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°)

Hail, Rain or Sunshine

We don’t fancy plotting today as the weather’s turned nasty with showers and such a cold wind. Last Sunday (Easter Day) we were lucky because we had a plot cream tea with Linda and Ivan, with English sparkling Rosé and raspberry jam from Ivan’s hamper. We needed a wind break and the chiminea but it was a lovely afternoon with plenty of sunshine.

And on Bank Holiday Monday the ice cream van visited site which was a most welcome treat on a hot sunny day! We usually hear it travelling around so it was great that he actually stopped.

We’ve been busy in between the snacks over the last week 🙂 We’ve planted our potatoes in manure-enriched trenches; one row of Desiree and another row with Orla, Baby Lou and Paris.

We’ve planted three shop-bought tomatoes in the polytunnel - Gardener’s Delight, Supersteak and Alicante. We’ve hung drip feed waterers up - it’s rather reminiscent of a dialysis ward 😱 and should help while we’re on holiday.

The little row of carrots have germinated in the front of the raised bed and the sweet peas can grow on a bit more before they are planted out along with the mangetout.

Plot-neighbour, Val, kindly gave us a rhubarb crown which was from the Avebury Manor kitchen garden, which I think we should visit in the Summer.

I’ve re-mulched round the fruit trees - the Apsley mulch did a good job of curtailing the spread of bindweed last year. The pear and cherry trees have white blossom and the leaves are appearing now; still waiting for the apple to flower but the leaves have budded so the flowers will follow. Most of the daffodils have been dead-headed but there are a few multi-headed ones still putting on a bit of a show. I’ll leave them to die back but may tie them as I’ve seen other people do.

Jamie weeded the shallots in the raised bed - the bindweed had reached the top of there already - and gave them a bit of onion fertiliser. We only have a few but they served us well last year. Each green stem should produce a bulb so the more stems the better.

I’ve started clearing the front quarter of plot7 and dug the (reasonably) neat edges, mostly to please Ivan and Neal - it does look better, but it’s hard work especially with all the grass and couch grass which has spread onto the plot - of course some would say that’s why I should keep the edges maintained …

I just need to dig/clear the rest now….

I’ve done some weeding in the flower bed so scattered the seeds that my cousin Jen sent. They’ll be lovely additions to fill gaps - I cleared some of the Nigella seedlings which take over each year - they are so pretty but I must be more conscientious and pull them before they set seed. Jamie’s sown a pumpkin in a pot at home - just one, I think he’s feeling positive because his pepper seeds germinated successfully whereas mine are a no-show at present…

I’ve updated my Wildlife Blog recently - the first update was a new addition - a tiny 24-spot ladybird. It’s not rare in Southern England but just not very visible due to being so tiny.

The other update was to an earlier post about the Ashy Mining Bee - there are so many of these around our plot at present and the evidence of the females’ ground nest building. The males wake from Winter first and wait for the females to emerge - I felt sorry for this female, with at least one too many suitors! The bundle was rolling about on the ground with lots of angry buzzing and it went on for ages 🤦‍♀️ 

As I write this, the Sun is on my back through our South-facing window. It’s so lovely and bright but the next April shower could be along any moment and at 10° plus a stiff breeze I'm inclined to sit here a while longer.

Oh, well we did drive up to the plot as it remained sunny, but as we arrived there was a huge hail shower - blowing horizontally across the site - so we waited in the car…

It stopped, hail covered the ground then the bright sunshine returned.

I fed the blueberry bush which has lots of flowers and picked some purple sprouting broccoli, which is now a tasty soup. I added garlic and some plant-based cream. Yum! So it was worth the quick plot visit in the end. At least we know we’re heading in the right direction for Summer; more butterflies are visiting the plot, the birds have paired up and are full of song and we saw our hedgehog amble by at home the other evening; so great to know he/she got through Winter.

The song is provided by The Script and very appropriate for the time of year. It’s a sing-along 😊

To the Moon and Back

The year is moving swiftly on. March has passed and the clocks have moved forward; the lighter evenings are welcome especially when we had sunshine on a couple of warm, dry days.

I was very excited to spot this morel (probably Common) mushroom in one of the communal flower beds! We’ve never found one in the wild before. They’re a highly prized fungus though this one looked passed its best so I wasn’t tempted to sample it - they always look like they’d be rather gritty but I’m assured that they are delicious. It would be great if we could get them to cultivate somewhere on site but they’re renowned for being tricksy; this spore/mycelia must have been imported with the compost or wood chips.

The daffodils and tulips are still looking good and our little pear tree has some lovely white blossom - I wonder if we’ll harvest our first pears this year…

We’ve visited the plots most days and made some progress. All the seeds, apart from carrots, have begun to germinate in the polytunnel and the California Wonder peppers have germinated at home. I dug a big hole for the pumpkin on Plot3. It doesn’t look that impressive but the earth was very compacted and full of tree roots so it was really hard work. I was ready to give up a couple of times but Jamie was directing and I’m glad it was completed in one visit. We filled it with well-rotted manure, some chicken manure pellets and the compost from last year’s cucumber pot before piling the original earth, minus the roots, back on top.

First stage when I wanted to give up!

Plot3 has provided us with another harvest of purple sprouting broccoli - this lovely lot was delicious in a cheese sauce with Arley’s plant-based pancetta.

We also enjoyed a few sticks from our rhubarb - the plant has flowered so I chopped the two flowerheads off to stop the plant being weakened.

I spent a bit of time splitting and potting on Rudbeckia plants. I know where one is going but the others will probably be saved for a HAHA plant sale. I’ve also done some Vinca Minor (Periwinkle) cuttings at home - they’re in water at the moment so I’ll pot them up when they grow roots.

Most of the perennial plug plants are ok in the polytunnel though some have died - unfortunately the Sharpie labels were less waterproof than I expected … 🙄 so it’s all guesswork now!

The wildflowers (I’ll call them that as they’re not all growing on our plots) are providing for the masses of bees and ladybirds (mostly 7-spots so far) and I was pleased to see a blue butterfly flitting along the hedgerow on the warmest day.

Speedwell, viola, daisy, ground ivy, dandelion and purple & white dead nettle

I did a bit of tidying around the garlic and onions - the onions are a bit weak, but hopefully they’ll produce something. I need to add a little Epsom Salts to the garlic as the leaves are yellowing - the addition of magnesium and sulphur aid photosynthesis. Storm Dave chased us away from site yesterday - it was extremely windy and we’re nowhere near getting the full force of it. I hope it blew itself out completely overnight as we’re meant to be having a picnic later.

Yesterday marked the 18th anniversary of my kidney transplant - forever grateful to the donor family and the NHS 💜

The (beautiful) song is provided by Savage Garden. Thinking of the Artemis 2 crew on their mission around the Moon which will lead on to further space exploration, but also prospecting the Moon, which seems like a bad move especially with the wrong people in charge.

A Matter of Time

That dark sky threatening our sunny High Street has been rather a feature this week. The sunshine has been blighted with heavy hailstorms and wind. The chilly temperatures have brought frosts and we’ve fleeced up the tiny plants in the polytunnel. Our plot visits have been rather short but I managed to complete the digging in one area - it’s always satisfying to see - it’ll be worked again as that’s where the spuds will be planted in a few weeks.

I’ve hoed and weeded the ‘orchard’ and the raised bed - I’m probably going to put some more herbs in so it’s a full herb garden and I also need to think about using them a bit more… 

At the moment these are growing. I’ll need to keep them trimmed, especially the sage, but it’ll be good if they fill out more.

We’ve sown a small row of carrots (Nantes) and salad leaf in the polytunnel raised beds. The plan is to be harvesting them before the tomatoes/peppers are growing. I’m pleased to say there is room for Jamie and me to shelter in the polytunnel- we’ve needed it this week!

I dug up the row of parsnips from last year - they had regrowth so I wasn’t expecting them to be much good, though they made a pretty good spicy soup - a bit too salty but we have to blame the chef, rather than the veg for that! I’m clearly a bit out of practice.

On Friday we attended a ‘Quiz & Curry Night’ with some allotment buddies. Delicious veg and chick pea curry for the vegetarians. We did reasonably well in the quiz, which was very well attended - fundraising for the Wetland Reserve project, which now has planning permission, so that’s an exciting addition for Hungerford!

Thanks to Forbes for the photo

Can you see us in the photo? We’re the ones waving at Forbes, the photographer 😊. It was a fun evening and we won this marvellous raffle prize of “Greek treats”! And Ivan won the auction for a fabulous hamper of goodies - we’ll be sharing much of that one sunny day soon we hope!

That’s all for now, hoping to get a bit more plot-time over the coming week, which marks 2 months since I retired. I must admit, it doesn’t feel too different (yet), though I have forgotten everything about my job 🤭 The song title is provided by The Killers in acknowledgment of the clocks changing to ‘British Summer Time’ today.