Published: 1 July 2026 - Watch on YouTube
Hello and welcome back to my allotment. It is the beginning of June, the weather is doing its very typical English thing with rain every now and then, plenty of wind and not much warmth, and this is my last day here before I go away on holiday. I have trays of seedlings that all need to go in the ground today, so there is no time to waste.
I arrived with what felt like half a nursery. There were three types of brassicas, limited to five of each so I did not go overboard, which meant broccoli, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi. I also had two trays of beetroot seedlings that I had recently pricked out, and honestly I only brought two trays because I have a gazillion more waiting at home. My beetroot got multi-sown into about five pots and turned into far more plants than I ever expected.
On top of that I had cosmos seedlings, which are still very small because I sowed my flower seeds late in the season, plus some sunflowers and gladiolus that I started in modules back in early spring. In a bag I kept one squash, two courgettes (one green and one yellow) and three ground cucumbers. I wanted those to stay tucked in the bag for a bit longer because it was extremely windy.
I brought along the two remaining raised beds I still had at home, freshly painted, and set them up the way I talked about in my last allotment vlog. Filled with the last of my compost bags, they give me five beds to work with, alongside the three beds I built at the back in a previous episode.
The compost bags were completely soaked with rainwater and much heavier than usual, because it has been raining constantly ever since the heatwave packed up and left us. The ground here is a nightmare to level too. It is so uneven that the beds do not sit flush and there are gaps where the soil spills out. My plan is to fix that once the free wood chip arrives from a local tree surgeon, so I can lay a thick path between the beds and raise the level.
For anyone new to my allotment story, I have only had this plot since autumn last year, and the whole site is very new. There was nothing here to begin with, no soil, no plants, nothing. Everything you can see has been set up this spring by all of us plot holders. The site sits on very heavy clay with a lot of gravel and no proper top layer, so every one of us has had to bring in a lot of organic matter. It is a pricey hobby, this one.
It is not the easiest site either. We have had a lake forming in front of my plot again with all this rain, and recently there have been problems with trespassers and theft. A couple of weeks ago the first strawberries of the season were stolen from some people's plots. Still, this is the only allotment we can get in our neighbourhood, so you make do with what you are given.
The brassicas were already carrying a few aphids, so before planting I gave them a spray with my usual mixture of tap water and washing-up liquid, which works best for me. I wanted to build a little tunnel to protect them, and my first idea was to use some blue pipe, but I had no proper tool to cut it, only scissors, which was never going to happen.
Then it came to me. I had a set of poles with sharp ends that I bought on Amazon, and with a hammer I could drive them into the rock hard ground and give the net some height. Six poles gave me four corners and two in the middle. I decided to stretch one large mesh over three beds in a row, weighing down the edges with an edge cutter, a couple of bigger pieces of wood from my pallets, some pots and a bag of horse manure pellets on the corner. In this wind it was a real test, but it held.
I settled on one brassica variety per bed with beetroot planted around them, since beetroot can sit happily under the net as well. The squash and the two courgettes went into open beds so pollinators can reach them, along with the three ground cucumbers I had left over. The squash is a sunburst pattypan, a small variety I grew in my home garden a couple of years ago and enjoyed.
The wet clay had turned boggy and the whole thing was messy, but I reminded myself this is my very first year running an allotment. Even if this is not the most efficient use of the beds, getting something growing will help condition the soil, put roots into that heavy clay and soften the top layer a little, so next year should be a bit kinder.
By the time the beds were done I was completely soaked, but I did not want to take the flowers home or leave them sitting in their trays. I gave myself fifteen more minutes. In went the cosmos and some sunflowers, with gladiolus along the edge, though I doubt those will flower this year after so long in their modules. One bed also had seeds sprinkled in and some of last year's spring bulbs, so there should be something next year.
Along the edge by my pumpkin patch I pushed in the verbena self-seeders I had collected from my own garden. They probably will not flower this season either, but if the slugs leave them alone and they set roots, they should come good next year. I was glad to see my existing pumpkins hanging on, the squash and the Big Max, even if the Big Max is looking a little sorry for itself.
This has to be one of the most bizarre gardening days I have ever filmed, planting out in the pouring rain and howling wind with the camera hiding in the shed half the time. Somehow I got everything done that I came to do, and I am genuinely proud of that. Now the net just has to hold for two weeks while I am away. If you garden on heavy clay or on a brand new plot too, I would love to hear how your first season is going. See you in the next one.
Tags: #AllotmentGardening #PlantingOut #ClaySoil #BrassicaNet #RainyGardening #MyWindyGarden