A year on the allotment: June 2016

I never cease to be amazed at the growth spurt our plants put on in June. The end of May and early June were really warm and the plot looked parched. Then the weather changed and we've had buckets of rain over the past ten days or so. It's not great for picnics, trips to the beach or festival goers - but it's great for the allotment.

One crop in particular loves the wet British weather - the humble spud. The photo below shows Magoo watering the new bed on the 3rd June. You can just see the potato leaves poking out of the soil.

Fast forward to the 18th June, just fifteen days later, and you can hardly see Magoo as she weeds the area around the same potato bed. The rate of growth is amazing. We should be able to start harvesting our first spuds soon.

We've already started to eat our first strawberries - they are delicious. Sadly the slugs and snails have munched their fair share of them. The wet weather brings the slimy molluscs out in force. We did spot a large frog in the strawberry bed. Apart from making us jump when he jumped, I'm hoping our resident frog is making a dent in the slug population...

We've also planted out some sprouts. It's the first time we've grown them, so I'm hoping we will be sitting down to Christmas lunch with homegrown sprouts. It's hard to imagine these fairly small seedlings will grow into sturdy sprout trees. If the slugs don't get them first. We don't use slug pellets, so we aim to plant out more than we need, then we can cope with some losses.

Magoo has her own raised bed and she gets to choose which crops go in there. This year she wanted to grow peas and broad beans. The peas are doing well and we spotted the first pods at the weekend. The broad beans are getting attacked with black fly as per usual. My Mum has sprayed them with a soap solution, so hopefully they will perk up soon.

We have a section of our allotment dedicated to flowers. Many of them are native wildflowers and the bees love them. Apart from brightening up the plot, it's important to attract pollinators. A neighbouring plot holder has two bee hives, so there's always plenty of them making the most of our flowers.

I've installed these windspinners made with recycled drinks cans by the raspberries and tayberries. I'm hoping they will deter the birds away from the soft fruit when they start to get ripe. If you'd like to make your own windspinners, head over to my tutorial. I'm planning on making more because they look great spinning away in the wind.

Magoo did a sterling job helping to clear our ever expanding weed collection at the weekend. I find that the promise of fig rolls and a few jelly sweets help to coax Magoo into assisting Mum and Dad with the weeding. I think her limit is about twenty to thirty minutes of working away with her trowel, which isn't bad for a six year old. Plus we found these pretty blue flowers amongst the weeds. As Eeyore quite rightly says "Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them."

This week I'm linking up with these lovely blogs...

"Country Kids" over on www.coombemill.com

"How Does Your Garden Grow" over on fableandfolk.com

"Point + Shoot" over on youbabymemummy.com and www.snowingindoors.com

"Making Home" over on www.mrscraftyb.co.uk

"Whatever the Weather" over on monkeyandmouse.co.uk