Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
What an exhausting week! Daytime temperatures exceeding 30° and nighttime temperatures hovering around 20° Phew, it really was too much, especially with my lingering cold 🤧
Morning plot visits to give everything a water, a quiet sit down and then home to recover. Most of the plants seem pretty happy. The hollyhocks and sweet peas have loved it.
The yellow splash in that photo is a big clump of ragwort. I know it’s a weed but the insects really love it and it’s nice to see a bit of yellow. Surprisingly no cinnabar caterpillars or moths yet, but I’m sure they’ll arrive.
The sweet peas are a lovely jewel-coloured mix with a delicious fragrance. I’m picking the flowers regularly in the hope to extend the flowering season. They are sown with some mangetout but they are only producing infrequent pods and by the time I spot them they have already filled out with peas, but they are a tasty plot-snack.
The salad has gone past its best. The lettuces have bolted and lots of the little turnips have brown splodges inside - even though they look perfect on the outside. It seems to be due to boron deficiency so if I grow them again I’ll need to remedy that in the soil. It’s a shame as they are a nice addition to salads. I’m leaving the remaining radish in the ground; the roots have gone woody, but I’ll eat the seed pods once they start to appear.
The runner beans are flowering and climbing up the old polytunnel frame. They are mostly Painted Lady but I think a few Scarlet Empire flowers have appeared too. On the other side of the frame the second sowing of Gigantes and Borlotti have finally germinated.
The dwarf bean plants that we bought from a Garden Centre appear to be climbers, so I put up some netting for them to cling on to. They have small mauve flowers so we’re thinking they’re probably purple French beans. (I’m sure that central post is straighter in real life 🤔)
We have some parsnip seeds germinating on paper towel and sweetcorn kernels soaking so I hope to sow them today or tomorrow. We sowed a couple of mini cucumbers and one has just grown its first true leaf so we’ll be planting that out in a big pot soon - the temperatures have fallen back to normal so we can think of actually achieving a bit more on the plots. Though it has been nice sitting watching the flowers and wildlife. There are lots of butterflies about, including marbled whites like this beauty which I freed from the polytunnel.
Here are a few of the pretty flowers:
Californian Poppies
Verbena Bonariensis, Nicotiana, Dianthus and Coreopsis
Hollyhocks
The song title is provided by Tim Minchin and it’s to celebrate our first trug of the year - Orla potatoes firkled, a few shallots, tiny carrots and wobbly courgettes. Well, they’re definitely not perfect but they were tasty.
Here’s the song, particularly liking the interaction with passers by. Filmed in Leeds by the way.
So pleased that we returned home to warm, at times sweltering, weather. The hoverflies, butterflies, bees and other insects are very busy and finally the ladybirds have re-appeared. The rain that fell in our 2 week absence, plus watering by Neal (thanks Neal 👍), has encouraged some good growth - this is the difference in the peppers and aubergine. We had spare pepper plants so we now have several growing in pots as well as leaving some on the Spares shelf for other plotholders.
The tomato plants are looking hopeful for future harvests.
And the pumpkin is growing at high speed, with several viable fruits growing.
The yellow courgette has bright yellow leaves, which is normally a sign of lacking nutrients. We watered it with Epson salts and the new growth is green again. It has a few tiny courgettes at the moment - hope they continue to grow.
Our sweetcorn, sown the day before we went away, have germinated. Not many sunflowers have appeared amongst the sweetcorn but there are a few around the outside and the marigolds have bushed out nicely. The beans that I sowed (Borlotti, Jacob’s Cattle and Gigantes) have been a failure, with just one plant from each. I’ve re-sowed soaked beans now to see if they work better. Luckily the runner bean, dwarf bean plants and broad beans are looking happier.
I pulled the garlic yesterday - some good big cloves and other smaller ones. Can’t believe it’s the Summer solstice already!
Since being back, I’ve weeded all of Plot7 and it looks much better for it, but I do need to sow a few more veggies there is still a lot of bare earth to welcome the weeds back into. I’ve left plenty of snapdragon and redcurrant tomato seedlings so they can provide a bit of colour and tiny toms.
The trouble is… if you look the other direction…
Ugh, most of that is Nigella that’s gone to seed and all being choked by bindweed 😫 I’ve weeded round all the growing areas and started chopping down that weedy area to try and get it under control - at least the hollyhocks are looking great and may detract from the weeds once they bloom! In the meantime this creeping red thyme in the herb bed is providing the brightest spot of colour and the hoverflies love it.
Migrant hoverfly
I’ve been watering everything in the morning for the last couple of days and temperatures were mid 20s by 10am. Today is the start of the amber extreme heat warnings with temperatures expected to go up to 35° and maybe more 🥵 And I have a rotten cold - booo! I’ll have to go up a bit later today at least to water in the polytunnel, which is not somewhere to hang around long on a hot day!
We’ve been enjoying home-grown salad (not potatoes yet) with lettuce, sweet turnips, radish and chives plus a few small onions that I pulled whilst weeding.
We’re enjoying watching the World Cup and liking that Hungerford seems a bit more in the spirit for it this time - this is the window of one of our local tearooms (The Tutti Pole) where they always have some sort of Lego display.
And of course we have our England flag and World Cup bunting. COME ON ENGLAND 👏
Fellow plotholder, Maria, and I decided yesterday morning that it’s difficult to improve gardening skills because every year throws us something different. Oh well, we’ll keep trying 🙂 And that is the vague connection to the song title by The Korgis.
The huge amounts of rain that the island experienced in Spring - as did we - has clearly been appreciated by the plants. Here are just a few of the lovely, unusual and colourful plants we came across - some along pathways, some in the Puerto de la Cruz Botanic Garden and others in the Sitio Litre Orchid Garden.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen flowers this amazing turquoise colour before. It was a really impressive plant and so tall that I couldn’t get a close-up.
Turquoise Puya flowers
These dazzling rubbery flowers were growing as ground cover between the trees in the botanic garden.
Billbergia pyramidalis
This beautiful shrub was scrambling over the wall from a private garden but the large shrubs are planted in communal parks too. Covered in multi-coloured blooms.
Lantana Camara
This spike was over 6 feet tall growing from the centre of some sort of bromeliad that we're more used to seeing as houseplants in Britain. The Botanic Garden really is like a land of the giants!
There was a whole forest of them surrounding the impossibly huge alien of a tree - a type of fig, but it looks like a monstrous rubber plant.
Ficus Macrophylla
This is such a beautiful colour, creeping over fences and walls around the town.
Thunbergia
And this is another stunner in the Botanic Gardens.
Mexican Butterfly Weed
The Orchid Garden is a peaceful little garden near our apartments. It’s the garden of a beautiful colonial style house where Agatha Christie stayed whilst in Puerto de la Cruz. The orchid displays are very pretty and the general gardens are lovely to stroll or sit.
Plus there’s a nice little cafe, koi pond and two friendly cats 😊
We arrived in Tenerife for the Canarias Day celebrations - a fun evening listening to a Canarian folk band and seeing the locals in their traditional dress. Then walking back to the apartment through the lively night-time streets.
After so many years we finally visited Loro Parque, where we spent the day for Jamie's birthday.
Tourists
It was a good day though the areas for the larger animals (especially the gorillas) were a bit sad. We didn't attend any of the animal 'shows' but enjoyed seeing the penguins, fish, coral and giant tortoises as well as the cute golden tamarins.
When we returned to the apartment we enjoyed a free birthday bottle of Cava at the bar.
Cheers!
Our lovely holiday is almost over and we're leaving the day the Pope arrives - he’s not having our apartment 🤭 he’s visiting La Laguna which is a nearby town before going to the capital.
We bought this interesting tea - it's very nice; haven't found a bindweed tea yet though! We’re looking forward to seeing what else is growing on the allotment - wondering if our sweetcorn and sunflowers have emerged yet. It seems there has been a lot of rain at home but looks like the weather may cheer up for our return - yay!
