The allotment owner's perfect birthday present

It was my birthday last week. My wonderful parents gave me a Roberts solar powered DAB radio. The solar panel charges the battery while you listen, so you can get hours of unplugged listening pleasure. Perfect for an afternoon on the allotment, which is annoyingly short of electricity.

So, I gave it its maiden outing yesterday. Andrew was at work, what with it being a Thursday afternoon, so the radio was the perfect companion. A sunny afternoon listening to Mariella Frostrup and Eddie Mair, what could be better? I decided that Radio 4 was the most suitable allotment radio station. Somehow it didn't seem right to listen to anything aimed at the under 50s.



While on the subject of perfect birthday presents, it wouldn't seem right not to mention the amazing present that Andrew built me. My beautiful bike, also an allotment owner's dream possession. Actually, I can't speak for any other allotment owners, but it is MY dream possession.

Here it is, isn't it beautiful?



Yes, I do realise it doesn't have any pedals, before you ask. They're soon to be added!

Allotment Quiz: Name that brassica

There's a little part of our allotment that we haven't dug over yet. It's mainly, of course, covered with weeds, but we've got three plants growing that look a lot more vegetable-like, and less weed-like, than the others. Despite a look through some of my gardening books, I have no idea what it is.

Can anyone help us? Here's a picture:




Anyone who can help us will be high on the list to benefit from our first harvest.

Photographic evidence

For any that didn't believe me, here's a photo of Ben doing a stirling job of weeding around the broad beans and peas.


Here's Ben and Andrew finally achieving success with the pesky downpipe. It wasn't as easy as it might look. Ben and our watering can made an excellent rain machine.

The winners of our greenhouse poll are:

Tomatoes! Congratulations, tomatoes!

Doula and Tom, our very experienced allotment neighbours (more on them soon) gave us three small tomato plants. However they gave them to us with the warning "it's impossible to grow tomatoes here. They get the blight. Grow like trees and then drop over night". A double-edged present, perhaps.

Here's some info on the blight http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/tomato-blight/

We're going to give them a go, anyway. We've got some tomato seedlings we've been growing in Andrew's garden too. We'll grow them in the greenhouse, which will hopefully limit their exposure to the airborne spores. We're a bit reluctant to use lots of chemicals on them, we've been pretty much organic so far.

Any tips for keeping them blight-free, gardeners out there?