Its Only Natural

What an unexpected bonus for two days leave in February - temperatures in the high teens with a beautiful blue sky. Just lovely! Yesterday we had little trip to a nearby village called Inkpen to visit a ... field.

And what a field! The Inkpen Crocus Field is apparently "Britain's biggest display of wild crocuses" and I'm not surprised, but I am surprised that we only learned of its existence a couple of weeks ago.

The flowers aren't densely packed like in Kew Gardens or other cultivated gardens. It's prettier, I think, because the blooms aren't really in clumps as you may expect. Were they brought back by 12th Century crusaders? Or have they just escaped from nearby gardens? Well, surely there would be yellow ones if they were garden escapees....

Anyway, we loved it (and so did all the bees) and if you're in the area you should take a look.

And we saw a couple of deer while we were there - always a pleasure to spot these shy animals.

Male Roe Deer

Female Roe Deer

After that little jaunt we were working on the plot today. We cleared the patch where we had left potatoes in the ground. None suitable for eating, not surprisingly after all these months! Jamie gave it a good dig over once we'd cleared all the spuds - that looks better!

I planted up two pots for a Summer display - intended to pretty up the communal area during our Open Day in July/August (we haven't agreed a date yet). I added a small Rudbeckia plant to the Leucocoryne pot, as they are only meant to flower in June/July, whereas the Crocosmia should flower 'all Summer long'.

I chopped back all the snow-damaged broad bean plants - it hasn't left much growth! But we have plans to sow some more beans in modules, so if we manage to get even a few early ones from these plants we'll be happy.

And here's an impressive beetle I found. Looking gorgeous in the sunshine - A violet oil beetle, given away by lovely violet tinges on its sides and legs.

The title song by Crowded House is of course referring to the Inkpen Crocus Field.

Busy Earnin

The weather took a bit of a turn since that lovely Bank Holiday weekend. We've had sunshine,  but a chilly wind and clear nights have brought us a few frosts. We've been fleecing the strawberries and shutting the tender plants in the greenhouse each evening.

We've been sprinkling earth over the potato leaves which keep appearing. We don't want them to get frost-bite at this stage in their growth. Jamie prepared the compost for the potato bags and we've put one seed potato in each bag:
Nicola
Pentland Javelin
Foremost
Catriona

We have courgettes germinating at home as well as our grafted pepper (Chelsea, Britney and Milena) and aubergine (Meatball!) plants. Jamie's potted them on twice since they were delivered. I potted on the Rainbow chard plants in the greenhouse. A few for me and mostly red-stemmed and yellow-stemmed plants for selling on. They look much happier a week on..

This flower has been in a pot all through the Winter and didn't do anything except grow a few extra leaves last year, but this year it's looking lovely - I can't remember what it is.

That was last weekend and yesterday, in sweltering sunshine, we weeded a large area of Plot3 and prepared a hole for our runner beans.

I sowed a few more salad leaf, radish and onions and, I'm very pleased to say, I planted my mangetout seedlings (Shiraz and Golden Sweet) and also my sweet peas along with a lot of excess plants from Ivan. So good to be getting more plants into the ground.

I've been a bit worried about the tadpoles as I've only spotted three recently, but I'm hoping it's because they've gone to the bottom of the pond, which is very green now. I replenished some of the water and have put a bit more shade over it. I hope they're not afraid of this little Indian addition to the garden :-)

The lily beetle has found the plants that are next to the pond... Aren't they pretty, but not welcome!

So the song title is because I've had a couple of very busy weeks at work. I'm hoping it'll calm down a bit next week so that I feel like doing a bit of work on the plot in the evenings, we'll see... Enjoy the video - Great dancing!