This is the Day

Look at that! A month has passed. It’s been a busy month with lots of sowing, a bit of digging and some planting. The weather has been extremely dry and mostly sunny but a northerly wind has consistently caused irritation. Jamie has been walking a lot with regular allotment and shopping trips

We planted our potatoes in April - Kestrel and Duke of York in the ground, with a couple of Nicola in bags. They’ve been earthed up now, managed to avoid a couple of frosts earlier this month. They’re in front of these salsify plants - the flowers open in the morning, but close by lunchtime.

The hedgerow is full of life and we’re peppered with confetti whenever we sit on the bench as the May blossom is just going over, it’s been a good year for blossom, even with the wind.

We sowed our climbing beans (Scarlet Empire runners, borlotti and Gigantes) on 2nd May but only the Gigantes successfully germinated, so they’ve now been planted in a wigwam. We’ll re-sow the others.

The sweetcorn finally got planted out, I meant to do a block, but planted in two rows instead for ease of protection from frost. Lots of the parsnips germinated and I thinned them out this week. It’s so dry the watering is quite a chore, but essential at this time. We’re expecting some broad beans to be ready for harvesting soon, so keep them well-watered. We’ve sown carrots into a green crate and beets, lettuce and radish are sown. Chard and nasturtium are in the raised bed along with parsley, which was a supermarket-bought plant and divided into four.

The plots aren’t looking very tidy but things are growing and that’s the best we can achieve during this difficult year. The weeds are going to love that bare earth when the rain does arrive 😒 I’m fighting the bindweed in the orchard; the mulched ground makes it easy to spot the bindweed, but it just keeps coming back and our little apple and cherry trees got aphid attacked this year.

As long as we harvest a few crops, grow some pretty flowers and get time to sit in the sunshine amongst it I’ll be happy. Sadly, Jamie’s not really enjoying it at the moment, understandably, as he’s still so worn out and not feeling sociable but I hope that will improve along with his health.

The song title, provided by The The, is to mark my change to part-time working. Hopefully more free-time will help with everything!

Early Days

The last couple of weeks we’ve had a mix of hot sunny days, frosty nights and more recently strong winds. We had a couple of showers but not enough rain to make much difference to the dry soil.

I’ve had a lingering cold and had my Covid booster so haven’t felt like working or plotting, but perhaps I’ll manage some today before rain is due this afternoon and I have a week off work after Easter so I hope there are some reasonable days for catching up. On a couple of quick visits we managed to hastily sow a row of parsnips - if they germinate I have a feeling there may be some wonky veg growing there!

And I dug a small plot and sowed mangetout. They’re usually one of our first harvests, but I’ve been a bit slow this year. I’ve put some protection round now they’ve popped up or the pigeons will clear the lot. The shallots in the raised bed have all got healthy looking green shoots now.

The purple sprouting broccoli has been producing lovely shoots - so delicious.

I’ve sown some asparagus pea and chard in modules in the polytunnel. I’ll choose the coloured chard stems to plant out, once an area has been dug.

The seedlings are growing quite slowly because of the fluctuating temperature but that is suiting our slower pace of life at the moment. Jamie’s walking without a stick most of the time, but the fatigue still makes things difficult, but slowly, slowly…

The broad bean gap-fillers that we sowed last month have sprouted and I’m hoping the blossom will be out in our ‘orchard’ when I go up in a bit - shame the sky isn’t this lovely blue today.

Blog title provided by Paul McCartney. Because it is…early days.

Paranoid

I’ve just enjoyed a lunch of celeriac soup. Very tasty with rose harissa and tarragon for additional flavour. 

I used my new hand blender and wish I’d grown the ingredients, but only the garlic was home-grown. We’ve grown celeriac before but never a giant like this! It’s a bit tricky to grow and to be honest I think I’ll stick to buying the occasional one rather than trying again. This giant has made 4 days lunch and a quarter was also included in a root vegetable stew which covered two days meals. I think I’ve had enough celeriac for a while!

I did have some tarragon growing on the plot, but am not sure if it’s still there. It has a slightly aniseed flavour which I love, so I’m seeing if I can root some of the fresh stuff I bought - I only thought to do this after it had been in the fridge for a few days … so it may not work…

You can see the grey sky in that photo - it’s been dull, cold and grey like that for a few days now so we’ve stayed inside. I’ve been working on the planting plan - it’s bound to change and needs a bit more work.

The climbing beans are going to grow up wigwams this year and I’m going to very carefully label them after last year’s mix-up between climbers and dwarf plants 🙄

The squashes are going to provide a squash tunnel again. I’ve bought some Sharks Fin Melon Fig-Leaved Gourd seeds. They sound interesting don’t they, they’re a courgette rather than Winter squash. We’ll probably grow two kinds of climbing Winter squash and two other types of bush courgette.

I wonder if the weather will be more conducive to growth this year….time will tell…

Talking of weather, we had a bit more snow a week ago.

We visited the plot the next day, to drop off some compost and see how things are faring. The garlic and leeks are looking rather sad, but hopefully they’ll recover. And we were sorry to see some of the broad beans have been frosted - should have fleeced them - but they are pretty resilient (usually).

The ground was solid and the snow was covering the hills. We didn’t hang around!

We didn’t visit site for 10 days. Work has started the year busier than 2024 ended so I’m back staring at my screen for 8hours most days. I don’t mind as long as I have my hot water bottle, blanket and the curtains pulled 🤭 And I have my celestial mug (thanks George) and space-themed desk cover to keep my mind on why I’m creating spreadsheets!

We popped to the allotment on Friday and were shocked to see what appeared to be Round-Up (weed killer) footprints leading from the top of site directly to our plot. We don’t think we have any enemies, but the footprints literally tracked around plot 7, onto plot 8 and down to plot 3 stopping at our compost bin!

The worst thoughts enter your head when you think you’ve been sabotaged so I emailed Nia, our chair. She pointed out that it could be frost damage if someone had walked that way when there was frost/snow on the ground. Ah… that would be us then! 🤪 No wonder the route was so targeted!! A perfect opportunity for Black Sabbath to provide the title song. Look at Ozzy Osbourne!

November has Come

We had another picnicker join us on Sunday. The draw of the chimnea’s heat was too good to miss for the allotment cat. He was happy sitting on the bench with Ivan and me, but then Linda stood up and she lost her seat, which happened to be slightly closer to the fire 😀 What we discovered, as we cleared up for the evening, was that he’d killed a rat just behind us! At least he didn't plonk it down in front of us and put us off our cheese and wine. Last weekend we enjoyed roasted (charred) chestnuts which Ivan had foraged - delish!

We’ve finally had a few dry days though the weather has been extremely dull; we’ve been living in a cloud for at least a week. But it’s mild and I’ve only just picked the last of our outdoor tomatoes!

The tomatoes have been included in most of our lunches and were part of this delicious halloumi meal, with garlic, cavolo nero and peppers from the plot.

We've been able to clear some areas of the plots because it's been dry. I cleared up the radishes and bean plants which were surrounding the chard. And I found one borlotti bean plant - trailing along the ground 😅 I knew I'd sown some seeds somewhere and that explains why I had dwarf plants growing 'up' the tunnel 😏 I've saved some bean pods for drying but not sure if they'll be suitable for storage as they've got so wet. The yellow pods are Yin Yang beans.

The main reason for writing this post is to record that we've sown our broad beans Aquadulce. As usual they have their little cloche covers to offer some protection from mice/squirrels and maybe weather. They're planted into the soil below the mulch and, all being well, will be harvested next April/May.

The purple sprouting brocolli and brussels sprouts are the only other thing (apart from weeds) growing on that plot now. The PSB isn't looking too great but, dare I say, the little sprouts are looking pretty good...

I've completely filled our three dalek composters, but there are masses of worms, slugs and other beasties to help it degrade quite quickly. This is a Leopard Slug - amazing pattern - a good guy who deals with compost and also deals with other slugs...

On that note, I need to start work. Halloween provided us with a little celebration and the plot now has two pumpkin heads on sticks - perhaps the squirrels will get to them, but they should be out of reach of the hedgehog. Apparently pumpkins aren't good for them.

But now it's November and The Gorrilaz provide the title song.

Good Riddance

What a fabulous few days! This post is brought to you by the colour red ♥️

Friday morning-ish celebratory breakfast consisted of a delicious red gooseberry topping on icecream and pancakes. Yum yum, it’s fun having a special day off.

We had a very late night on Thursday, enjoying watching the General Election results come in and the demise of the hopeless party with Labour making a welcome return to Government after 14 painful years.🌹 Even our constituency isn’t blue anymore which has only happened once before in my lifetime! We haven’t gone red - can’t see that happening - but still worthy of celebration.

Unfortunately the weather hasn’t played ball and we’ve had a lot of (cold) rain - 35mm of rain over Friday/Saturday. 

We got several drenchings over the long weekend and the slugs and snails emerged from their hiding places while we were thankful to have the polytunnel to hide in!

But there were some lovely warm sunny moments between the showers.

And the soil and flowers are looking much happier after the last couple of weeks with no rainfall.

I managed to plant up some marigolds and zinnia today as well as sowing a row of Speedy dwarf French beans. The climbing French and runner beans are being very slow. This is the only flowers produced so far - not quite the flush of scarlet we like to see…

We decided to work through the rain today, mostly, and chopped back the broad beans which have provided us with so many lovely meals this year.

We cut them, rather than pulling, to let the nitrogen nodules on the roots remain in the soil - the leeks will be planted there in a few weeks. We had the judging for Hungerford in Bloom this weekend but our plots are definitely not winning any prizes!

But hopefully July and August will encourage everything to catch up, as it usually does…

We just need a little positive thinking…

And we have even more reasons to celebrate and be positive as England made it through to the Euros semi-finals yesterday! ♥️

Green Day provide the perfect song title (ok, maybe not so positive) as we move into a new era, after all surely things can only get better (😉See what I did there 🤭).

Iris

Aah, I do love that dewy daisy - it's one of the Ox-Eye daisies on the HAHA Wildlife plot, which is full of growth at the moment with honeysuckle, dog roses and campion all flowering. These flag irises in the bog garden are so pretty.

And that's where this little gathering of snails ended up - there are a few creatures on the Wildlife Plot which would have enjoyed those little snails. Note to us: we really must tidy up the piles of pots on our plots - we're really not helping our situation!!

Our harvests are just broad beans and strawberries at the moment, but that is definitely not a complaint.

They are so delicious and, dare I say, we don’t seem to be sharing quite so many beans with slugs now. The broad beans are making an appearance in most of our evening meals.

That was a tasty tofu with teryaki sauce meal and last night we had beans with bangers and mash - yum yum 😋 The strawberries are sweet and delicious - no wonder our little vole is enjoying them so much, but there are plenty to share.

Ivan's been working on his old fruit bushes, which are now the HAHA Community Plot - he and Linda have pruned and picked masses of gooseberries. Lots have gone to the primary school where they have cookery sessions. We made a tasty gooseberry and strawberry sauce with our supply - the strawberries mean that not much additional sugar is needed.

Mmm, fresh strawberries for breakfast, it must be June (even if the weather isn't playing ball!). The early morning visits to the allotment for watering have been rather chilly recently. The min/max thermometer has been as low as 2.3° and the wind has been horribly cold this week. The fleece and an emergency blanket were called upon for this weekend's picnic! And the brollies were windbreaks rather than rain protection. Not a scene we expect to see in June really, is it?!

We've planted out our Festival squash, Piccolo courgette and Zuccini courgette but they are sulking at the moment because they preferred it in the warm polytunnel. They are protected by slug pellets and surrounded by netting to keep the birds away from the pellets. And these little cloches are protecting morning glory seedlings - can't risk anything these days! These are planted where my mangetout disappeared...

The beetroot and carrots have germinated but no sign of the parsnips or salsify which I sowed yet. Well, there's plenty of time really - it is only June after all...

We've enjoyed seeing 'our' robins feeding their young and now there are four or five more little speckled robins enjoying the mealworms and gathering around the water supply. And we've been seeing/hearing the bullfinches so we think they will be bringing their young out soon - all good and maybe I'll manage to get some photos for next time!

In the meantime, the allotment then work beckons - enjoy this excellent song by The Goo Goo Dolls.

I can't believe I didn't use this all the while Ivan's irises were putting on a fantastic show - remember these beautiful scenes from last year.