Early Days

The last couple of weeks we’ve had a mix of hot sunny days, frosty nights and more recently strong winds. We had a couple of showers but not enough rain to make much difference to the dry soil.

I’ve had a lingering cold and had my Covid booster so haven’t felt like working or plotting, but perhaps I’ll manage some today before rain is due this afternoon and I have a week off work after Easter so I hope there are some reasonable days for catching up. On a couple of quick visits we managed to hastily sow a row of parsnips - if they germinate I have a feeling there may be some wonky veg growing there!

And I dug a small plot and sowed mangetout. They’re usually one of our first harvests, but I’ve been a bit slow this year. I’ve put some protection round now they’ve popped up or the pigeons will clear the lot. The shallots in the raised bed have all got healthy looking green shoots now.

The purple sprouting broccoli has been producing lovely shoots - so delicious.

I’ve sown some asparagus pea and chard in modules in the polytunnel. I’ll choose the coloured chard stems to plant out, once an area has been dug.

The seedlings are growing quite slowly because of the fluctuating temperature but that is suiting our slower pace of life at the moment. Jamie’s walking without a stick most of the time, but the fatigue still makes things difficult, but slowly, slowly…

The broad bean gap-fillers that we sowed last month have sprouted and I’m hoping the blossom will be out in our ‘orchard’ when I go up in a bit - shame the sky isn’t this lovely blue today.

Blog title provided by Paul McCartney. Because it is…early days.

So Here We Are

I had an early start on the plot this morning. The Sun arriving over the rooftop at 7am while Jamie slept on. It was a quite chilly 4° but ok once I started digging. There, that looks better. The 3 plants in the middle of that plot are salsify. I’ve left them to flower as Neal’s looked so good last year.

I’m tired now, but hopefully we’ll go up later as I want to pot on some seedlings. We ordered a couple of ‘basket collection’ packs of the tiniest plug plants and potted them on in the week; they grow so quickly and seemed like a bargain though I didn’t mean to order two packs 🤦‍♀️ There are petunia, lobelia, begonia and bacopa snowtopia.

We went for a lovely walk round Bowdown Woods (near Greenham Common) at the end of March. The wood anemones are so pretty carpeting the ground between the bare trees. Masses of bluebells are growing their leaves but no flowers yet.

It was certainly our longest walk for many months and possibly a bit too much for Jamie really, but it was such a beautiful day.

Many of the trees are coated in lichens, which I understood to be a sign of clean air - though I’m not sure how clean the air is around the old RAF Greenham Common Airbase 🧐

I’ve had some home-grown veg over the last couple of weeks. I’ve pulled some leeks and found an unexpected harvest of Brussels sprouts when I was chopping back the plants - they were delicious!

And I’ve had two harvests of our purple sprouting broccoli. It is worth the wait. This was tasty in a red pepper sauce with some fake bacon.

It’s felt like a good week, helped a lot by the warm sunny weather. The temperature was 23° when we visited the plot yesterday afternoon. Jamie’s feeling quite a lot better and sleeping is more comfortable some nights which helps with motivation. We drive to the plot for a quick visit most afternoons, even if we just sit down it’s a pleasure (if there’s no cold wind). Who wouldn’t want to sit under this beautiful blackthorn?

The polytunnel needs to be opened and closed each day because nights are very cold with sweltering days in there. Our seedlings seem to be enjoying it and they’ll be staying in for quite a while yet. I’ve got a lot more digging and clearing to do…

We planted the Red Sun shallots in the raised bed a week ago, there are 12 in there. No green shoots yet, but I’m sure their roots have already started moving down to find the well-rotted manure at the base of that bed and the soil must be pretty warm.

I sowed these flower seeds at home at the end of March; no sign of the cleome yet, but the tagetes minuta have germinated and have been moved into the polytunnel. We really need to start thinking about more veg seed sowing, but there are only so many hours in the day!

Our lives have changed so much since Jamie had his stroke 2 months ago. I was used to him doing all the shopping, washing up and most of the cooking. Well, it’s my turn now! Jamie had his fair share of caring when I was on dialysis. 17 years ago today I had my kidney transplant. I regularly thank the NHS for that life-saving opportunity and now we’re thanking them again for Jamie’s treatment and care. I know where we’d both be without the NHS and it’s a bleak picture. But we have a National Health Service and it may be struggling, it may not be ‘as good as it used to be’, it may let some people down but I am ever thankful for it and will always support it.

Title song is brought to us by Bloc Party - enjoy the fine weather if you can and make the most of where you are.

I gotta Feeling

The blackthorn is in flower and look at the black sky beyond. We had a sudden sharp shower in the middle of a rather lovely warm day last weekend. By the way, in case I ever remember … Blackthorn blossoms before its leaves start to show, whereas hawthorn flowers after its leaves have emerged.

Here are the seedlings. 1 week after sowing, the redcurrant tomatoes and most of the lark sweetcorn had germinated; the courgette emerged a couple of days later. We wrapped them in fleece and they’re now in the polytunnel, getting over the shock of the move.

Zinnia Forecast were sown into window sill modules on 23rd March and those seedlings look like cress so they’re also protected in the polytunnel. I’ve sown Penstemon into modules. They’re a bit more tricksy and need to germinate at 4° before being brought back into the warmth. They’re on our cold doorstep, no sign of life yet.

I’ve been logging into work really early (before 6:30am 🥱) and then we can have a couple of hours on the plot after work - that’s the plan but it doesn’t always work out. We’ve lit the chiminea but a cold wind has meant we’ve had to cut visits short. Jamie is suffering some bad neuropathic pain down his left side, he’s on pills but we hope the warm weather will soon arrive which may encourage a bit more movement.

Jamie started a bit of weeding of the garlic and the plants definitely look happier now, especially with a bit of added garlic fertiliser. Luckily we’ve had a little rain after the photos were taken; the ground is surprisingly dry after our drenching Winter. The area beside them will be for the potatoes in a few weeks, so that’s on the list for clearing soon!

We reclaimed some pallet collars which make excellent raised beds. This will be for some shallots. After not moving for a few months I’m finding the exercise to be quite <erm> challenging! But allotment visits are definitely good for mental well-being.

I popped up to unzip the polytunnel the other day and I really wanted to stay. Look how many birds were singing during a 30second recording! So beautiful.

Our broad beans really didn’t enjoy our Winter this year, so we’ve popped seeds directly into the soil to fill the gaps.

Ok, I realise there are more gaps than plants at the moment! But there are flowers, so hopefully we’ll achieve a bit of succession harvesting…

And finally. Some PSB is appearing! Such a slow harvest, but I do think it’s worth the wait. There are more florets than that!

And now I think I’d better go up to open the polytunnel. It’s been a cold night but bright sunshine will now be heating those little seedlings up too much. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the partial solar eclipse later. It does look beautiful out there, but I gotta feeling it’s going to be cold!

Black Eyed Peas give us the song title - dance around, keep warm!

Convoy

Ohh I do love a wispy cloud - especially when the sky is that blue! No enhancement necessary, beautiful! That was Saturday - a perfect day for Hungerford's D-Day commemoration events. I walked up the High Street and enjoyed seeing all the visitors sitting by the canal and lining the road, which was bedecked with flags and ribbons.

I came back to our less-crowded end of town for the 60-vehicle convoy to pass by. It was a bit late as it got stuck behind a steam engine which was also heading for Hungerford - haha, it's happened to us all! But standing waiting in the sunshine was no chore.

This old 1930s fire engine is driving past Hungerford's old fire station 😊 It was fun watching all the vehicles pass by waving and honking their horns. Oh, here's another cloud photo.

Following that interesting interlude we went back to the allotment. Such a beautiful day to sit, watch and chat but we also had a lot of work to do this weekend. I finally managed to clear the final quarter of Plot7 - almost impossible to dig, but luckily Cavolo Nero doesn't need a soft base. Fellow plotholder Mari responded to my plea for plants (thanks Mari!) so now I have 3 planted. I've put a net over them for now but it will need to be higher than that when they start growing - I'm hoping that the enviromesh will prevent whitefly which kale is so prone to.

The radish and chard that I sowed last weekend have germinated and I've sowed a row of Yin Yang beans alongside the one plant that germinated at home. I think I'll direct-sow some dwarf french beans too as the french beans on the frame on Plot3 are a bit sluggish.

We've planted our brassica into the cage on Plot3: 4 brussels sprouts and 5 purple sprouting brocolli. The ground there was rock solid too but they should appreciate that...

There are 3 sunflowers (multi-headed) planted out in the sweetcorn patch along with the 2 Festival squash and some zinnia. I'm hoping this is the 'Before' photo and quite soon that will be a lovely lush-looking plot full of flowers and foliage.... We're expecting to finish the last of the broad beans this week - they've been excellent this year - and they'll make way for the leeks in a few weeks time.

The verbena bonariensis is looking good - prettier in real life, but the lower level of the flower bed is looking rather bare. I'm sure the zinnia, marigolds and snapdragons will pretty that up quite soon, if they get a chance to fill out - although, look! It's July already 😯 Looking at last years photo we seem to be about 2 weeks behind at the moment, really hoping we get an extension to the end of the growing season.

I'm sure it'll be fine - just like the England football team who put the fans through hell last night but went on to nick the match in the final minutes! Yay- come on England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

And there's a pretty potato flower - Desiree.
Now, enjoy the song by CW McCall - oh those seventies movies!

And don't forget to VOTE - unless you're voting for the wrong choice in which case don't bother! 😁

You Need Hands

Look at all that fresh new growth. That was last weekend, a nice sunny day but a freezing wind and there’s fleece protecting our strawberry plants because there was frost in the week. I weeded the flowerbed by hand. Perennials are emerging and I’ve bought lots of flower seeds, mostly annuals, for sowing quite soon. I pulled quite a lot of the Nigella which does rather take over, but they are pretty flowers and seedheads.

What you may not have noticed in the photo is this broomrape (Orobanche) just emerging, there’s another one popping up too. They’re parasitic plants which get their nutrients from the roots of their host plants. If it’s Common Broomrape, which is likely, it has multiple rather than one preferred host plant - it should be more obvious when it grows more.

And here are a few of the tadpoles in our tiny pond. They stay low when the weather is cold but you can see movement when they’re eating the duckweed and they’re enjoying the algae growing on the sides of the pond. They’ll move on to eating meat quite soon so they can eat snails and flies that fall in the water. I really hope they get a taste for snails, there are so many everywhere!

At last there’s a bit of sowing and planting underway. These are shop-bought; a Blight Buster tomato, Money Maker tomato and a Summer Ball yellow courgette which we’ll grow in the polytunnel until (if) Summer arrives. Jamie has sown some Claret purple sprouting broccoli and Brechin Brussels sprouts seeds on another windowsill and we planted the potatoes yesterday! Yay!

Four Desiree into the ground on Plot7, two Wilja and four Rocket into bags on Plot8. 

I do like a close-up of potato chits! Such interesting features.

It was actually quite a pleasant day yesterday. Though rain threatened it didn’t arrive till later so we had a nice few hours on the plot and I got a bit more weeding done where I want to sow my mangetout. Last weekend I weeded ‘The Orchard’ - ok, so just 3 tiny twigs at the moment, but look!

Our first blossom! One day that may be a cherry 😄

Aah, look at that gorgeous blue sky and fresh leaves on the trees. This was last week, so beautiful and the birds are really active. On the advice of plotholder Linda we’ve downloaded the Merlin app and it’s great for recognising bird song, perhaps we’ll even learn from it. There are plenty of robins, blue tits, goldfinches and wrens around as well as gathering numbers of swallows. Also, lots of magpies, crows, jackdaws and 11 red kites circling overhead!

I’ve been watching this jackdaw and its mate from our window. See the two sticks poking up from the chimney pot - he’s been having a lot of trouble with them! I bored Jamie for hours with updates the other day 🤭 The jackdaw had selected a stick that was far too long to manoeuvre and he kept dropping it, I think he gave up in the end. And that’s why I decided on the song title - Malcolm McLaren’s version from the Great Rock & Roll Swindle rather than Max Bygraves.