Fade to Grey

I forgot to mention yesterday that we saw our first swallows on the site - darting in and out of the toolshed. And I saw my first brimstone butterfly of the year and more tortoiseshells. It would appear that they were sensibly hiding away from the rain today.

I was also hiding most of the time - in the greenhouse sowing while Jamie was digging and clearing weeds (and one giant potato). I sowed Amazing cauliflower, Floral Tribute Mixed sweetpeas, Shiraz and Golden Sweet mangetout, Rainbow chard and asparagus pea. And I planted out Medania spinach in a raised bed, as this worked so well for a fellow plotholder last year. And the Sutton broad beans are planted out and protected with cloches on Plot3.

These we've grown in the root trainer pots - they're a bit fiddly, but produce some nice roots for planting out. We only have 14 plants so far, but it looks like a few more will be ready in a couple of weeks.

 

I'm pleased to say that the tadpoles in the pond have survived the night and look quite happy going round and round in their bucket (sorry, I mean pond). 

Here's the reason for the title song by Visage. What a grey scene. However, it's meant to be warm again during the week...

Yes

We had a warm, sunny day and we have a little pond and we have tadpoles - yeeess!

A mass of tadpoles have appeared on site. I don't think anyone had spotted frogspawn on the coverings over the empty plots, but it must have been there for a while. Apparently it's common for frogs (more than toads) to lay their spawn in shallow puddles. But the puddles will likely dry out before the tadpoles become froglets or, even more likely, they'll be eaten.

So my mission yesterday was to make a little pond so there's some chance of survival for some of the little wrigglers and hopefully we'll get some more frogs on site.

Surprisingly, tadpoles enjoy eating lettuce and carrot as well as algae and the occasional bit of meat (I think we'll start giving them a taste for slugs).

I propagated some houseleeks for the plant sale so put a couple of them on the stones by the pond. Also I retrieved some iris/orchid from an empty plot before it gets covered, so hopefully that will make it look a bit prettier and offer some shade for the pond dwellers. And it's in the little wildflower corner, so there should be plenty of other growth for protection when the froglets leave the water too.

So that was mostly what I was doing during our 6 hours in the sunshine. And here are Coldplay to hum along to.

Sunday Rain

This weekend we spent about 8 hours on the allotment. As we drove up the High Street yesterday we were following a trailer full of manure - we had a feeling we knew where that was going :-)

Look at that lot! It has apparently been standing for 2 years so it's very well rotted. HAHA buys it and plotholders can take what they want for £1 per barrowload - what a bargain.

And look what we found when we opened the greenhouse - 14 little broad bean seedlings have popped up over the week - so we may get twice as many as we thought. I dug the area on Plot3 yesterday where those broad bean plants will go in a couple of weeks. And while I dug that, Jamie dug where the potatoes will be planted.

Yesterday felt decidedly Spring-like with warmth and even a little spot of sunshine. But today it was drizzly and then rainy for the whole afternoon. Initially it was quite good weather for pulling weeds - and I had a lot to pull...

That's where the carrots and french beans are meant to be going. Most of the weeds aren't too bad to pull out but the grass (couch) is the worst. I didn't finish all of it as it got too wet but at least there are signs of bare earth ready and waiting now.

Rhubarb should be the first thing that we'll be harvesting - it's on its way... slowly but surely. Meanwhile I'm still on carrot and leek soup, but, really, that's nearly the last of them....!

 Here are the Foo Fighters for the title track. No video again, but it's a good (apt) song...

Always Something There to Remind Me

10 years ago this week I had my kidney transplant - I try not to go on about it too much, but I figure 10 years of a much-improved life is worth a highlight. My pills keep my kidney and the rest of my body working and working together.

There are a lot of pills, but they're just part of the daily routine so no problem - and if it keeps me away from dialysis for a few more years I'll be very happy to keep on taking them. To mark my 10th anniversary I'm saving up all my 10 pence pieces to give to the Six Counties Kidney Patients Association in a years time. And, since mentioning it on Facebook, I've had so many generous offers from friends and family that I think I'll need a bigger collection pot!

As a kidney patient under the Oxford Churchill Hospital I am extremely well looked after. I have a blood test every 3 months (more if I feel that I need something checked out) and can look up my own results within a couple of days using PatientView - it's brilliant. Then the following week I see my consultant to discuss my results, how I'm feeling, any issues and whether my pills need altering. It's a very smooth system, for me.

Thank goodness for our NHS! Where would we (I) be without it? Well I can guess, and it's not a happy place and I wouldn't have a lovely allotment to play about on!

Please support the NHS and sign up for organ donation if you can - thanks for reading.

Song title courtesy of various people but I couldn't find a good video, so here's a Sandie Shaw version...

Yesterday

Today we visited the plot where Jamie sowed some more broad beans (3rd time lucky?) and all I did was made some coffee :-D The ground was too wet to do anything after the 15mm  of rainfall we had overnight.

 

But yesterday was the 1st of April - it wasn't raining and look! That's the Sun up there...

What? Can't you see it? There it is...

Yesterday, we managed to do some digging during our 3 hour stint on the allotment. Aah, it's good to be back at it.

We were mostly digging out tiny Valerian seedlings which are EVERYWHERE after we decided it was a good idea to grow some last year - it was pretty, but be warned... do not grow it on an allotment!
This is the type of new growth we want to see... our shallots have nearly all emerged.

At least on a rainy Easter weekend I managed to get lots of HAHA administration done - I even updated the website which I've been meaning to do for months (or perhaps a bit longer...).

 And I made myself some soup... that's the last parsnip of the year and nearly the last of the leeks, still a few more carrots to go.

 

I'm including this photo because I like the colour progression.

And today's blog title is Yesterday by The Beatles... Because yesterday we managed some proper allotmenting for a happy change.