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!
Hoping for a good year and it seems an opportune time for a brief look back over the last decade on the allotment. I've selected a couple of photos from each year...
2010
After almost losing the site in 2009 we were given a 4 year reprieve so we could really concentrate on growing our own.
Look at how dry the earth looks - not suprising, as we were having to collect water from the nearby river. The borehole was dug in November - when it didn't stop raining :-)
Here we are painting parts of the container - one of the first jobs for newly-founded HAHA.
2011
I had a diary previously, but so much easier having an electronic version so I started this blog in June 2011.
The purple Conga potatoes (mini tubers) did particularly well - just look at that mash, with no added colouring!
We bought our first bench for our plot and clearly found that spending evenings on the plot (with a bit of wine) were a great part of allotment life - some habits stick fast :-)
2012
This was my busiest blogging year, with 142 posts! We took over Plot 8A and this was the year that the Edinburgh Fringe acting group performed their play on the site.
We had some freezing Winter weather and saw -9° in February, but showing how keen we were we were working on the plot in those months that we tend to avoid these days.
My cousins visited from Hastings in October, for the wettest Hungerford Food Festival on record.
We all got a drenching when we showed them around our plot - the pot marigolds were a lovely display that year, but I'm sure we didn't plant all those :-)
2013
We took over the other half of Plot 8 in a year that started with thick snow and suffered a heatwave in July.
We spent months encouraging this little robin to get braver and eventually he ate from our hands. We haven't been so successful with subsequent robins but they're lovely to see on the plot.
Gluttons for punishment, we also took on an empty plot for HAHA 'unusual veg' to show at the Hungerford Food Festival - we did rather well, don't you think? All those lovely bright colours. We haven't grown mooli since as they weren't that tasty, but they do look good.
2014
Neither of us were very well in 2014 and only 32 blogposts as a result. I was off work for a bit but the plot didn't get all that extra attention - which I'd love now, though I'd rather stay healthy!
This was a Spring workday - well attended for those early days. Look at that lovely blue sky and happy workers :-)
These were the tallest sunflowers that we've ever grown - I don't know what we did to make them so happy, but I'd like to grow them that tall again!
2015
We finally erected our polytunnel - our lease says we're a 'no structure' site, but it's easily de-constructable if we ever need to ... :-(
Our bench was the perfect spot for viewing the partial solar eclipse - what a great event that was, definitely worth getting up early for!
Jamie's HAHA-carved pumpkin was a great success at the Food Festival. The stripey Cornell's Bush Delikata squash on that table were some of the tastiest we've grown.
2016
We had a further year's reprieve for the site - still under threat as a pawn in a building contractor's plans for the town...
We took on another plot - to encourage more plotholders to a rather
abandoned section of the site. Plot3 is a nice square plot with just tree
roots and mares tail to contend with...
Growing the cucumbers in moulds gave us these great star-shaped and also heart-shaped additions to salads and we still grow the little Rocky cucumbers as they're so abundant and tasty.
2017
I started using song titles as blogpost titles. I like having a song for each post but finding an appropriate one is by far the hardest thing about writing this blog! I'd like to stop, but I'm a bit obsessive....maybe I'll stop in 2020...
I love this amazing cloud formation - so interesting, I think they're a type of cirrus
I began planting a few more flowers on the plot - they are such a lovely addition and there's still plenty of room for veggies. The trouble is, I have so many that self-seed now that I've lost control a bit...though it looks beautiful!
2018
Visiting frogs laid frogspawn on the empty plots' white tarpaulin so we made a little pond to save some of them. It was lovely watching them develop. What a sweltering year that was!
Two adult frogs moved into our little pond after the tiny froglets had moved on - there's certainly plenty of slugs for them to enjoy.
HAHA joined in with the lantern parade in the Hungerford Christmas Extravaganza with vegetable-shaped lanterns - they ended their day on the plot.
2019
Last year was the 10 year anniversary of the Marsh Lane site, so we had plenty of social events including our best ever plant sale on the Town Hall steps.
Everyone helped out
Our Open Day was also our best attended with lots of games to enjoy in the hot, sunny weather.
Ivan and I enjoying some healthy competition on the Squirty Boats.
We got some great local press coverage and lots of visitors discovered the little corner of Hungerford that we've been raving about for the last 10 years.
Our plots looked pretty and produced plenty. We hope we'll have more time next year to enjoy a few more days/evenings just sitting and watching things develop in 2020.
I hope it means a few more visitors and I hope they will feel inspired. I rather like the words written by T&M, not by me. Maybe it will inspire me to go to the allotment when I get back to Hungerford, which is currently about 20 degrees cooler than Tenerife, where I'm sitting right now!
So, I wouldn't normally write a blogpost while on holiday, but this excited me so I had to share 😃 And The Jeevas provide the title track.
Hail and cold winds, sleet, rain but also sun! Yay! It's March! And the birds were out in numbers. I've updated the wildlife blog, but I can't resist adding this photo here.
So exciting when you see that flash of bright red!
Jamie had a morning session on the plot and I joined him after lunch. He had dealt with the rhubarb; weeding the area and adding manure around the two plants on Plot 8.
We cleared all the dead foliage from the strawberry plants and Jamie planted up a couple of new plants to fill gaps in the row that we planted in 2014.
Before
This row was going to be pulled out this, their 4th, year (they were planted up in September 2012), but if it's the last year on Marsh Lane then we won't waste time on that job. The plants are really over-crowded so don't look that pretty but I'm sure they'll still produce plenty of tasty fruits.
After
We ate the last of the leeks last weekend, so we've cleared, dug and Grow-Mored that part of the plot. That's where our Santero onions are going this year. They were delivered this week so we plan to plant them out next weekend when the ground has settled a bit.
Uh-oh! Looks like a hailstorm
There were potatoes here last year. We didn't find any today, but I bet we'll find some growing there in a couple of months time!
We were pleased to get that sorted and pleased that after a few years of digging it wasn't too painful!
It's a milestone, so allow me a little time to reminisce...
Our lovely Marsh Lane site opened in April 2009 and I wanted to record our allotment progress. I much prefer electronic records for ease of searching so posted updates on our personal website - but after
2-and-a-bit years I found it too annoying to update and needed
an alternative and discovered blogging!
Day 1 of the site
I opted for Blogger, can't remember why, but it's free and offered Picasa for photo storage so suits my needs. My first post was on 12th June 2011 - what a dull post that was...Not even one photo!
Moving swiftly on...
Blogger offers stats, I'm not sure how accurate they are because of robots but I find it quite interesting. These are apparently my top 3 posts ...
Fungus Gnats! Well, I'm assuming the title is an oft-searched phrase (523 hits!), not all that catchy or interesting though to be honest.
Salad, Garlic and Compost. That wasn't a recipe suggestion! It has a nice photo, so maybe that's why it got 184 hits.
French Bean Chutney. Well, that is a recipe and a lovely one so I can see the appeal there for 158 visits.
Well, that's enough of that, back to today...
It was a very windy day, with quite a lot of rain. It wasn't a day for
spending much time at the allotment but we did what we intended to do,
we got this year's nematodes on the go.
Now, as you know, we don't like killing things, but these slugs are
taking liberties! So, nemaslugs strike again - in our potato plot, our carrot plot and in the raised bed where my fennel and salad are
going.
(as long as you don't consider slugs as wildlife...)
They needed to be well watered in and they got that! The ground temperature needs to stay above 5° otherwise the nematodes will die so hopefully this is timed right - not that they'd keep in the fridge any longer anyway.
And now it's British Summer Time! Hooray, lighter evenings so we can go to the plot after work!
