Allotment tasks – everything in the ground

I can vouch for the fact that lettuce is a tough plant – apparently you can start sowing seed outdoors from early March, or, if you have cloches or polytunnels or some other form of shelter, from the middle of February! I don’t know about that, but we’re actually still harvesting our October sown lettuce which went right though the winter (okay it bolted but who cares?) with just a bit of horticultural mesh as protection. Just like carrots, you need to sow lettuce seed over a period of a couple of months to avoid a glut. I’ve never managed to get this right, I sow fortnightly and still get a glut, but I don’t mind, lettuce is perhaps the one crop I’m happy to see go from garden to compost bin without feeling guilt – it’s just so cheap and easy to grow!

If you remembered to sow spring lettuce last year, these should be coming ready for harvest at the beginning of March onwards.

Our neighbours are planting out both maincrop and new potatoes, or to be more accurate, the first plantings of new potatoes were going in on Sunday and the maincrops will be planted in mid March – we are growing our potatoes at home this year, using the tall bucket method, having been given the tall buckets, so it will be interesting to see how it goes in comparison to planting in the ground.

Labels: allotment-lettuce, allotment-potatoes, allotment-tasks-march