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. 

Monday Monday

The ornamental cherry at home is putting on a spectacular show at the moment. The wind is creating confetti and forming pink drifts in all the corners, it’s so lovely to see. As is this Holly Blue butterfly (male) at the allotment. He was willing to pose on my hand for some time, but refused to reveal his beautiful blue wings that catch the eye as they flutter by.

The weather has certainly been changeable so we weren’t surprised to have seen at least one rainbow. This was from home - photos rarely do them justice, do they?

We’ve been visiting the plot daily to open/close the polytunnel and remove/add fleece. The polytunnel measured a maximum temperature of 44° during the day and -1.3° overnight last week - as I informed the checkout girl in Tesco but I don’t think she cared 🤭. We’ve sown a few more seeds including beetroot, chard and more pumpkins - the pumpkin popped up within 4 days! I’d normally direct sow the beetroot, but the area isn’t prepared yet. The chard I like to sow in modules so I can select the more colourful seedlings for planting out. We finished clearing and preparing the front quarter - intended for sweetcorn, sunflowers and there should be room for some other things.

The covered plot in the other quarter is being used as a nursery for the potted-on perennials. Most of the plants have grown okay but a few have withered away - can’t tell what they were at the moment. There are quite a few more to be potted on once their roots appear in the bottom of their modules/pots.

The weather has been ok apart from the cold breeze. We’re so glad to have the polytunnel to protect us while we’re sitting watching the birds. The swallows have arrived! Their numbers are increasing each time we visit plus we’ve seen great tits flying to a (somewhat intentionally) overgrown bit of plot where they nested a couple of years ago.

Whilst digging at the weekend I was approached by a couple who are clearing their garden; they found a slow worm and wanted to re-home it somewhere safe; nice people!

It looks to be a male and we let him go on the Wildlife Plot. Hope he finds a mate and hangs round.

Jamie and I had a busy weekend; we enjoyed a music quiz with allotment friends on Saturday (did really badly) and yesterday went to a vegan market in Chippenham - we had some delicious teriyaki bao buns from The Garden Restaurants. The allotment is still providing purple sprouting broccoli and rhubarb pickings. We’ve been baking the rhubarb in orange juice with demarera sugar - so tasty with chocolate ice cream.

The song is provided by the Mamas and Papas because, well, it’s Monday and the allotment looked nice in the Sun this morning, with wispy clouds overhead.

I don’t think it’ll be frosty tonight, but we’ll go and zip up anyway. The temperature was just below zero last night (-0.3°)