Dips from top left are:

Spicy Tomato Salsa made with tomatoes, onion, garlic, tomato paste and cajun seasoning.

Avocado Dip made with avocados, sour cream, mayonnaise, olive oil, tabasco sauce, garlic, lemon juice and fresh coriander.

Sweet Chilli Dip made with low fat cream cheese, home made sweet chilli sauce and fresh coriander.

Tomato, Chilli and Coriander Dip made with tomatoes, lime juice, home made sweet chilli sauce, fresh coriander and tiny bit of brown sugar.

All very scrummy and we cannot wait to try them again once our tomatoes have grown!

Today was such a beautiful day – chilly, but the sun was shining, birds were tweeting and no wind at all… perfect for digging and actually SOWING!

We have packets and packets of old seeds, no idea if they’ll come to anything, but in went a short row of leeks (Lyon 2 Prizetaker) and two short rows of onions (Ailsa Craig and Red Pearl). Also weeded around the composters and stuck some Marigold seeds in – bit early really, but you never know!

So we actually have stuff growing now, stuff that’s not weeds that is!

We’ve still got the old groundsheets down that we put over the weediest parts in Autumn and early Winter – it’s proving to be a great thing, unless it gets really windy, then we have to go hunt the groundsheet around the neighbours’ plots! It means we can concentrate on clearing small sections at a time and not worry about triffids in other areas taking it over… perhaps we’re starting to break that vicious weed circle at long last?

We also harvested three sticks of rhubarb and a test onion! Oh, and some sage… it is going mad so need to find a good way to dry it or freeze it – any tips?

Hopping around us for much of the morning was the friendly robin, loving the fact that we were unearthing a lot of worms for him… greedy little thing!

Siobhan cleared the weeds around the raspberry canes, which we can see new growth on (can’t wait for some fresh raspberry cocktails this summer!), while Lisa rather haphazardly dug out some of the main plot which the grass is working it’s way into

Stopped for a brief cuppa too, from a very girly flask, but got spotted and ribbed by another allotmenteer!

Also coming through is one of the rhubarb plants, there’s some growth on the rose bush and the onions that overwintered may just be ok after all

We got a row of onions in (Sturon) – fingers crossed these will be ok as we have no idea what we’re doing when it comes to onions! The last time we had them they were already planted when we got the plot.

Of course there was more digging, that’ll never end will it?!

And, all the while we planted and dug, a little robin was hopping about the plot nabbing slugs and the odd worm… such a friendly little chap, but unfortunately the camera was always too far away!

The ‘Sturon’ we’ve grown before and we liked those a lot, so have high hopes for them. We’ve never grown ‘Picasso’ or any other shallots, so interested to see how they’ll turn out. And the ‘Golden Gourmet’ were freebies so fingers crossed they’ll be fine!

Got to do some reading up… preparation techniques seem to differ a bit between the Thompson & Morgan instructions and a couple of books I have… any tips?

We had Sturon last year and they were great, as for everything else, I’m ordering ‘blind’ – they sounded good, but I have no experience of them and I didn’t read up on them either!

7 sweetcorn – though some were not quite ready, so we need to make sure the ends are really brown and manky before we pick!

6 onions, including the red one!

Several beans – yum! We like these raw, often they don’t make it into the pan.

One little courgette – unfortunately two courgettes had been chomped.

3 tomatoes.

The onions are great and at the moment we’re pulling them as we need them rather than doing a complete harvest. We may need to harvest them all soon though, so we need to think about the best way to store them.

Tomatoes are looking a little sickly, but we managed to pick three… well, two, one fell off!

Our beans are really tasty – the Cobra seem to be doing the best.

And, of course, there are the courgettes!