Vote for Me

The clock is ticking on my holiday. Final day today 😩 What a shame, I have enjoyed our allotment days and some have been very warm and sunny; others have been wet - great growing weather. The dandelions have done very well and have timed their seed dispersal with wet days perfectly! The swifts have joined the swallows, sweeping low across the site and over the marsh we’ve now heard the cuckoo.

We finished weeding and digging Plot7 and tidied up the edges, where there are masses of ants nests - red and black ants. There are also loads of snails. We’ve been throwing them into the hedge whenever we find them, but they know the way back. There is evidence of something eating them - probably thrushes, magpies and mice. Also, three big snails have fallen into the pond and our tadpoles have been tucking in, so they’re carnivorous now and will soon grow their back legs.

To be honest, we don’t help ourselves where slugs and snails are concerned. We have too many cosy spots for them to hide during the day and emerge under cover of night to nibble our seedlings. These pots amongst the self-seeded Nigella are a perfect hiding place that really needs tidying up. I’ve sown some pot marigolds in that swathe in the hope of having a colourful blue and orange area. Unfortunately there’s also a lot of bindweed growing there…

Here’s another snail haven behind the polytunnel, but I’ve done some tidying there this week and removed a lot of couch grass. I’ve planted the horseradish in the corner which may take over so I’ll need to keep it under control, but surely it’s better than couch… Some of those pots have Spring bulbs in them, but others are just weeds. That’s another job for the list!

I’ve planted out the mangetout and sowed a row the other side of the wire to achieve a longer harvest period. I put the twigs as protection but decided that it was worth using netting to protect the fresh growth from pigeons who can’t resist pea shoots.

I’m hoping the plants follow the plan and attach to the wire mesh rather than the black netting, otherwise picking can be tricksy. 

We’ve got plenty more sowing done. Chinese Dragon radish in the raised bed. Autumn King and Chantenay carrots in their environmesh tunnel next to the parsnips, with coriander sowed in between.

I’ve sown Florence fennel, nasturtium and various lettuce in trays/pots in the polytunnel, where I’m pleased to see that germination is pretty good for most of the seeds we sowed last week. We’re removing their lids and opening the polytunnel each day to prevent them over-heating and keeping them moist with a mist sprayer. Night time temperatures have stayed above 5° over the last week.

The lobelia have germinated - look how ridiculously small they are! It appears that I didn’t sow them very evenly across the modules 🙄

Some seeds have been less successful, including the direct-sowed beetroot so I cheated and bought a tray of beet seedlings - cheaper than buying a new packet of seeds at this point. You never know, perhaps my seeds will emerge later. We also bought a courgette plant which we’re growing in a pot in the polytunnel initially, to hopefully get some early harvests.

Aiming to grow our own reasonable leeks this year, we’ve copied plot neighbour Neal’s method of sowing his leeks. They’re direct-sown quite thickly in two rows and we’ll just plant on what we want later in the year. Our variety this year is Blue Green Autumn Neptune.

We’ve got some of Neal’s for dinner tonight as part of this pasta and Quorn lardons meal - this is before the cheese sauce was added, yummm.

The purple sprouting broccoli has provided its last meal of the year and now provides a bunch of flowers - I didn’t take them home though 😁

It’s rainy today so we didn’t stay long on the plot. We’ve potted on the pepper plants and re-sowed a Zucchini courgette, Jack-be-Little pumpkin and patty pan squash which haven’t germinated after a couple of weeks at home. Second time lucky 🤞

We weren’t involved in any of the coronation shenanigans but did enjoy the local election results last Thursday. Sadly Hungerford didn’t vote in the Green candidate who is a plotholder, but we do have two Liberal Democrats to replace two tories so that’s good. The Specials provide the song title. Aah, so sorry to have lost Terry Hall this year.