It's nearly spring and I'm back

Snowdrops and crocuses (crocus', croci?) and daffodils are poking thier heads up out of the ground, heralding the coming of spring. I love spring as it means the end of the winter and the start of a new years planting and growing.
So Daniel bought me a copy of The Self-sufficiency Manualfor Christmas. It has been living on my desk ever since, with me waiting and planning.
So after reading the section on Winter (page 180), I have made some slight modifications to my original allotment plan for the year.
I have 4 main beds (called breaks), only small, about 1.5m x 6m. These are beds A, B, C and D. I also have made a hot bed and have a space as a holding bed as well as the raspberries, strawberries and flowers.
Break A will have peas and beans and later on I will transfer brassicas from the holding bed here when the peas have finished.
Break B  is the mixed bed. It will have onions, sweetcorn, squash, courgette, cucumber.
Break C is for carrots, parsnips, beetroot and celery.
and break D is for spuds. When the new potatoes come out the leeks will go in.
Using the ground in this way will use the space more effectivly and hopefully allow me to grow much more. Im also planning on using the square foot gardening method in a typical Sue adaption. The adaption being, I am not using raised beds and each space will be aproc 2ft wide. Really all im going to do is closely plant my crops rather than plant in rows. I will have a small walk way between each crop to allow me to hand weed and inspect.

I have also learnt that I can 2 crops from my leeks (I love leeks!), by digging them up, complete with the root ball, cutting off the tops and replanting! I shall be giving this a go this year, just to see if it works.

Yay, I've started work on the hot bed.
First I dug a trench and sieved all the soil through a supermarket shopping basket to remove the rocks!
Then I had farm manure delivered and spread it along the length of the trench.

I trampled the manure down and then covered it in soil.

I put in plastic hoops and covered with plastic, polytunnel style!

I also moved the cold frame over a part of it and will cover that in plastic.

The plastic Im using is just some stuff I found lying around at home. I think it will break down and wont be so good on the allotment. So I have 2 choices, I can either get some UV plastic sheeting (like green house plastic) or I could use fleece. Now Im thinking fleece will let in the light, keep in the warmth and let in moisture, so am def swaying that way. Maybe I could use it over the cold frame too.