How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Aah, what a joy to see blue sky and sunshine. Working on the plot it certainly felt Spring-like (ok, so I did need a big jumper and coat but still..!). The sunshine brought lots of plotholders out of hibernation and we spent several hours on site both days. You can see from the shape of the polytunnel that it was still extremely windy but even that cold wind wasn't too awful. We’ve partially dug and weeded various parts of the plots but it’s hard work compared to the working-week, when I only walk about 35 steps most days 😖

I showed some new plotholders around the site and they quickly snapped up a 3-pole plot which had been left in perfect condition by the previous plotholder - at 90, Ron had to give up his plot and I'm glad that it's gone on to an ex-gardener who should keep it looking well-loved. We have quite a few more plots to re-let so are just working through the waiting list now. I love showing people round, especially on such a beautiful day when the site looks welcoming, even in February.

The Wildlife plot gained a plot sign and another plant - an oxeye daisy which spreads easily and forms big clumps of tall flowers that the insects love. There were quite a few insects around including bumblebees and ladybirds, but they're fighting for the few spots of colour that are just appearing.

The Wildlife plot also gained some nice stepping stones from a plot which was recently released from another of our long-term plotholders. I'm sure she would be pleased to see them put to good use on a communal area.

This is the robin that hangs round the Wildlife plot. He (we think it is a male as he sings a lot) comes extremely close and took a mealworm from my hand, but wasn't willing to stand on my hand just yet. The robins near our plot are much less tame.

We had a nice taco meal the other night to celebrate our un-wedding anniversary. It was very tasty but they are a messy thing to eat - I wouldn't want to eat them in public 😀

Last week I had a couple of days off, but the weather was wet and windy so we couldn't do much. We picked some leeks and the single purple sprouting broccolli plant is still providing me with some tasty greens. The leeks went into a cheesy leek pasta dish and we had another lot in a stuffing for baked potatoes. 

I used the PSB along with mushrooms that I marinated in a harissa sauce - I really like the Rose Harissa flavouring, just spicy enough for my palette and it's a great colour.

Today I'm working so don't mind that the weather has returned to grey drizzle (I am on my lunch break at the moment - avoiding watching the sad depressing news about Ukraine. For goodness sake, Putin! Haven't we got enough to put up with, with COVID-19 still hanging round?!).
Florence and the Machine provided the song title.

In the Gloaming

Two very cold afternoons on the allotment this weekend. We’ve actually started to do a bit of clearing. I say ‘we’, it was mostly Jamie working while I took photos of the impressive clouds, but I did a bit.

We were having such a pleasant time, even though it was really cold. We chatted with several plotholders who we haven’t seen in months. We’re sad to be losing a few plotholders this year who we’ve really enjoyed getting to know over the last few years; I really hope we can have some socials in the not-too-distant future so that we can meet up again.

On Saturday we saw a sparrow hawk flying along the hedgerow with, what appeared to be, a bloody pigeon in its talons. We aren’t positive on the id, but both noticed the greyness of its back and wings. We also saw the bullfinches (heard the call first) and long-tailed tits. I should have done my RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch then, rather than yesterday…. Here’s my tally, (which wasn’t worth sitting still and freezing for!):

1 wren

2 blue tits

2 magpies

2 robins (nice to see they’ve paired up)

1 great tit

2 wood pigeons

Once I’d finished with that Ivan gave me some roots of Rosebay willowherb (Chamaenerion angustifolium) to plant up in the HAHA Wildlife plot. I cleared an area of the plantain (Plantago lanceolata) which is good for some wildlife (apparently) but rather boring to look at - we need a plot which generates interest and wildlife as well as curtailing the spread of marestail (which it seems to be doing).

Back on Plot7 many of the leeks don’t look too healthy although they look happier than the broad bean plants, but we’ve seen them recover before so fingers crossed. I’m pleased that we planted the leeks deeper last year, so once pulled there’s a good amount of leek for eating.

We pulled a couple of carrots and five of the best leeks on Saturday and had some with cheesy pasta. And yesterday morning I made chunky soup with leek, carrot and honeyboat squash (note to self: raw honeyboat squash can be easily peeled with a potato peeler). I added rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and veggie stock as flavouring.

I made soup with roasted honeyboat squash last weekend and used rose harissa to flavour. It has a really good spicy flavour and two big teaspoons didn’t add too much heat - I couldn’t taste the rose petals, but I’m glad it lasts for months in the fridge.

I’m getting through my squash supply now and last week I had a stuffed festival squash with ‘Brazilian Smokey beans’. I must say that the beans weren’t as flavoursome as when I make Smokey beans with my home-dried ones.

Last night I wanted to use the purple sprouting broccoli that I picked so I used a packet of Merchant Gourmet grains and rice with a couple of slices of ‘fake bacon’ which needed eating. The PSB was the best part of the meal 😊

Our spuds are now chitting in the hallway: Nicola, Sarpo Mira, Desiree (just one) and I couldn’t resist buying three Salad blues as the colour looks so good.

The post title is derived from speaking to Min’s sister as we were saying goodbye to Min in the gloaming (twilight - I’d never heard the word before). The Sun is arriving earlier and is still reasonably light at 5:00pm - a welcome sign of things to come.

Song provided by Trentemøller.

First

Three weeks into January already? How did that happen? January always felt like the longest month of the year. Not in 2022 it seems. To be honest, not much has happened. Weather has been mostly wet and when it’s not wet it’s freezing. I forced myself outside one sunny morning and walked up the High Street. The swan family are looking good and hassling people for food.

They’re so big when they walk up to you out of the water! They spend a lot of time preening to look as beautiful as their parents one day. There are seven cygnets in this family.

We’ve visited the allotment most weekends but it’s been too chilly to hang round and too wet to do much, even if we were so inclined. We actually had an excellent snow shower one work-day afternoon; lovely huge flakes and it quickly settled, but 10minutes later it had all disappeared! I’m still working from home and hope I can continue to do so, at least until after my fourth jab which is due in February.

I made a tasty spicy soup, with a Festival squash which had been stored in the polytunnel over Winter. Unfortunately a lot of the pumpkins went mouldy so we put them outside and they’re being eaten by wildlife now. I think I’ll set up a wildlife camera to see who’s enjoying them.

Ivan gave us a couple of yacons that he harvested last year and had stored in his polytunnel. Fellow plotholder, Min, started growing them and shared some growing tubers. The bushy plants have small yellow flowers. It’s an interesting sweet tasting crunchy fruit and it’s very juicy. We have one more saved in the fridge.

I made a Smokey bean stew, with dried Borlotti and runner beans. Two tasty evening meals and enough for a lunch with these blue corn tortilla chips that were included in a hamper we received for Christmas from my nephews.

I’ve literally only left the flat about eight times this year, with two outings to Swindon last week (one for a blood test and one for a clinic appointment 😄) That’s enough excitement for one week so now I have a couple of days off work. We visited the freezing plot yesterday afternoon. Unsurprisingly no-one else was there. We saw three grey squirrels frolicking in the trees and were joined by a very friendly robin near the wildlife plot. We saw a female bullfinch there last week - I must remember to take my big camera, rather than just my phone.

As I walked back to our plot to get the monocular to look at some other birds, I noticed a movement in the hedgerow. Look at this little bank vole! 

He was so unconcerned by me that I’m worried that he may not be long for this world ☹️ So cute and lovely to see. 

I never did get the monocular. It was so cold after watching the vole, for about 20 minutes, that we went home. Look at that sky and the weather says that today is going to be more cloudy!

My first post of the year with an appropriate song by Cold War Kids.

Cuckoo

Yesterday was my last day of freedom - back to work today (it's too early for work at the moment, if you're wondering!!), still full-time from home so that’s not so bad, but I have so enjoyed the last week that I’m sorry it’s over already. Morning and afternoon visits to a warm, often sunny plot - perfect.

Pink, flavoured vinegar in-progress

The weather for the last two days was very warm, but not too much sunshine which (I hate to say) was a good thing otherwise we wouldn’t have achieved as much as we wanted. Like (drumroll please) my 10 squashes are planted. 

They’re being protected under netting, with slug pellets, until they get established, they look so vulnerable at the moment! The cut-off plastic bottles are for ease of watering when the tunnel has become a jungle (fingers crossed).

Regular visitors may remember that I bought celeriac plants because my seedlings were stuck at the ‘cress’ stage for so long. Well, I'm glad we didn't consign them to the compost as they eventually grew and so I made a trench for them on Plot3.

Neal gave us some Early Bird sweetcorn plants so Jamie dug the area on Plot3 where the manure pile was - clearing the many weeds and tree roots and they're protected by bottle cloches for the timebeing. I intend to try some Glass Gem sweetcorn (again) on Plot7 - I'm going to sow them direct one day this week, well that's the plan.

Plot3 is really looking like a worked-plot now!

But Plot 7 (and 8) will always be the favourites because they were our first. The polytunnel has been re-stocked with the following sown into modules or pots yesterday:

• Borlotto Firetongue (dwarf beans)
• Gaia (dwarf soya beans)
• Speedy (dwarf french beans)
• Gigantes (Greek runner beans)

• Purple Sprouting broccoli - these have been brought home under the grow light
• Moreton's Secret mix - "very mixed lettuces" from RealSeeds. I've sowed these in a tray and put them under the enviromesh with the carrots. The polytunnel would be too hot for them

The Scarlet Empire and Borlotto runner beans have a bit more growing to do before we'll plant them outside. And look at that big strawberry. Jamie assures me that if we wait till today we'll have a handful to eat rather than just one...

The flowers are enjoying the sunshine as much as us.

Aquilegia

Geum

The song title is an aide memoire, because I thought this was interesting but forgot to add to my earlier post. We've been hearing the cuckoo for weeks - it's somewhere over the marsh but the sound has been getting louder and closer over the last week.

Not a cuckoo

We commented that we'd never seen a cuckoo, but then last week the cuckoo and its mate were flying overhead across the allotment from North to South. The male was 'cuckoo-ing' all the way across and as it passed over you could see plotholders look up like some sort of mexican wave! It was quite a sight (and sound)! I'd certainly assumed that they only cuckoo when sitting and looking for a mate.

So here is Rising Appalachia to provide the song.

Let’s Stick Together

It’s actually May Day, but this post is marking the end of April and we had some welcome rain - very cold rain and hail yesterday - and Froggy has found a friend.

The seedlings and weedlings are happy, finally some salad leaf is appearing.

The wildlife plot has green shoots all over it, but I wonder how much of that is from the seeds we sowed?!

We’d planned an extra long weekend because of Bank Holiday Monday - always good to have a 4-day weekend. I didn’t bank on having Thursday off too, but I felt awful after my second vaccination on Thursday - a week earlier than originally planned. At least I knew the side effects would only last a day, so I pretty much slept through it. There’s some doubt about the vaccine efficacy for transplant patients, but well done to the NHS for pushing through the population so efficiently.

So yesterday, before the hail, we managed to plant the potatoes.

Just Nicola and Kestrel; some in the ground (planted using a bulb planter) and others in potato bags.

While I was doing a plant-swap with Ivan - one of our Rudbeckia plants (self-seeded) for two of his self-seeded Echinacea plants - and planting them by the pond and by the polytunnel, Jamie was busy creating the carrot mesh tunnel. We were just ready to sow when the hail started, so we had to hide for a while. We were watching the magpies.

They were very defensive today; attacking jackdaws and this red kite - I know it’s not a great photo, but they were moving fast and annoyingly the other side of the wires!

Eventually we got the carrots sowed - a row of Eskimo and one of Early Nantes.

Soon after that we went home as it was chilly and too wet to do more. We’re hoping to get a few more seeds sown at the weekend, though the weather is rather hit and miss. Here’s a link to a FREE online event if you’re interested. It’s the author talking about her book regarding mental health and the benefit of gardening.

Aah, look at the plot after rain, so much healthier-looking. And there’s the carrot tunnel at the end of Plot7 next to the beets.

The song title is for the frogs, not humans yet - keep on keeping your distance please 🙂 and stay safe.

Wildflower

Look at the beautiful blue sky. What you can’t see is how chilly the strong wind was yesterday! Though I’m pleased to say that we’re quite protected at our end of the site.

You can see how dry the ground is, so we're already having to do a lot of watering even though there isn't that much in the ground so far. We're encouraging the garlic to bulb up and have been weeding some of the flower pots to help the struggling plants that have been swamped in them for months!

I planted out the celeriac seedlings. I need to remember never to bother trying to grow my own celeriac from seed in future years - the tray I bought had more than double what I needed and cost less than the seed packet (and my home-grown seedlings are pathetic!). I made a wonky trench for them so that I can keep them wet (they need A LOT of water) and earth them up when they need it.

I’ve protected the celeriac with the fleece tunnel as our night-time temperatures are still low and it may prevent some evaporation. I planted the beetroot and that’s under the green tunnel, but it shouldn’t really need protection; it just looked a bit vulnerable in the middle of that plot. Talking of tunnels.... we think that’s a vole in our shallot patch...

I planted some rainbow chard seedlings in a raised bed. And Jamie planted up some strawberries in this hanging planter, these are in the polytunnel (and are also wonky), it’ll be nice to get some early strawbs and maybe the birds won't venture in there.

Our main job today was to sow the wildflower seeds on the HAHA wildlife plot. Lots of different seeds, as you can see; some we bought, most were gifted or freebies. Hope they beat the weeds to the surface! We may get some rain this week...
The bog garden isn’t worthy of a photo; a couple of plants died (maybe frost damage) but the irises and a couple of others look like they’ll survive - well, it’s early days.

And last of all today, here's one of the frogs in our little pond. There are at least two that we've seen - they're both small, not ours from last year. The water has a lot of algae so I've been clearing it and need to get some more weed. Oh, and we heard the first cuckoo from across the marsh in the week - I do love having lunch at the allotment, definitely a bonus point for working from home! Although there's a lot of sarcasm from all the retired plotholders when I have to go back to work for the afternoon :-}

The song title is provided by Smashing Pumpkins, perhaps I should have saved it for when we have a plot-ful of wildflowers... no, best not tempt fate ;-)