Hard to Beat

Three days of sunshine on a Bank Holiday weekend - just what we all wanted. We had several hours each day on the plots, but had to disappear under the brolly at regular intervals to re-hydrate.
And despite the heat we did manage to get quite a bit done.

These little violas have spread around the site over the years. Such beautiful colours. I've potted some on for the HAHA Plant Sale in June, along with some of the houseleeks, in the top photo, which I love.

I planted out the additional 16 broad bean plants which all germinated in the greenhouse. So we have 28 plants - that's quite a lot for us. I intend to use some of the beans for broad bean hummus and although all my salad leaf and spinach looks like cress at the moment I'm hoping there will some suitable leaves just in time for a fresh baby broad bean salad.
The broad beans that were planted out nearly 3 weeks ago have grown quite tall and have evidence of flower buds. They've had their leaves nibbled by weevils, but that doesn't seem to affect the beans.

As expected, we had a couple of frosts during the last week. We didn't have much in the ground which could be affected and we closed the greenhouse up to be on the safe side. The only victims were a few of the strawberry flowers, where the centres have gone black. This means they won't become fruit, but lots have survived ... so far.

We got most of our potatoes planted. This year we used a bulb planter to make a neat hole, dropped the potato in and refilled with the earth and a little potato fertiliser. Much quicker and less labour intensive than digging a long trench for them!

Here's a sketch of where we planted what, for our info. (Kestrel, Catriona, Nicola, Orla and Pentland Javelin), We still have a few to grow in bags but we're not planting masses this year as we find we just don't get round to eating them.

And, here's a lovely yellow/orange poppy just waiting to pop its bud.

There's so much activity and the hedgerow is alive with birds and bees. The robin is feeding its mate and the cuckoo is calling in the distance over the marsh. It's such a fabulous time of year, especially when the sun shines, and we're almost keeping up with nature, but although we took about ten bags of green waste home over the long weekend, we have a lot more to do!

Can you spot the blue tit upside down in the may?

So, how could we improve on such a beautiful sunny weekend? Ah yes! A spontaneous home-made wine tasting session, courtesy of Ivan - quince wine was my favourite, but the apple was good too. Most of us had to go home for a kip after that little session hic, but we did make it back to do some work later in the afternoon and to collect our car..

The unstoppable Ivan - puts all the younger plotholders to shame with his skills

Here's Hard-Fi with the great title song...