Friday 6 July 2012

Colourful chard

We had a couple of visits to the plot in the last couple of days. The rain stopped so Jamie spent the afternoon digging manure and compost into Plot 8 for the rhubarb. We're going to let the worms work the patch a bit before we plant the rhubarb.

Even the chard has started to cheer up now and the raspberries are reddening up! There are quite a few wasps and bees around the raspberries but there are very few insects around because of the bad weather. There are some more flowers on the runner beans but concern all over site that the rain will knock the flowers off before any bees are able to get out to pollinate :-(
Rainbow chard
We took a little trug of goodies home. Jamie didn't dig for all the potatoes from the belana plant he pulled - just enough for our dinner that evening. There's a bit of salad, another handful of mange tout and our first salad onions too.

Monday 2 July 2012

Fringe comes to Marsh Lane

As part of the Hungerford and District Community Arts Festival (HADCAF) we had a visit from the Nutshell Theatre (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Winner 2011) performing The Allotment.

The only shed allowed on our allotment site - it's only a prop!
The rain held off, at least for the 3pm performance, which I attended and hopefully it stayed dry-ish for the two later performances. I enjoyed it, though it's not the sort of thing I usually would go along to. It was a fun way to spend a different hour at the allotment!

Saturday 30 June 2012

A sunny day in June 2012!

We had a fab day on the plot today. Took our lunch with us and stayed for 6 hours. We were in the sun for much of the time too, though it was very windy, it was warm!

We moved our store of bags of manure, etc. and there were so many slugs - I counted 25 of the biggest, most horrible ones in that small area - ugh - they went over the hedge, anyone walking along the towpath could have got a shock :-)
Multi-coloured, but not pretty!
We dug an area on the new plot (ok, Jamie reads this - he did most of the digging) for rhubarb, which we were kindly given by another allotment holder, Terry. We sorted out two bags full of our compost which we'll put under the rhubarb, along with some horse manure.
There have been a few sunny and warm days over the last week and many of the plants have really cheered up as a result. Flowers are beginning to show on the beans, at least one of the squashes looks like it's pretty happy and there are a couple of peppers actually growing!
We've got a green pepper!

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Butterbush squash

A lovely sunny day today so Jamie was digging for most of the afternoon and I joined him on the plot after work.
Planted the two Butterbush F1 squash plants into the new plot - both on top of farmyard manure within a metre area so they've got a bit of room to spread - though they are meant to be a bush variety.
We pulled our second Belana potato. About 680g from this plant and again delicious!  :-)
Belana



Sunday 24 June 2012

Come on England!

Had a few hours on the plot in the sunshine (!) today. As intended, I removed all the brown leaves from the celeriac and weeded throughout.
Spot of weeding before the England match
It had rained so much overnight that it wasn't possible to dig.


Jamie's planning what to do with the compost which will go under the rhubarb. Our compost has rather a lot of roots in which really don't want to break down very quickly so we're going to have to remove them before we can use the compost which is also rather wet and heavy at present - it needs a bit of work... But look how far it's degraded since the last photo!