Its Going to Happen

We had a lovely couple.of hours on the plot yesterday, in warm sunshine. The crocuses have opened up because of the extra warmth and we saw several (or possibly one) Brimstone butterflies flitting up and down alongside the hedge. There were also plenty of bees - bumblebees and other types.

It was lovely though we couldn't stay long. However, we managed to plant our shallots: 23 Red Sun. Each surrounded with a sprinkling of 6x. And then we covered them with some netting. Hoping that will keep the birds and mice away from them until they've grown enough roots to secure them to the ground.

Jamie hoed lime into this year's future brassica plot. The rest of the time we were on site we spent chatting with other plotholders and having some coffee and biscuits. There was plenty of gardening going on around us. We (the HAHA committee) have some plans for an area of the site near the toilet and one of the 'mares tail plots'. We have a work day in a couple of weeks so more on that in March... In the meantime, here is another photo of one of our crocus pots. (with a bumblebee who's just taken off)

Crocus are so pretty and there isn't much else of interest to photograph on site at the moment. However, Jamie did uncover these and I haven't identified them yet... I wonder if they're good guys or bad guys.. Suggestions are welcome!

Today we didn't make it to the allotment but we did drive to nearby Charlton Park Garden Centre to pick out a few additional seed potatoes. Such a great selection - but we don't need many as we always end up not using them.

We already have some Nicola and Kestrel. We bought a handful of individual tubers. I selected Dido, which we've not heard of before, because my Dad was an engineer at Harwell on the Dido reactor and the others are chosen because of their various attributes as shown below..

It was a shame we missed out on a second sunny February day on the allotment, but at least we have all our potatoes now. And I have two days off work so will hopefully catch up with a bit of plot-work then...maybe. We decided to go for a walk along the canal just as the sun was going down and were glad we did.

And the title is courtesy of The Undertones because Spring is surely on it's way...

A Whiter Shade of Pale

A mostly grey January has moved on to a white February. We had snowfall literally all day yesterday. That really doesn't happen often in West Berkshire, so it was very exciting. We had more than 16cm of snow by the end of the day.

I didn't want to risk the 25 mile journey to work (lucky I didn't as the roads became the usual mess) so I worked from home, keeping a close eye out the window with much repetition of the phrase "It's still snowing!".

Finally I'd worked enough hours so Jamie and I went for a walk through the Winter Wonderland...

..to the allotment, obviously. Crossing the slippery bridge over the part-frozen canal. All the ducks were hiding somewhere.

Passing by the Corn Exchange with the clock looking a bit special with its covering of snow

 

and along snow-filled roads to the allotment site.

We had to clear snow so that we could open the allotment gates and when we got to our plot we had to knock lots of snow off our polytunnel and netted cages.

Our plots look tidier with a blanket of snow on them!

Luckily there wasn't much damage but the squashes in the greenhouse are looking less edible than they did last week - I think they've finally succumbed to the cold.

And our poor broad beans ☹️ We knew they'd grown too much over the thus far mild Winter and we thought they'd get frost damage, but this was a bit extreme. At least half of the plants were squashed flat under that heavy weight of snow. There's a slim chance that they may re-grow - we'll see...

Look at all these goldfinches! They were flying around the allotment all the while - shame they didn't turn out for the Big Garden Birdwatch last weekend. And, do you know what a flock of goldfinches is called? A charm! Isn't that pretty? There were probably about 30 birds and one kestrel keeping close watch.

We didn't sit down....(!) but it was nice to trudge through the crunchy snow and release a pheasant that was stuck in someone's brassica cage...

With frozen fingers we walked home past other frozen people and children with very rosy cheeks pulling sledges. Such a lot of fun - if you don't need to travel.

And I wanted to share my photo, from January 31st at 7:30am. That's Venus on the left of the moon and Jupiter on the right - they were so bright (much brighter than this photo shows) in the clear morning sky, quite beautiful.

And the song title - Procol Harum of course, aah sing-a-long everyone :-)

White Winter Hymnal

I think this year we'll have to follow the astronomical calendar, rather than the meteorological one; 1st March definitely did not feel like the first day of Spring!

We've had very fine snow falling for much of the last two days and we're not used to snow, so we still love it!

We walked through quiet, snowy Hungerford and of course arrived at the allotment site.

All the plots are looking quite similar under the white blanket! Even the empty covered plots look nice.

I hope our garlic and shallots are ok under there. I'm particularly concerned about the french garlic, but at least there's time to buy more if necessary. Our broad beans in the greenhouse are a no-show, so we'll need to re-sow them. Well, -9° is just too low for germination I expect.

The snow is meant to continue till tomorrow and then turn to icy rain - bleah, that's much worse!

So that was a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon off work. And tonight we're having a curry which will include some fragrant fresh bay leaves courtesy of Vishal at work. I'm also freezing some, as they're more flavoursome than dried leaves. I look forward to adding them to carrot soup in the next few days.

This was a meal we had the other evening with Quorn mince, carrots and leeks - basically a cottage pie topped with filo pastry rather than potato because I think it looks so nice.

So, it's still Winter and this pretty title song is provided by the Fleet Foxes.

Time

February has begun mostly grey, wet and rather windy, but at least it's not January; such a long month - I'm really trying not to wish the months away but it's hard! We're keen to get started now, though it's too soggy to do much, so instead we did a bit of online shopping this morning, from Dobies of Devon. Here are a few of the basics that we'll be growing...

We've opted for grafted tomato plants again - they produce so many fruits and Aviditas is the sweetest, most delicious variety we grew last year. I also have some stripey tomatoes and these 'redcurrant tomatoes' look interesting. It seems they may be tricky to grow, so we've ordered plug plants rather than seeds.

And I ordered a few flowers for the plots too. The silky ones look very pretty and are good for bees apparently. I hope they aren't good for slugs! We're hoping that the frosty weather has set back the mollusk population this Winter - we can see evidence that the thrushes have.
I need to start thinking about sowing these quite soon.

The sun came out in the afternoon so we walked up to the plot. There were quite a few other plotholders enjoying the sunshine and making plans for the year. Jamie and I have planned what's-going-where on our plots. Well, it's a first draft; it's bound to change and more plants will get on our list...

We walked home as the sun dipped low and it started to get chilly.
Aah, here's a dance-along track from 'Jungle' to provide the soundtrack for today's title.

Cold Day in the Sun

With sub-zero temperatures and frosty nights over the last week we weren't expecting to do anything on the plot today, but decided to walk up to feed the birds in the afternoon.

The sun was shining and the sky was such a fabulous blue that we opted to walk along the towpath which was frozen solid, as was the canal!

There was evidence that some boats had moved but most were moored in sunnier spots with their heaters on and doors shut down.

There were lots of thrushes, robins and wrens on the allotment - quite a bit of squabbling too as they try to protect their territories.

The sun's heat had managed to melt the top layer of frost, but where the heat didn't get through there were interesting things to look at:

A frosty brick, looking like a frozen landscape in miniature

Puddles which had frozen - is this a spanish galleon?...

Then melted and re-frozen trapping the air bubbles in bizaare shapes (I'm pretty sure there's a sea creature in there).

We left before the sun went down. I got up before the sun today, specifically to take photos of the steamy River Dun from the A4 bridge. It was beautiful, but so cold!

And today's song title is brought to you by Foo Fighters...

Nice Weather for...

...Ducks!

It wasn't raining when we walked up to the allotment today. We knew it would be soggy after so much rain over the last week though. We did have one night of frost, but it's mostly been about rain.

At the Town Council meeting on Monday we heard that the housing developer is granting us a one year extension on the site lease - with the 'possibility' of a permanent lease if planning is granted on an entirely separate piece of land in the town. We have the HAHA General Meeting this Monday so it'll be good to hear how the other plotholders feel. 

So, it's great that we can start preparing for April now, but will likely have to look forward to this again in a year's time. 

Newbury Weekly News

Some things are still growing (not just the grass). This is one of the beetroots which Jamie sowed in late July (or possibly later than that)! Wonder if it'll actually ever bulb up?

We have started ordering. Jamie's ordered some tomato plants and I've ordered some stuff, including loofah seeds! We also have plans for spuds but more on all this when things actually get delivered!

I bet mine won't look as perfect as these ones!

We hadn't been on site long when it started pouring and the wind blew up. This year's robin hid rather than eating the food we took up for him and I hid too, thank goodness for the greenhouse! (It's the sound that's better than the video on this...)

 

I hope it's not like this for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of the month!

 

A Day out from Hungerford

A little off topic, but as this is an allotment blog, here's how our site looked from the train yesterday.

You can see our greenhouse under the tree at the back in the middle

We took the 7 minute train trip to Great Bedwyn just so that I could get that photo - we see so many trains going past while we're sitting on the bench I wanted to see it from the other perspective. It wasn't quite as successful as I'd hoped; my favourite little Olympus camera is playing up :-(

Great Bedwyn is along the Kennet and Avon canal West of Hungerford but we've never quite managed the 8km walk there. So, from the station at Great Bedwyn we walked the 3km to Crofton Beam Engines along the canal. It was reasonably warm and bright so good for walking.

We didn't go to see the beam engines as we went earlier in the year and they weren't 'in steam' yesterday so we walked on to find the Wilton Windmill which was signposted from the Crofton lock.We stopped for a little picnic at Wilton Water where we saw this cormorant (we think that's what it is).

and a heron along with masses of kites and buzzards.

We found the windmill after walking through the very pretty village of Wilton.

It was a bit further than we thought, but definitely worth the walk and the sun came out while we were sitting in the windmill field.

As it was a weekday the windmill wasn't open but it was lovely sitting looking up at it and the fabulous views beyond.

A walk back through the fields and we were on our way back along the canal to our train trip home.

A total of 15km walked was plenty and made for a lovely birthday.

It's raining today, so no allotment today either - well, maybe just a quick visit...