Trying to find room for it all!

The blackbird cheepies left the nest yesterday! This is them five days previously, April 2025

Our run of good weather has lasted even longer than I could imagine--my rain barrels are almost completely dry and I've even had to water at the allotment (just the newly seeded planters/beds and onion transplants--the established plants are fine).  Maybe I've even got a tan??

Over the weekend the son and I prepared a new bed for kohlrabi and beets;  the kohlrabi are for transplant and the beets for direct sowing.  This is a bed I sheet mulched earlier in the spring but we've been spreading some fine compost over the top and raking it;  I've been waiting for some rain to sow and transplant (the kohlrabi seedlings are really really ready!).  It's supposed to rain today, finally. 

I also shoveled out some good compost from the chicken yard at home and spread it around one bed in the kitchen garden;  this will be for cucumbers and courgettes hopefully next month.  I also raked a light top dressing onto the next bed for cabbages, lettuce and spring onions, also ready to transplant (has it rained yet?).

Now looking at my beds at the allotment, I have a slight problem:  where am I going to put everything?  Almost all my beds are already in use;  I have only one bed and the chicken yard unplanted now.  True, I should be able to clear away the purple sprouting broccoli by May, giving me another bed (kind of small though).  And in June or July both the garlic and broad beans should be finished.  But I'll need a big space for squash and sweetcorn by June at the latest, along with several other things (climbing beans, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, etc). 

It perhaps didn't help that I made a tactical decision to cover over the very grassy bed at the very back of the plot with old carpet and tarp, to stay in place until next year.  I admit this bed didn't grow much last year--I got some beets out of it at least, though it wasn't used to its full potential.  To try and get some kind of harvest from it I've moved my big pots and planters back there--despite it being a pain to water--so at least something is growing there.  It doesn't free up much room from where the planters used to be but I'll try to plant up their old space too.