Roundabout

We had such a lovely day in Oxford on Wednesday. We specifically went to see the Anglo-Saxon Alfred jewel, which Jamie’s wanted to see for a couple of years. Made in the 9th century with the inscription ‘Alfred ordered for me to be made’ it’s a very special item with amazingly intricate gold work surrounding enamel work and a rock crystal. It was ploughed up in the 17th century - imagine finding that!

We enjoyed wandering through the galleries seeing some incredible works of art and historic artefacts. Here are a few which I particularly liked (and I got a half decent photo of). Where possible I’ve added a link where you’ll be able to see better images than I managed, but even better, why not go and visit the Ashmolean- it really is worth visiting more than once.

I love the little satyr on the right who meets your eye.

Domenico Fetti (1588 - 1623)

Look at this beautiful night-scene, the clouds are so perfect.

Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

The lighting in this painting is so stunning - just incredible what a few well-placed brush strokes can produce. Unbelievable to think it was painted over 350 years ago. I was raving about this to my sister and she said “Haven’t you ever seen a painting before?!” 😂 

Matthias Stom ~1640

I love the flowers in this, with the blossom showing the arrival of Spring. Such skill in making the material look so real, beautiful.

Frederick Sandys (1829-1904)

Another lovely creation full of flowers. I’d enjoy sitting there!

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)

I particularly like the reflection in the lily pond in this one, though the style is not my preferred as it looks almost too modern.

Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873)

I could have spent hours staring at some of the art whereas a glimpse at others was enough to know it wasn’t my cup of tea. The still life works are amazing but are a bit samey - and there are a lot of them, this is just a small portion.

Apart from the Alfred Jewel this article caught Jamie’s eye. Not the most beautiful in the building 😊 but, you know, we all have our preferences.

The Martin Brothers 1898

This interesting tapestry of Oxfordshire and surrounding counties from 1660 fills a whole wall - it’s undergone quite a lot of restoration unsurprisingly.

Oxfordshire tapestry 1660

As you’d expect, Hungerford is there and Littlecote, that I posted about last week, but I’m surprised to see ‘Charnham Street’, which is our main road into the town, listed as a separate settlement. I’m hoping someone local can shed some light on that.

Anyway this fella with a garlic on his head 🤭 reminds me that this used to be an allotment blog..!

We’ve visited each day to water and check on progress. I was disappointed that something has tucked into our lettuce and emerging row of turnips so I’ve resorted to slug pellets and netted over the top of them. I’ve planted a few of the perennials around the plots to provide a bit of lasting colour, hopefully and tidied up one of the messy areas. I’ve sowed these beans in various locations:

Borlotti Lamon climbing

Greek Gigantes climbing

Jacob’s Cattle dwarf

We should have seen the last of the cold nights now and we’re moving into a mini-heatwave (hooray!). It’s lovely to see a few more flowers emerging and the valerian scent is on the air - beautiful!

The song title has been chosen as a few of us plotholders have been helping Hungerford/Britain in Bloom by weeding/digging and planting up one of the roundabouts as you enter Hungerford - we hope it’ll soon be a lovely mix of colours, rather than just the yellow and green of buttercups! It includes lupin, astilbe, verbena boreansis, golden rod, geranium, cow daisy and borage to name a few.

So here’s the song by Yes - oh dear, it’s the 8-plus minute version! Go and make a cup of tea.

Green Fields

The last week has thrown all kinds of weather at us including frost, gales, rain and even hail. In between the showers, and sheltered from the wind, the Sun has provided some welcome warmth. The English countryside really is looking its best with shiny new green leaves and lush grass.

Nights have gone cold, down to -3° outside the polytunnel so we’ve kept the potatoes covered and the remaining perennials in pots are covered with enviromesh. The pumpkin on Plot3 is also wrapped in fleece and the tomatoes and other seedlings remain protected in the polytunnel.

I did forget to protect 6 French marigolds which I bought at a plant sale - 3 of those caught the frost so I’ll have to plant some other flowers along that front edge - I have calendula seedlings so they should be okay. The leek seedlings have finally appeared and the Oasis turnips germinated within a week. I helped out at the HAHA plant stall at the Hungerford Food & Artisan market last Sunday where I had donated some rudbeckia and other perennials. It was so cold but surprisingly busy and I was pleased to find an aubergine plant to buy. 

Luckily Saturday afternoon was warm and dry as Jamie and I attended the Newbury Spring Festival parade. We bought camping chairs as all the benches were occupied and Jamie needed to sit - sitting in chairs in Newbury’s Main Street! Our younger selves would have died of shame, but we’re over that now 😊

It was enjoyable watching all the people and listening to the music waiting for the band mistress to arrive - just look at her! 

And apart from daily plot visits we’ve had a couple of trips out into the countryside - a lovely spot for lunch on the ridgeway, Court Hill Centre where we had a clear view of the Oxfordshire countryside around us.

And yesterday we had a marvellous afternoon tea at Littlecote House to celebrate Ivan’s 92nd(!) birthday.

We had a lovely time. Jamie and I haven’t been to Littlecote House for a few years and it’s interesting to be able to wander freely round the 16th century building. 

The site has changed a bit since I first visited on a school trip about 50 years ago. It’s been extended to include new buildings as it’s a Warner Holidays hotel - but it seems to have been tastefully done and the grounds are so beautiful.

The weather was sunshine and showers all afternoon - we had to hide at one point as the wind was so strong, and cold.

Apart from the house and hotel, Littlecote is famous for its Roman villa, with an exceptional restored mosaic. It’s really special to see though we only had a quick stop yesterday after a long afternoon of walking and eating.

At home we are noticing a lot of nature in our small courtyard at the moment - sparrows, blue tits and blackbirds have nearby nests and one evening we experienced hedgehogs performing a mating ritual which was surprisingly loud until they were distracted by a bemused cat! And we have a Tree bumblebee nest in our porch - they are very active and it’s interesting watching them go to and fro. The most we’ve seen together is 7. They won’t be causing any damage and will die off in a couple of months.

We’ll go to the allotment later though it’s still rather cold and damp with more rain forecast. I’d like to do some potting on and planting though there’s still a couple more nights at risk from frost.

The song is provided by The Beverley Sisters - a golden oldie, my mum had the single with the Skye Boat Song on the B-side - I do love it. Enjoy ☺️ but it may bring a tear to your eye.

Lost

I did some baking 🎉 (it doesn’t happen very often).

Rhubarb, honey & ginger flapjacks

OK so it was only flapjacks but the recipe was specifically chosen to use rhubarb from the allotment and honey from Ivan’s hamper. The honey is locally produced and could include pollen from our allotment as Cobbs Farm is less than 3 miles away as the bee flies. I used this recipe https://foodstak.com/rhubarb-and-ginger-flapjacks/#recipe Adapted slightly; some olive oil as we didn’t have enough butter and a bit of Golden Syrup as I read that honey isn’t always sticky enough. Anyway, it was very tasty and just the right consistency.

The PSB is the only other thing we’re still harvesting though it’s beginning to flower now so not too many more servings to come I don’t think. We’ve been to the allotment every day and have been busy digging the trench for the climbing beans on Plot3 under the old polytunnel frame and I weeded and cleared up the garlic and onion beds.

I snipped off some buds that had grown on a few of the onions and gave all the plants a sprinkle of onion fertiliser. There’s a rogue potato in there so I’ve left it for now, though it did get frosted.

I’ve planted out the mangetout with some sweetpeas at each end and in the middle of the trellis. Hopefully the wire cage will stop the pesky pigeons. We’ve had some sunshine and showers and the plants have already responded quite well. We’ve sown nasturtium and calendula and at the weekend we direct sowed broad beans in the front bed we dug on Plot3 - they have their bottle cloches as mouse deterrent. The broad beans sown in modules haven’t emerged yet, but if they do grow we’ll use them as spares.

We also planted out the Baby Bear pumpkin on the manured hole in the weed suppressant that we dug a few weeks ago. It’s got 3 watering bottles as hopefully the foliage will be so rampant they’ll guide us to where we need to water.

On one really warm day I did some work on the HAHA Wildlife plot, which has been rather neglected of late. Honeysuckle is threatening to take over but there are lots of other plants just emerging which have more light and space now the old dead layer has been cleared. Here are a few of the insects I managed to photograph on there.

Back on our plots, the potatoes have all popped up now so we’re keeping a close eye on the weather forecast - we’ll earth them up today as a frost is forecast overnight. Our last frost date is 13th May, according to historic records, so not too much longer to live with the threat.

Yesterday I dug an area in front of the nursery section. I sowed some  Oasis turnips and transplanted a row of lettuce from the polytunnel - they always look so sad when first put out but hopefully they’ll perk up!

The plots are actually beginning to shape up now, but there are still large areas that need work and I’m not sure where the dwarf beans, carrots and some other items are going yet…

It’s all happening - what a fun time of year! 

The song is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls - we won tickets to see Reading vs Blackpool on Saturday.

By this stage it was pouring with rain and, well, Reading lost - the last match of the season.😞 

Dammit

Forbury Gardens, Reading

We’ve had some glorious sunny weather and the wind finally died down so we had a little taste of Summer. Particularly welcome on Saturday when we took the train to Reading and enjoyed an afternoon in the presence of the huge (31 foot) Maiwand Lion in Forbury Gardens. The Reading Vegan Fiesta was really well-attended and a great place for people-watching.. It was so hot we had to seek shade on occasion but it was a fun, if exhausting, day.

It’s so nice to attend events knowing that all the food on offer is suitable for us, as vegetarians. We stuck with our favourite Vegan Street Diner hot dogs - they’re just too tasty to turn down and had the longest queue of all the food stalls!

Showing off my new hat

On Saturday morning I had the latest Covid jab - have lost count now, but it’s still worth having the vaccine even though Covid is no longer in the news. After that I nipped to the allotment to check all was ok. We didn’t zip up the polytunnel because no frost was forecast - uh-oh … our happy tomatoes were no longer happy…

The temperature in the polytunnel had dropped to -3.1°. One of the tiny pepper seedlings had also been frost-burned and the first leaves that we spotted in the potato row had been caught too. I wishfully thought there was a chance that the tomatoes may recover but by the evening….

Oh dear, what a sad affair. They had really suffered so the frost must have hung around for a bit - well it was a sorry lesson, as I used to say a lot at work “it’s only a forecast”. So yesterday we had another trip to Waitrose and déjà vu we potted on the tomatoes in the polytunnel.

These are different varieties from what we originally bought and are grafted plants: Rubylicious, Honeycomb and Crimson Plum. We’ll take more care this time …

Over the last week I dug a second compost-filled hole for  a courgette on Plot7. We sowed butternut squash and courgette seeds under the grow light at home - the Atena Polka yellow courgettes germinated but we’re still waiting for the butternut. The chard and beetroot seedlings are just appearing in their modules in the polytunnel and I sowed the Snowstar leek seeds outside. I sowed the whole packet as any we don’t grow on or give away can be used like spring onions. We’ve also sown some broad beans in pots in the polytunnel for planting out next month, hopefully. 

I potted on the remaining perennials - it seems that the Geum and Coreopsis plants may not have made it, but there are 40 surviving plants so more than enough for us and a future plant sale.

We cleaned out the Bokashi compost bin;  the solid waste was put in the bottom of one of the squash holes and we have a bottle of liquid fertiliser. It smells SO bad it must be good stuff!!

The apple has blossomed - so pretty - I wonder if it will fruit this year 🤔 The pear and cherry now have leaves, I need to check whether there’s any evidence of fruit on them - here’s a nice little video of a pear from flower to fruit, so I know what to look for on the pear tree.

I’m (so far) keeping on top of weeding ‘the orchard’. It’s rather satisfying to clear the clumps of bindweed when it dares to emerge through the mulch.

So now it’s Monday morning again and I’d better get moving to open up the polytunnel. It is very pleasant to visit the plot early (-ish) in the morning and just sit quietly watching the birds.

The apt song title is provided by Blink 182 and obviously refers to our tomato shenanigans.

Monday Monday

The ornamental cherry at home is putting on a spectacular show at the moment. The wind is creating confetti and forming pink drifts in all the corners, it’s so lovely to see. As is this Holly Blue butterfly (male) at the allotment. He was willing to pose on my hand for some time, but refused to reveal his beautiful blue wings that catch the eye as they flutter by.

The weather has certainly been changeable so we weren’t surprised to have seen at least one rainbow. This was from home - photos rarely do them justice, do they?

We’ve been visiting the plot daily to open/close the polytunnel and remove/add fleece. The polytunnel measured a maximum temperature of 44° during the day and -1.3° overnight last week - as I informed the checkout girl in Tesco but I don’t think she cared 🤭. We’ve sown a few more seeds including beetroot, chard and more pumpkins - the pumpkin popped up within 4 days! I’d normally direct sow the beetroot, but the area isn’t prepared yet. The chard I like to sow in modules so I can select the more colourful seedlings for planting out. We finished clearing and preparing the front quarter - intended for sweetcorn, sunflowers and there should be room for some other things.

The covered plot in the other quarter is being used as a nursery for the potted-on perennials. Most of the plants have grown okay but a few have withered away - can’t tell what they were at the moment. There are quite a few more to be potted on once their roots appear in the bottom of their modules/pots.

The weather has been ok apart from the cold breeze. We’re so glad to have the polytunnel to protect us while we’re sitting watching the birds. The swallows have arrived! Their numbers are increasing each time we visit plus we’ve seen great tits flying to a (somewhat intentionally) overgrown bit of plot where they nested a couple of years ago.

Whilst digging at the weekend I was approached by a couple who are clearing their garden; they found a slow worm and wanted to re-home it somewhere safe; nice people!

It looks to be a male and we let him go on the Wildlife Plot. Hope he finds a mate and hangs round.

Jamie and I had a busy weekend; we enjoyed a music quiz with allotment friends on Saturday (did really badly) and yesterday went to a vegan market in Chippenham - we had some delicious teriyaki bao buns from The Garden Restaurants. The allotment is still providing purple sprouting broccoli and rhubarb pickings. We’ve been baking the rhubarb in orange juice with demarera sugar - so tasty with chocolate ice cream.

The song is provided by the Mamas and Papas because, well, it’s Monday and the allotment looked nice in the Sun this morning, with wispy clouds overhead.

I don’t think it’ll be frosty tonight, but we’ll go and zip up anyway. The temperature was just below zero last night (-0.3°)