Memories

We’ve moved in to October and the cooler, dark nights are upon us though the daytime temperatures have been very pleasant over the last week. We’re still picking a few more tomatoes which I’ve been using with  some basil from my sister to make cheese on toast lunches a bit more interesting.

A cheesey snack

I took the last of the onions and shallots home which have been stored on the allotment since they were harvested in July.

Last weekend Jamie planted our new shallots for next year in the raised bed - it’s been topped-up with more Apsley mulch mixed in with onion fertiliser, the shallots seemed to like it last year. We’ve chosen this long variety this year, Griselle and there are 12 bulbs.

We finally had a single-serving harvest of dwarf beans that we sowed direct in July. We may get a few more but they’ve had a stressful time with droughts and now cold nights. Luckily the green courgette provided me with a bit of side veg for dinner too and I really do think that’s the last one..

I’ve dug, fertilised and mulched the area where we intend to over-Winter the broad beans. We’ll sow them in a few weeks. I’ve also bought garlic and onion sets but I need to do a bit more prep before they can be planted. The Apsleys will need digging in and mixing in the soil for those bulbs whereas the beans should be okay sown directly through the mulch. The leeks are looking rather dry but we have had some rain. One particularly short sharp shower while we were on the plot.

The little pond looks a bit more natural now it has its stoney surround and a bit of gravel in the bottom.

We’ve had a couple of lovely woodland walks, looking for acorns - they are extremely scarce this year, whereas squirrels are abundant 🤔 Savernake Forest is an ancient woodland with some oaks over 1000 years old - amazing isn’t it and very beautiful with the sun dappling through the canopy.

Savernake Forest

The leaves haven’t really started to turn yet but the ground was covered in the super-spikey chestnut cases.

At Greenham Common, Newbury, we walked round the old airbase area. I remember the first time I saw all the barbed wire and armed guards when the US missiles were sited there - it was shocking after we’d been used to going there for the Air Shows when we were younger and Jamie remembers going as a Sea Cadet to hand out pamphlets ☺️

Greenham Common

We parked where the Women’s Peace Camp was in the 1980s, there are information boards about the campaign now, but at the time many Newbury people didn’t look on the peace campers too kindly. I remember going with friends to ‘Embrace the base’ round the USAF base for CND one weekend. It was amazing to see so many thousands of people there. 

It’s returned to its natural state now with no camps, barbed wire fencing, armed guards or missiles - just the missile silos remain - and we wouldn’t fancy eating anything foraged from there.

Greenham Common

Well, after that little bit of reminiscing I really should get moving. We’ve got our flu/covid jabs later so I need to start on that allium bed prep this morning. Just time for one more photo - meet Albie, my sister’s gorgeous new puppy 🥰

Now, please enjoy this song by Maroon 5.

Heat Waves

Oh, I know I’ve moaned a lot about the weather over the last 6 months or so; too cold, too wet, too windy but the last 3 days really have been too hot! Even for me, a Sun worshipper. The early mornings are so beautiful and not too exhausting to carry watering cans around.

A few of us had an early-ish session on the roundabout on Sunday morning, before it got too sweltering.

It’s just about complete now, though Nia wants to fill a few spots. There are two outside rings of seed - calendula and cornflower. We’re away for a couple of weeks soon so I hope when we return it’ll be a mass of flowers… it would be helpful to have a few downpours.

We waited for storms yesterday; we could hear thunder nearby but it seems that a fierce storm emptied all the rain over Wiltshire and didn’t reach Berkshire, at least not Hungerford - shame, but the building clouds were impressive.

Watering is an unavoidable chore at the moment, the tomatoes are happy in the polytunnel but germination of our beans seems slow (nearly 2 weeks, though we’ve now seen that some have germinated but not appeared above ground yet). We decided to buy some dwarf bean and runner bean plants yesterday. If the sowed beans also grow then that’ll be a bonus. It feels like there’s too much bare earth showing at the moment, but it is only May so I think I’m being impatient.

The runner bean plants we bought are Painted Lady which are a red and white flowered variety.  As it happens we’ve just started seeing Painted Lady butterflies on site, they’re very pretty and quite large but I haven’t managed to get a photo yet. I did capture this lovely Small Copper butterfly that was in the polytunnel. Wasps will eat them if they stay in there so we always release them.

And this impressive male thick-legged flower beetle was on one of the perennial pot plants - it eats pollen so doesn’t cause any damage. No points for guessing how he got his name!

There are masses of bees and other flying insects about. They really love the purple thyme flowers but this bumblebee was determined to get something from this pretty poppy.

We’ve been waiting to see the great tits fledge - the parents have been so attentive. Taking turns to take grubs and caterpillars back to their nest in that storage area. They’ve not minded us working around them. The great tit is in that photo.

Here’s a little video where the parent flapping its wings seems to be encouraging the young to exit but then the other parent takes some food down to the nest. When we went back in the afternoon there was no sight of them so it seems we missed the little ones actually fledging, but it’s been nice watching the parents over the last few weeks.

The flower plot is looking pretty with pink verbascum, white valerian, blue Nigella and red poppies providing scent and colour. 

These wild poppies are so delicate and pretty but the flowers don’t last a day. Other seedlings are emerging but no flowers yet.

We were amazed to see that the remains of the tagetes French marigolds which were completely frosted and brown have actually re-grown! Good job I was lazy and didn’t bother pulling them! I definitely thought they were dead. 

Monday was incredibly hot - the hottest May Day on record, it was certainly about 32/33° on the plot and Jamie and I had a barbecue <phew>. We did start quite late in the afternoon and stayed till the Sun was about to set. It was so lovely, mostly staying in the shade and just enjoying the lovely warmth in between cooking.

I lay on the grass at one point, it was quite nice and cooling and provides a different view of the world, although it was rather itchy. Aah, just look at that beautiful blue sky.

My next post will probably be about Tenerife, unless something dramatic happens during our final plot visits this week….

The song title is thanks to The Glass Animals as the heatwave continues. 

It’s a Beautiful Thing

It’s been rather rainy and feeling rather Autumnal, but I have a few days off work for the Bank Holiday so that’s a bonus!

I’ve been a bit poorly so didn’t make it to the Horticultural Show - I only had a few photos and a ‘longest runner bean’, which wasn’t record-breaking, so I decided to have a slob day instead. The Sun eventually came out in the late afternoon so we went up the plot to feed everything after they’d had a good drenching.

If you you look at my Wildlife on the Allotment blog, you'll see that we've recently been watching what goes on when we're not on the plot - we aimed the wildlife camera towards the water bowl. The hedgehog(s) are a regular visitor, the fox has been seen a couple of times as has a mouse, along with the big fluffy black cat and Marmalade/Major/Orlando - just 3 of the names the ginger cat has! The magpies are ever-present and looking a bit bedraggled at the moment - assuming this is one of the parents.

The female pheasant still has 2 chicks left and it's usually a shock to see her when wandering past an overgrown plot. One of the not-so-little ones is more adventurous than the other. 

The squirrel is also a regular visitor. It doesn't usually venture as far as Plot7 when we're there, but we've seen it under the trees by Plot3 and in the hedgerow. In one of the captures it was bundling up moss so appeared to be collecting nesting materials and it's certainly enjoying burying things for Winter.

We put the wildlife camera in the polytunnel for a couple of nights. Apart from a mouse and the hedgehog trundling by the only other thing we captured was birds - enjoying an early morning dust-bath! We think they're wrens.

We've had a few plot visits, to pick a few things - mostly cucumbers and that one tomato (we have had a few more than that!) from the outside plant.

And Jamie pulled a Desiree potato - some whoppers in there and, dare I say it, no slug damage!

Here's another calendula with raindrops - such a beautiful flower. I can remember them being my favourite when I was little.

And another trug. Although our runner bean and french bean plants were pretty decimated by slugs early in the year, they are producing plenty of tasty beans. The stripey courgette looks good and ... have I mentioned the cucumbers..!

So, with 3 days left of my bank holiday break, I'm feeling in the mood for a picnic so looking forward to that later this afternoon and if we're lucky we may get a bit of star-gazing in too. Enjoy the Bank Holiday and here's a song to start the day...Ocean Colour Scene - beautiful 🎶

Late in the Evening

At last we have more variety in our harvests. That was our second potato bag with a better haul of (Rocket?) spuds. The Cavolo Nero was used as crispy seaweed in a Chinese meal.  The warm and showery weather over the last couple of weeks has made the plot and this plotholder a lot happier as our beds are finally filling up a bit.

The climbing beans tunnel looks quite sparse but is producing a surprising amount of beans and lots more flowers too.

They were part of this early morning, pre-work harvest along with our first courgette (the plant has been sitting in a pot for months with the weather refusing to let its fruits mature!) and our first cucumber. Mmm, home-grown mini-cucumbers are so delicious.

The larger turnips were past their best so went to the compost, but the little ones were tasty roasted with potatoes.

And this trug has our first harvest of tomatoes (well, the first that have gone home), radishes, stripey courgette and some leggy carrots (purple and orange).

We had a tasty salad with 7 home-grown ingredients. The imperfect carrots in mayo made an excellent tasty coleslaw.

These ipomoea were from seeds from my Cousin Jen. Such beautiful colours and they’re beginning to climb the frame now. Related to the dreaded bindweed, which I’m still fighting on our plot. We had a HAHA workday this weekend where we cleared a plot which has been given up. It was completely covered in white-flowering bindweed. We’re not fooling ourselves into thinking the problem is gone but now it’s covered in a plastic sheet for a while it’s at least contained. It’s been a particularly good year for bindweed 😖

The female pheasant, with her remaining two chicks likes the un-loved plots, but they’re less popular with the neighbours! The pheasant herself also has her fans and her haters!

It was breezy and unexpectedly misty and perfect for a bit of digging, so I cleared the area on our plot where the broad beans were and the leeks will soon be planted.

You can see that the soil is actually bone dry as soon as the Sun appeared.

My brother gave me these bees for my birthday, thanks Tim, they look great on the toilet which we can see from our plot and the communal area.

At our Sunday picnic last week we made use of the donated Chiminea when the Sun had gone. It was lovely and we enjoyed seeing bats zipping about around us, such fun.

Which gives me the opportunity to use Paul Simon’s great song title - dance-along now!

Give Me Just a Little More Time

Mmm, look at those little jewels against the blue sky - beautiful! Uh-oh, I see a snail got in the picture to confirm it’s 2024! Jamie made a sauce with the redcurrants from Ivan’s communal fruit cage.

Luckily Ivan is a regular visitor to maintain the fruit bushes as the HAHA ‘community’ element hasn’t gone quite as well as we’d hoped. Perhaps we’ll have a more time later in the year to manage it a bit better. With the weather, work and even our social life slowing our progress we are just about now catching up with things. Not that work and socials have been unwelcome! We enjoyed our second wedding of the year last weekend in the beautiful Shropshire countryside.

What a fun event, interesting slant on the traditional with guests including Darth Vader and Robocop 😀. Our night in the Shepherd’s hut was cosy as the rain poured down but the Sun shone when it needed to on the day, although it was very cold - pity the poor Cypriots who had come over for a Summer wedding and the campers! Great food, company and entertainment kept us cheerful though 🙂

Since being home we’re still enjoying broad beans and strawberries and I’ve included garlic scapes in a couple of meals as a tasty mild garlic addition.

We’ve planted out our beans to grow up both sides of the tunnel frame again: runner beans, French beans and the two borlotti that actually germinated. That’s the valerian in the background, still producing a lovely scent.

The Lark sweetcorn are planted out too - they’re so small we’re leaving their little protective cloches on for a while. And we have two Festival squashes planted in that section to clamber and provide some tasty Winter squash hopefully. The Halloween Orange peppers are planted in the polytunnel and the mini cucumbers are planted in pots on Plot3. So things are progressing at last.

Signs of things to come on the yellow courgette that’s growing in a pot, but not much movement on the ones planted into the ground. We have leek, carrots and beetroot seedlings but I’ll have to get a magnifying glass to see any evidence of salsify or parsnips 😖

We’re mostly doing pre-work visits for watering but last Thursday was the start of a ‘heatwave’ so we enjoyed our lunch sitting in the sunshine for a while. So beautiful as the bare earth is beginning to show signs of planned growth all around. I finally started clearing the unplanned growth on the last quarter on Plot7 today but the earth is like concrete. I cleared the front of weeds and sowed a row of chard and a row of radish, with the intention that some will go to seed to produce the peppery pods.

I was attempting to clear some other weedy areas on Plot8, but there are so many, with bindweed being the worst by far. These two varieties (double or single-flowered) of feverfew arrived naturally and put on a great show each year.

These pretty flowers are spreading on the wildlife plot, they’re so bright and cheerful plus they have a great name ‘Fox and Cubs’ aka Pilosella aurantiaca.

The teasels have almost taken over (we were warned) but they are so impressive and the bees love the flowers then the birds love the seeds.

One more week of June - all going a bit fast, isn’t it?! Leading me to the title song by Chairmen of the Board.