Sunday 22nd May 2011 - weather: very windy and cloudy, but warm.

Someone said to me the other day that my allotment was just like my work, 'same shit, different place'. How wrong they are. The pleasure of bringing home this harvest in mid May is wonderful. Just wait until things really start. By mid July I will be giving my surplus away to the neighbours. There is nothing quite like the taste of an English strawberry, ripened slowly during late spring, or the sweetness of that first freshly podded pea, nothing like those in a tin or from the deepfreeze. But, it is a personal thing. I am in awe of nature and am amazed to watch seeds germinate - it is my 'thing. Other peoples thing might be hitting a golfball around, or catching fish, I don't get it, but that is 'their thing'. Good job we are all different I say.

Anyhow...I digress. A family day on the allotment was forecast as I really needed to plant out the last of the surplus squash plants and hubby had decided that if he filled the compost heap to the brim with manure from the pile, we could plant at least 10 in there and if they do the business, result, if they don't, well, they were destined for the compost anyhow so nothing lost.

Upon arrival of course a row breaks out between adults and eldest child who decided she really didn't want to be on the plot, but, after a lot of letting her cool down, and pointing out the abundance of huge ripe strawberries, she soon calmed and we had a lovely 5 hours on the allotment, including our now legendary BBQ lunch.

So, Hubby and number one son went back and forth to the manure heap which is generously given to us by the farm next to our site. I reakon it took 15 loads to fill the heap. Once filled, I planted an array of squash, all far to close together, really not sensible, but as I said, they were only going to end up on the heap anyway so any fruit will be a bonus. Two cucumbers, turks turban, butternut, sunshine squash, 2 ornamental gourds and 2 atlantic giant pumpkins. They will wander up and over the shed, down over the heap and along the path, in fact, wherever they like. Of course, these buggers will perform better than the molycoddled ones in the pumpkin patch. Sods law!

Number one daughter, after I dragged her away from the strawberry bed, dug up my wilting garlic plants, a variety called Marco. They really shouldn't be ready yet, but with it being so dry on the plot, this variety is dying off so it had to come out before the dreaded white rot set in. To be honest, there is probably enough garlic to last us a year, and I still have another 30 plants, a different variety, growing well.

Monty Don on Fridays Gardener's World made me feel that I wasn't making the most of my allotments when he showed us his frankly stunning veggie garden, so I had taken an array of seeds with me to plug the gaps. Problem is, there really aren't any gaps. I did sow 2 rows of Rocket, 1 of lambs lettuce and 1 of corriander where the garlic had been though. I am also going to plant the last of my brassica plants in amongst my ailing Japanese onions as again, due to lack of rainfall, they haven't bulked up, and a lot are running to seed. I may even just oik them all up next visit and use them as salad onions. The maincrop onions, which I don't normally do due to the white rot, are doing slightly better - if only we would get some rain. My last brassicas are sprouts, purple and white sprouting and some cabbages. My brassicas are planted through weed supressing membrane and are under net to keep the pigeons off. At the end of the row are my beans, a mix of climbing french and runners one side and a row of runners and borlotti planted as seeds the other side.

The generosity of gardeners is constantly felt by me. Not only do many of my customers give me cuttings, clumps, seedlings and flowers from their gardens, but my veggie growing friends are always giving me their spares. I have already had cabbages from Joe, white sprouting from Jack and courgettes from Ray. Then on Friday one of my customers gave me a bundle of leeks plantlets, and today Jack gave me 6 brussel sprout plants along with an big bunch of sweetpeas. I will give Jack some quail eggs when the girls really get into their stride.

As you can see, things are growing well. I am astonished at the state of other peoples plots on our site as I really do seem to be the only one harvesting anything much at the moment.

Before leaving, we had watered, weeded (see windswept me with a handful of mares tail and a handful of dandelions. One for the rubbish heap, one for the animals), and picked strawbs, broadbeans, radish, lettuce and rhubarb and had pulled a couple of onions to cook on the barby to have with our bangers. A very productive day even if we did all come home rather windswept.