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.

The Time is Now

OK, so it may not be Summer, but this is the kind of weather I like to see when I have more than a week off work! It was so beautiful yesterday after a grey start, so I’m hoping today will be the same.

The site has been very active over the long May Day weekend. People arriving with egg boxes full of spuds with the same plan as us. We haven’t gone over the top with potatoes this year. We have 2x2 Nicola in bags and these in the ground. Sarpo Mira is a maincrop with good blight resistance; Desiree is a maincrop which makes amazing mash and Nicola is a second early which is a tasty salad potato and good for mashing.

The beetroot seedlings are struggling to arrive but some of the seeds that we sowed a week ago in the polytunnel have started to appear so morning visits will be needed for opening the doors and watering if it’s going to be warm. The temperature quickly rises to over 30° in there if the Sun appears.

A few more seeds sown at home this weekend are: Radish Rat’s Tails, Bush Delicata squash, Sunburst patty pan, All Green courgette, Tall Timbers sunflowers and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins. Also, lobelia which made me think that I shouldn’t have complained about the size of the Nicotiana seeds last week! And these are the parsnip seeds that I germinated on paper towel in a plastic lidded container.

They’re sown into the ground which has been under black weed suppressant for a couple of weeks. I sowed two rows: the row on the left in this photo was pre-germinated, so will see what difference it makes, if any. I’ve put a cover over them more for protection from birds than any good reason.

A few more seeds sown were radish and perpetual spinach in the raised bed. The Egyptian walking onions are growing very slowly and look very similar to the grass and weeds that I had to clear but now the weather is cheering up a bit they may get moving (not walking yet 🤭). 

And lastly, two rows of Spring onions, some red, some white have been sowed on Plot 3 where Jamie also spent a lot of time yesterday digging the hole for the melon to grow.

The purple sprouting broccoli on that plot is beginning to flower. I’m hoping to get at least one more harvest. I included some in this Katsu curry with Cluck the other evening - delicious.

I appreciate these photos are mainly of dirt, but well, it’s that time of year.  To make up for all the brown in this blogpost, here’s a beautiful little phlox flower that’s growing on the fringes of the HAHA Wildlife plot bog garden.

And here’s a ladybird, they’re just beginning to emerge and will be looking out for mates now. I hope the larvae arrive before the blackfly this year!

The birds have mostly paired up now - we’ve seen pairs of goldcrest, blue tits and great tits in the hedge. The robins are feeding their females and are very demanding of us with their tuneful song. The jackdaws and magpies are squabbling even more than usual and are most upset by the carrion crow that has a nest nearby. And there is a flock of starlings that swoop down from the power cables when the site isn’t too busy.

As you can see, it’s all happening so the song title provided by Moloko is very apt. Enjoy 😊 

Time for Action

What a lovely long day we had on the allotment yesterday. It was warm and the Sun even appeared from between the cloud at times.

We’ve taken the net cloches off the broad beans so that the bees and other insects can do their pollination duty to provide us with some tasty broad beans quite soon. The photo above is one of the plants sown at the end of October- they survived the extreme frost; some of their gang didn’t which is why we have a bit of succession planting.

Yesterday we were mostly sowing (and chatting and listening to the birds) during our several hours on the plot. In the inner polytunnel tunnel we have: Flowers: Verbena bonariensis, Nicotiana Whisper, Ipomoea Iobata (Spanish flag), Calendula Officinalis ‘Canteloupe’, Marigold ‘Legion of Honour’, Sunflower ‘Tall Timber’ and veg: Rainbow chard, Asparagus pea and an All Green courgette is an early sowing at home.
The nicotiana (Tobacco plant) has the tiniest possible seeds - there they are a tiny smudge in the bottom of that miniature phial. And only 20 seeds! But I know they're a pretty flower so I hope they work.

 

Most of these flowers are destined for the flower plot this year, around the bench. It's great to see the perennials re-appearing now the ground is warming up and the daffodils finally came out.

I'm trying to keep on top of the weeds which are appearing and also pulling up some of the masses of Nigella. Having said that, Ivan gave us this plant, which looks a bit like Nigella - but we're not too sure what it is at this point. It's probably a weed as it was growing amongst his irises. I do like the foliage and I'm sure the flowers will provide an identification quite soon and we can decide then whether it's a keeper.

I was going to sow some veg outside but the ground was too wet. I have a week off soon so hopefully the weather will be a bit drier then. If we get the spuds planted out next week we'll have some space under the grow lamp at home. I've started parsnips by germinating them at home on a paper towel - they are notoriously awkward germinators so this way I'll only plant viable seed to get the best chance of a few parsnips this year.

At the weekend we spotted our first swallow of the season and then yesterday it was joined by a pair of house martens so it's really beginning to feel Spring-like, although night-time temperatures are still dipping close to zero (centigrade) and frosty rooftops are still regular morning sights. The birds were in full song at the weekend though and Ted pointed out at least two song thrushes, by their songs. That would help to explain all the broken snail shells but there are plenty of living snails left!

I spent a lot of time scrambling around by the pond trying to get a 'from the bottom of the pond' style photo. I had my camera on remote control using my phone and had some tadpoles in a transparent pot. It was quite awkward and of the 20-ish photos this was the best but isn't quite what I was aiming for ... oh well, perhaps I'll try again another day.

But I thought this gelatenous outline was quite interesting on this shot.

Anyway, enough about tadpoles! Here's an arty photo of purple sprouting brocolli and chive flower buds which formed part of my meal the other night. 

I used one of the frozen bean burgers that I made a few weeks ago. I squashed it flat like a pancake; it still fell apart, but I really like the flavour of borlotti beans.

At 3pm yesterday everyone (almost) reached for their phones as we received our first ever Government 'Emergency Alert' - great, what a hopeful new advance for the 21st Century...😕

Oh well, it gave me an excuse to use this song by Secret Affair. Let's hope we never have to hear the alert alarm again.