreak around it to help it settle in.
Kathryn and Aoife weeding
Gemma, weeding the brassica bed, a girl must always be seen dressed suitably!

Kathryn and Aoife still engrossed in weeding, they also put in 2 broccoli and some lettuce which I had left over. Kevin had disappeared any time I took photos, Zwena took them all up to see the hens who now have a run out into the top of the field.
Still lots of weeds to get through and one more bed to dig but we are getting there, the beds are ready as the plants are ready to go in to them.