Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
It’s been extremely hot again, reaching 30° and there’s still a holiday-feel in Hungerford when the Sun shines. We’ve enjoyed walks to feed the ducks in town and on Sunday went to the monthly Food & Artisan market and had a cake by the canal - lots of canal boats visiting. The allotments are further up the canal in that direction.
On Wednesday I took leave so Jamie and I had a trip to the seaside - Hayling Island, we haven’t been there for years. It was rather cold and windy 🙄 but we did enjoy some terrific thunder and lightning!
We went on the little train along the beach, well, why wouldn’t you?!
It was fun trundling along waving at people and we couldn’t have walked it.
We played on coin-push machines, had chips and watched seagulls arguing over some biscuits. Traditional British seaside amusement ☺️
We even had a paddle in the sea - I was panicking that Jamie would fall down, but I’m pleased to say all went well!
I’m leaning rather than the horizon - I was paddling at the time
So, no matter what the weather we had a fab, exhausting, day. Of course, the next day I had to work and it was really hot again - we were too tired to even visit the plot so it had another day without water - the plants, especially the flowers and sunflowers really didn’t appreciate it and were completely flagging by Friday but have cheered up again now.
The amaranthus (Love lies bleeding) was transplanted when it popped up having self-seeded amongst the potatoes so I’m pleased that survived. And I think I sowed the cerinth last year (or maybe it was this year) and there’s a nice little cluster of those interesting flowers in the flowerbed.
Many veg plants are going over now though, seems like a short season. The Baby cucumber has burned itself out and I’ve started removing some of the dried bean pods from the Gigantes with the Borlotti following soon. But the melons are trying hard to produce something…. This is in the polytunnel and the outdoor plants have a few fruits too.
And the squashes on the tunnel are beginning to flower and fruit - this is the so-called rampant Shark’s Fin melon squash. Well, perhaps not rampant for us this year… or perhaps there’s still time.
I’m pleased that the earlier-sown radishes have produced their seed pods now which I enjoy snacking on and the flower is quite pretty too.
The aubergines are bulking up and more tomatoes are ripening - even a few of the tiny redcurrant tomatoes so there’s still more to enjoy - but I’m glad I didn’t sign-up to put anything in the Horticultural Show!
The Doobie Brothers provide the excellent song title - enjoy ☺️
On Thursday I sowed some Tigerella tomato seeds in a tray - they're on my windowsill at work because it's such a light window without full sun. And, as an aside, that lovely orchid has been in flower since the Christmas holidays!
Yesterday we spent 6 hours on the plot - exhausting work, but great to have cleared and dug such a large area of Plot3. This is how it looked initially...
And, after Jamie dug a huge trench and we added three of last years spent tomato bags plus 3 bags of lovely home-made compost...
We could then rake it over and it now it looks like this.
And to stop the annoying weeds returning before we've even planted the broad and runner beans, we've covered the whole lot in weed fabric.
Today I sowed 25 sweet peas in the greenhouse - protected by 'giant crumpet' packages, which happen to be a perfect fit for those pots!
Surprisingly we managed to miss any rain all weekend - though today certainly threatened.
Another thing I missed (pretty much) was the steam train that went past while we were working yesterday...
Today's song is by Linkin Park - such a great song and video. It should be 'what we've done' of course!
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...
