These Days

There’s a spot of colour from when we had some welcome sunshine on Saturday afternoon. That little robin is full of song at the moment. Perhaps like us he was relieved that the rain had stopped! October has continued the extremely wet theme of this Autumn. The ground doesn’t get a chance to dry out between torrential rain or drizzle so it’s difficult to do any clearing.

We’ve also had a couple of frosty nights with temperatures dipping below freezing but some flowers are surviving. My little hazel tree’s leaves are changing colour and there are some buds - Ooh, I wonder if it’ll produce catkins this year 🤞

Our sunflowers are looking less happy and sadly the seedheads have gone mouldy so maybe not ideal for birds to eat.

The birds have been enjoying the teasels though they’ve missed a few seeds on this one - I had to remind myself of what the word for this is - VIVIPARY.

The Wildlife Plot is looking extremely overgrown and, until the most recent frost, it was literally buzzing with activity. There were loads of bees and other insects and Jamie saw a little vole in one of the woodpiles. 

This daddy long legs had found a nice soft new teasel head to warm up on. The grass was full of these crane flies last week; reminded me of filling my desk up with them at primary school - I’m not sure why I did that 🤨

I’ve had fleece protecting my butternut squash but yesterday I decided to pick them now that the foliage has died back. I’m glad the slugs and snails all picked on just the one fruit!

And left the others untouched - they’re very small but just right for individual meals.

We’re still picking tomatoes if they show any coloured blush and they soon ripen at home. The peppers we pick as we need them because they’re in the polytunnel which we’ve been zipping up on the cold nights.

The Halloween peppers are tasty and orange ones were part of this halloumi meal, along with our last sweetcorn, potatoes and some parsley.

We were pleased to see that our garlic didn’t drown and a few green shoots have appeared - that’s about 3 weeks since the cloves were planted. And we’ve spotted some fungi appearing on the plot -  I’m not sure of the type; it may be there because of the manured soil.

I’m pleased to say it hasn’t rained yet today (Sunday) but these days our bodies are moving much slower than the clock so it’ll be an afternoon plot visit. The song title is provided by Nico.

Happy Together

I learnt a new word today after spotting this teasel amongst the dried flower heads.

Vivipary- when seeds germinate whilst still on the parent plant. Viviparous germination isn’t uncommon, particularly when it’s been rainy and warm. I have noticed it before on Nigella and calendula but it’s a bit more obvious on a teasel. We still haven’t seen any birds enjoying the seeds - we were particularly hoping to see the classic goldfinch shot - and they clearly missed a few on this seed head!

It was a HAHA workday yesterday and there was a friendly group of volunteers cutting back the hedgerow, particularly the bits growing through the fence, and clearing rotting wood from around the site including, sadly, the Wildlife Plot bench that the vandals smashed up - it was beyond repair. 

The spikiest prunings (blackthorn and hawthorn) were used to plug gaps in the hedge in the hope of spiking any would-be intruders! The rest of the clippings were added to the marvellous bonfire.

Some of the wood was spared from the fire because it had interesting life forms so we added that to the wildlife plot wood instead. Like this fascinating fungus - Candle Snuff fungus. It’s common in the UK, but I don’t recall seeing it before. It’s also known as Stag’s horn fungus for obvious reasons.

Another fungus, that looks more interesting up close is this resupinate polypore. New word of the week #2, resupinate = upside-down. This fungus manoeuvres it’s gills to point to the ground for quick spore dispersion. Up close it looks a bit crumpet-y to me and rather pleasing.

Apart from fungi, one particular piece of rotten wood was home to many insects including millipedes, wood lice and centipedes. And something that does tiny rectangular poops…

And a handy hint regarding garden critters: Fast moving insects tend to be good for gardens, as they’re often predators of the slow moving insects which are more likely to be pests due to being herbivores. It isn’t always the case and not all herbivores are slow (being a herbivore myself, I find that insulting 😄). We also found a few snails where they are probably preparing to hibernate. These lucky ones were found by Kate so were put back somewhere cosy rather than being slung over the hedge 🤭

These and other interesting subjects such as the dredging of the canal which is currently ongoing, birds over the marsh, otters, the vandalism, obviously, and so much more were discussed during snack time after the work was completed.

And the fire kept going until we left after sundown - 4pm…. The weather was dull all day and we were very lucky that the rain arrived later to dampen down the pile of ash.

It was a fun and productive day, we won’t let the haters get us down too much. The song title is brought to us by The Turtles.

Autumn Leaves

Halloween tomorrow and the clocks have returned to Greenwich Mean Time so we got an extra hour in bed. We’ve spent a couple of hours concentrating this afternoon… carving pumpkins is a serious business 🤭

Only one of those is home-grown this year but we have to have one each; one for the plot and one for home. I’ve had a 4-day weekend which has been great. We had a lovely walk at Bowdown Woods in Newbury on Friday. It was warm and sunny. I was hoping to find some fly agarics but they were all past their best, nibbled or booted.

I photographed this little lone mushroom at the allotment. I’m not sure what variety it is, it’s looked like that all weekend. I’ll see if it changes over the next few days, if it isn’t completely eaten.

At the weekend the temperatures reached 21° so we were in tee shirts on the allotment. I wonder if this is weather we’re going to get used to for future years. The weeds are loving it, especially with rainy mornings and sunny afternoons. The garlic has germinated already, in just 4 weeks - that’s fast, I normally find it quite slow to germinate, which is why we’ve ended up with two plantings some previous years!

Jamie sowed the broad beans yesterday. Aquadulce Claudia We don’t want them to grow too quickly this side of Christmas but we wanted to get them sown before the really cold weather arrives… if it does arrive. The little cloches are for mouse protection.

They’re far enough apart so we can put net cloches over once they’ve germinated.

I cleared the raised bed. I’m planning on it being a herb bed from next year. That’s lettuce at the end of the bed. Slugs have avoided it so far - famous last words; they ruined my Chinese cabbage ☹️

Ivan showed me how to trim back the bearded iris where a fungal disease has damaged the leaves. They’re sprouting new plants around the crown. That’s spread a lot since it was planted last year; the corms need 7hours of sunshine a day to be happy and flower.

Talking of Ivan, he gave us some of his dried peppers. They’re not chilli, so I look forward to adding them to some dishes over the next few months. And our peppers in the polytunnel are finally changing colour! They’re yellow at the moment.

This was a meal we had in the week - mostly home-grown (apart from the plant-based steak strips) including some of our Salad Blue potatoes, roughly chopped and roasted.

Have a fun and spooky Halloween, here are a few more pics from our Autumn woodland walk. The song title is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls.

An Allotment Foray

It was the last day before the clocks went back and it was dark and damp on the allotment. We had to go up there; I was showing someone a new plot and we really needed to do some Autumn tidying. Sooo many weeds as the weather is still reasonably warm and they just won't stop growing! And we noticed several different fungi have made an appearance...
We spotted this lovely Shaggy Ink Cap (Coprinus comatus) in the grass by our plot. The spore probably arrived on site in some of the manure. They're edible when in this condition, but it will very soon be a black slimy mess!

This Jelly Ear fungus (Auricularia auricula) was poking through the door of the compost bin. It generally grows on wood, so not sure what it's doing in there! Another edible one, but I wouldn't fancy eating it, especially not from the compost bin!

I haven't been able to identify this mushroom, but there are a few of them growing in one of the bulb flower pots. The spore probably came in the compost I used to plant them up.

This is growing on the raised bed and The pinkness on the gills may be a clue to what it is.

I hoped to get a better photo on Sunday, but it looked a mess, so I haven't been able to identify it.

I think this is a type of blewit. I like the spore print which was left by its neighbour!

I welcome any identifications!

Take Care...

.. whilst barefoot-gardening. Ouch! I found this in my foot. I thought it was a bit of thistle until I looked closer. It's the jawbone of a common shrew! It's tiny, about 7mm long.

It was such a lovely hot day (26°) even I removed a couple of layers while we spent the afternoon weeding, and watering.Even though it was mostly cloudy.

The cloches are off the sweetcorn and I planted out the Speedy dwarf french beans.

Some of the fennel is beginning to grow tall and thin, rather than the bulb fattening up, so I'm going to make soup with those tomorrow, before they go to seed.

The garlic has got rust - a common fungal disease, but it's due to be pulled anyway, so won't impact on growth at this stage. I've lifted some of the bulbs and will remove them soon because we don't want the rust spreading to the onions. I'll dry them out in the greenhouse, but need to check that rust can't spread to anything in there.

The runner beans are beginning to set, but seem quite slow growing across the site this year. Even with lots of empty plots the site cheers up when the towers and walls of scarlet flowers appear.

We've got a broad bean curry tonight and I'll have the yellow mangetout on the side so that the plants keep producing flowers.

An Extra Day on the Plot

I had plans for Tuesday, they fell through but once you've booked leave it's difficult to go back on that, particularly when the sun is shining, so we had a fabulous sunny day on the plot. We were doing more tidying of the plot - mostly Plot 7 and Plot 8. And we picked our first raspberries of the year - so tasty when eaten with strawberries.

Jamie found this tiny, tiny mushroom - look how small yet perfectly formed it is!

 I haven't been able to id it yet.

We're pleased to say that our second sowing of carrots has germinated and all the second sowing of mangetout have also popped out of the ground now. These are the yellow-podded ones, which are doing far better than the purple-podded. They're still a bit weak, but the flowers are pretty.

Whilst weeding and clear hundreds of tiny grape hyacinth bulbs (I'm drying them out in the greenhouse) I pulled this couch grass stem - look how nothing gets in its way! We've seen it growing through a potato before too!

The butterflies have re-emerged since the weather cheered up. Here's a white - I think it's a small white.

And in the evening we had the HAHA AGM. Not a great turnout, but more plotholders than committee members, so that's good! And we had a nice drink and chat after the hour of talking 'business'!