All Kinds of Everything

Aah, we’ve had two visits to the allotment this weekend. It was so sunny and beautiful. Well, not our plots, but the site in general is looking stunning because people have been furloughed and have had more time on their hands. The insect life is abundant, particularly on all the flowers.

Lots of different visitors on the leek flowers.

I think the two photos below are of the same type of bee - I think it's a Mining Bee but will add a comment if my id is corrected.

And I know these are two different hoverflies. I think the top one is a Epistrophe eligans.

And this little one in the next photo is a Marmalade Fly - one of our most common.

And this I'm sure is a Honey Bee - I hope our leek flowers don’t ruin the flavour of someone’s honey!

The site is full of butterflies, I saw lots of peacocks, tortoiseshells and skippers. This comma butterfly looks a bit the worse for wear, happily sharing the flower with a wasp.

It was such a rare pleasure to just be sitting out surrounded by nature and lovely to catch up with a few of our plotholder friends again. We actually managed to clear some rubbish from around the polytunnel, but you wouldn’t notice. This is what Plot 8 looks like at the moment :-(

I potted on the buddleia cuttings which I took from my sister’s beautiful butterfly bush last Summer. 

They've developed some great roots over the last 11 months and I now have 7 plants to find positions for around the site.

And I found this hazelnut sapling so potted it on.

There’s a plan for a Covid-19 memorial ‘Lockdown wood’ nearby - it's being organised by Newbury Friends of the Earth. Any tree seedlings we find should be saved for planting, I think it’s a lovely idea and there are hopefully going to be two sites so I hope one is close to Hungerford.

This is our main growing space this year - not many plants are there?! The Lizzano tomato looks ok, but the peppers look a bit sad, not surprisingly after the start they had and being planted out in the big wide World rather than a cosy greenhouse.

Ah well, we had a most enjoyable weekend. And I have another full week of working from home before I have a 10-day holiday - I’m hoping for lots of sunshine and some plot time, obviously!

The soppy song (originally by Dana, but not quite so gushy here by Sinead O'Connor and Terry Hall) is referring to all the different stripey insects we saw on site this weekend.