Garden Bears' World - Potato Day at the Allotment

 

Hello Everyone!  It's little Endon Bear here, with another Garden Bears' World post.

As you might have seen from the weather forecast, we had a very cold start to April, with frosty nights and even some snow, although not enough for building igloos or armoured bears.

This has meant it's been rather too cold for planting our potatoes, as they do not like to get frosted, but at last the days are warming up and the nights are going to be less cold so, last week, Polar and Grizzly decided it was time to plant ours.

Grizzly had used the old wheelbarrow to bring some tools home from the allotment the previous day, so we used it to take the potatoes down - and we got a lift too!

It was great fun, and we could say 'hello' to some of Polar and Grizzly's neighbours on the way, rather than being hidden in the Bear Bag.  Travelling with us were our Kestrel second early potatoes and the Sarpo Mira main crop.

When we got to the allotment, Polar and Grizzly dug a few weeds out of the beds where the potatoes were to go, and we carried each potato to where it was going to be planted.  They are all spaced quite a long way apart, so hopefully we will get very big potatoes this year.

Sonning set to work digging the holes for the potatoes.  They need to be quite deep, so it was very tiring.  He was very relieved when Polar gave him a hug for trying so hard, and took over. 

Hanley, Waverley and I started planting the potatoes, carrying them to the holes Sonning and Polar had dug and carefully lowering them in.

Waverley jumped into one of the holes to see how deep it was and Hanley had to wait until he had helped him out again before putting the potato in it.

When we had planted all the potatoes, we went to check on our bear garden.  Most of the daffodils have finished now but the honesty is coming into flower and the foxgloves are growing well too.  We hope the bees will be pleased!

Finally, we went into the greenhouse to see how the early potatoes were getting on.  There were strong, green shoots coming through, so Polar fetched some compost from the heap to cover them over.

All the allotment jobs were done and it was time for tea.  'Are we going home in the barrow?' asked Waverley.  

But Grizzly explained that the wheelbarrow was staying at the allotment and Polar lifted us all into the Bear Bag to carry us back up the hill.

We are glad we planted the potatoes nice and deep, because it's going to be frosty again tonight.