Heat Waves

Oh, I know I’ve moaned a lot about the weather over the last 6 months or so; too cold, too wet, too windy but the last 3 days really have been too hot! Even for me, a Sun worshipper. The early mornings are so beautiful and not too exhausting to carry watering cans around.

A few of us had an early-ish session on the roundabout on Sunday morning, before it got too sweltering.

It’s just about complete now, though Nia wants to fill a few spots. There are two outside rings of seed - calendula and cornflower. We’re away for a couple of weeks soon so I hope when we return it’ll be a mass of flowers… it would be helpful to have a few downpours.

We waited for storms yesterday; we could hear thunder nearby but it seems that a fierce storm emptied all the rain over Wiltshire and didn’t reach Berkshire, at least not Hungerford - shame, but the building clouds were impressive.

Watering is an unavoidable chore at the moment, the tomatoes are happy in the polytunnel but germination of our beans seems slow (nearly 2 weeks, though we’ve now seen that some have germinated but not appeared above ground yet). We decided to buy some dwarf bean and runner bean plants yesterday. If the sowed beans also grow then that’ll be a bonus. It feels like there’s too much bare earth showing at the moment, but it is only May so I think I’m being impatient.

The runner bean plants we bought are Painted Lady which are a red and white flowered variety.  As it happens we’ve just started seeing Painted Lady butterflies on site, they’re very pretty and quite large but I haven’t managed to get a photo yet. I did capture this lovely Small Copper butterfly that was in the polytunnel. Wasps will eat them if they stay in there so we always release them.

And this impressive male thick-legged flower beetle was on one of the perennial pot plants - it eats pollen so doesn’t cause any damage. No points for guessing how he got his name!

There are masses of bees and other flying insects about. They really love the purple thyme flowers but this bumblebee was determined to get something from this pretty poppy.

We’ve been waiting to see the great tits fledge - the parents have been so attentive. Taking turns to take grubs and caterpillars back to their nest in that storage area. They’ve not minded us working around them. The great tit is in that photo.

Here’s a little video where the parent flapping its wings seems to be encouraging the young to exit but then the other parent takes some food down to the nest. When we went back in the afternoon there was no sight of them so it seems we missed the little ones actually fledging, but it’s been nice watching the parents over the last few weeks.

The flower plot is looking pretty with pink verbascum, white valerian, blue Nigella and red poppies providing scent and colour. 

These wild poppies are so delicate and pretty but the flowers don’t last a day. Other seedlings are emerging but no flowers yet.

We were amazed to see that the remains of the tagetes French marigolds which were completely frosted and brown have actually re-grown! Good job I was lazy and didn’t bother pulling them! I definitely thought they were dead. 

Monday was incredibly hot - the hottest May Day on record, it was certainly about 32/33° on the plot and Jamie and I had a barbecue <phew>. We did start quite late in the afternoon and stayed till the Sun was about to set. It was so lovely, mostly staying in the shade and just enjoying the lovely warmth in between cooking.

I lay on the grass at one point, it was quite nice and cooling and provides a different view of the world, although it was rather itchy. Aah, just look at that beautiful blue sky.

My next post will probably be about Tenerife, unless something dramatic happens during our final plot visits this week….

The song title is thanks to The Glass Animals as the heatwave continues. 

Spread Your Wings

My 10 days off work started well, with some lovely, albeit windy, weather. Jamie and I lazed under the blue sky and had a barbecue on Friday.

It really was too hot to work - not that we were intending to do any. Instead, we were delighted to watch the great tits fledge. Jamie noticed that the chirping had changed. We saw a parent fly to the nesting site with a green caterpillar which it ate rather than taking it to the nest. Then we watched as four chicks flew out in turn - rather wobbly flying, but not bad for the first trip out. Then one of the parents returned to the nest site, chirped a bit and flew off. Finally, the last of the brood made its way to the edge of the crate and flew over us to join its siblings and parents in the hedge. Such a pleasure to watch and perfect timing for us!

The rest of the afternoon I mostly looked up at the beautiful blue sky and sweltered.

Aah, blue sky! How happy it makes me!

Saturday was still mostly sunny and warm so we managed to do some digging on plot3. Jamie’s dug and manured the hole for the melon, which is growing on in the polytunnel for the timebeing. I’ve dug the first trench for one side of the squash tunnel and filled it with manure. I’ve sowed the seeds in pots at home under the grow-light: Honeyboat, Festival, Winter Celebration and Sunshine. 

Talking of seeds, I’ve got some parsnips Sabre (hopefully) germinating on some paper towel so I can plant out if the seed proves viable… perhaps I’ll manage to grow more than 8!

I showed some newcomers around site yesterday - such a pleasure to show the site off when it’s looking so beautiful. Of course, they were enamoured with Ivan’s irises, so I can’t resist sharing some of the fabulous blooms here again. Just stunning.

And HAHA has its first iris in the bog garden on the wildlife plot. There are plenty more buds to follow that one.

And the foxgloves have flowered. Loads of evening primrose is growing, so that will be good for moths, which will in turn be good for bats. We’ll have to have a Summer night visit with the bat detector.

Our Cleor pepper has arrived so is growing on a bit at home, along with the tomatoes. The temperature dipped to 3° In the polytunnel the other night, so we're still playing it safe and not planting everything out yet. The song title, provided by Queen, is dedicated to those five little great tits. Out in the wide world for the first time, how frightening and a frost is threatened for tonight 😖 They should go back to their cosy nest, poor little things.

The Show Must Go On

The Royal British Legion Horticultural Show, co-hosted by HAHA, was yesterday. It's a small-ish show, but still a busy time. We were pleased to hear that there were 23 exhibitors showing over 70 exhibits.

Last week Jamie had selected our best potatoes, we didn't want to pull all the plants up, though we have cut the haulms down now. Orla were selected for the whites and Kestrel for the coloured categories.

On Saturday morning we were trying to find five matching shallots from the good harvest of Longor that we got this year. We are very pleased at how they grew especially considering their early start which included getting frozen into the ground by the Beast from the East! Once found we tied them off with raffia - it's not too tricky to do and makes them look professional.

Then we met several other plotholders on site desperately trying to find items to include in the show. The trouble is the word 'matching'. This year much of our veg has grown in odd shapes, so to find two the same is a miracle 😃

That's not one of ours, but you can see the type of problems we plotholders had!

I basically picked twice as much as we needed in the hope that we could cover most categories. It did feel good walking away from the plot with a stacked trugful of veggies and a load more that wouldn't fit in the trug.

That's the first of our peppers that actually coloured all over

So after cleaning, snipping, trimming and selecting we had what we could enter and I took them up to the Legion Hall. Ted and Kerry were already there from Marsh Lane setting up their veg, flowers, baking and photo displays and lots of exhibits were already out on the tables. I put ours out and then went into Newbury to collect our judge for the horticultural sections.

Most of the time I sat outside while Jean was judging, but when the sun went in I sat at the back of the hall. I prefer not to hear the actual scoring but it's interesting watching her examining items and some of her little comments. After a couple of hours I took Jean home and I went home for a bit of grub and a rest before the evening's entertainment.

Auctioning of the exhibits is fun with Jim as the perfect host

We were pleased to see that we came 3rd in the Horticultural section - just 3 points of winning the RHS Banksian medal - well, there's always next year! Here are most of our entries which were placed.

And here's me as HAHA rep waiting to present the medal to this year's winner.

So pleased that our plot-neighbour came first, but he couldn't win the medal as he won last year and our friend Kerry won the most points across the whole show - her baking, crochet and photography were champions!

Overall it was a fun, but tiring day. Then today we had our plotholder bbq at Marsh Lane - a much more casual affair than the Open Day but I had to be the veggie-burger chef so couldn't join in the fun as much as I wanted to - well, at least until we ran out of veggie food. We had a great crowd on the hot sunny afternoon.

Such a lovely bunch!

And the tallest sunflower prize went to Roger {over 2m}- who wasn't there! He will get his prize though, £30 donated by our local Wyevale Garden Centre :-)

So the song, as suggested by Jacquie is, of course, by Queen.

Man on the Moon

Last night Jamie and I had a bbq on the plot and were joined by lottie-buddy Kerry to do a bit of star-gazing and bat-watching. We'd preset the camera to try to capture the moon. This is probably the best one (with a little studio engineering).

Many others looked like this, but most were a lot more blurred. I've cropped this and changed the contrast otherwise the craters were barely visible. I need more practise, or a different camera.

I'm hoping that the Super moon - super BLOOD moon - super blood BLUE moon(!) will be visible on Friday night to try again... This week's lunar eclipse is meant to be a good one - but we're also forecast rain... hmm, which do we want to see more?! I know what the birds want - they've been queueing up for our birdbath - only Robbie is brave enough to drink from it while we are sitting nearby.

My Birthday week off work has been lovely so far. Sunshine all the way and scorching temperatures have meant that the watering regime continues, but that's fine when we can do it at our leisure.

Pimms and cake on the plot - nice

We harvested our first potato bag - Foremost. It produced a good crop of tasty perfect-sized tubers from just one seed potato (I forgot to weigh them before we ate some, but the remaining ones weigh 2kg).

And look how many more were waiting to grow!

So this post's title had to be moon-based.... so here's a bit REM to singalong to.

Yellow

It's been an extremely hot few days and we've visited the plot each evening to water the seeds and feed the tadpoles. Even I'm struggling a bit with the lovely heat as it arrived too quickly for my body to go from chilly to sweltering - but, really, I shouldn't complain!! Especially as it's really helped the plants to come to life...

I left work a little early on Friday - it had to be a barbecue evening and we got to use our new enamel mugs for the first time too. They were on sale through Photobox and only cost £6 each with our own photos.

It was so lovely to sit on the plot as the sun disappeared and the slice of moon became more visible. We were so pleased to be joined by the first bats that we've seen this year - flitting about under the ash tree beside our plot.

Then wandering home, slightly tipsy from the wine, along warm roads - just like Summer. This blossom photo, and the daffodil, were taken at night with the flash - it's a good effect.

Yesterday (Saturday) we spent a few hours on the plot transplanting marigold seedlings and Jamie sowed some Russian Giant sunflowers. And I stared at the tadpoles quite a lot, they're so fascinating - I don't think I paid attention enough when I was little. They're not just black anymore, which again confirms that they're frogs, not toads.

I (and a few other plotholders) went to Hungerford Primary School for an hour to help with their Make a Difference Day. I planted up some grape hyacinths and took along a pot of wildflower seeds, collected last year, plus some herb plants (sage and chives). The site looked more cheerful and loved when I left and a lot of volunteers were still working - hope it stays that way for a while at least!
And here's Coldplay with the title track...

Setting Sun

We were actually on the plot for over 3 hours this afternoon. OK, so not quite all of it working, but most of it... We had a welcome break with fellow plothoholder, Ivan, drinking his quince wine (Japanese quince, Japonica) and warming ourselves over the barbecue embers as the sun was sinking below the treeline.

It was a cold day but quite pleasant in the Winter sun and we had a plan - to move the compost bins from Plot 7 to Plot 3 and we achieved it. It was very tiring; lifting, wheelbarrowing and mixing - we each covered about 6km including the walk to and from the site.

We uncovered this lot while we were moving the bins... That ruined their hibernation but I'm sure some thrushes will be happy to find them where we flung them over the hedge! I'm pleased to say we didn't find any mice or rats.

Composting is so satisfying. All three bins had enough fully composted to fill a whole other bin which we'll use in our bean trench a bit later in the year.

The remaining unrotted compost we mixed up with some manure and more plot waste. We have plenty more to add, including some giant beets and more sweetcorn stalks. It's so great to create lovely organic compost from waste.

So now Plot7 has an empty spot... hmmm, what to fill it with this year...?

Well, we have had some seeds delivered, but these are mostly for our squash grotto, which needs a lot more work.

Title song provided by the excellent Chemical Brothers