Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
The huge amounts of rain that the island experienced in Spring - as did we - has clearly been appreciated by the plants. Here are just a few of the lovely, unusual and colourful plants we came across - some along pathways, some in the Puerto de la Cruz Botanic Garden and others in the Sitio Litre Orchid Garden.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen flowers this amazing turquoise colour before. It was a really impressive plant and so tall that I couldn’t get a close-up.
Turquoise Puya flowers
These dazzling rubbery flowers were growing as ground cover between the trees in the botanic garden.
Billbergia pyramidalis
This beautiful shrub was scrambling over the wall from a private garden but the large shrubs are planted in communal parks too. Covered in multi-coloured blooms.
Lantana Camara
This spike was over 6 feet tall growing from the centre of some sort of bromeliad that we're more used to seeing as houseplants in Britain. The Botanic Garden really is like a land of the giants!
There was a whole forest of them surrounding the impossibly huge alien of a tree - a type of fig, but it looks like a monstrous rubber plant.
Ficus Macrophylla
This is such a beautiful colour, creeping over fences and walls around the town.
Thunbergia
And this is another stunner in the Botanic Gardens.
Mexican Butterfly Weed
The Orchid Garden is a peaceful little garden near our apartments. It’s the garden of a beautiful colonial style house where Agatha Christie stayed whilst in Puerto de la Cruz. The orchid displays are very pretty and the general gardens are lovely to stroll or sit.
Plus there’s a nice little cafe, koi pond and two friendly cats 😊
We arrived in Tenerife for the Canarias Day celebrations - a fun evening listening to a Canarian folk band and seeing the locals in their traditional dress. Then walking back to the apartment through the lively night-time streets.
After so many years we finally visited Loro Parque, where we spent the day for Jamie's birthday.
Tourists
It was a good day though the areas for the larger animals (especially the gorillas) were a bit sad. We didn't attend any of the animal 'shows' but enjoyed seeing the penguins, fish, coral and giant tortoises as well as the cute golden tamarins.
When we returned to the apartment we enjoyed a free birthday bottle of Cava at the bar.
Cheers!
Our lovely holiday is almost over and we're leaving the day the Pope arrives - he’s not having our apartment 🤭 he’s visiting La Laguna which is a nearby town before going to the capital.
We bought this interesting tea - it's very nice; haven't found a bindweed tea yet though! We’re looking forward to seeing what else is growing on the allotment - wondering if our sweetcorn and sunflowers have emerged yet. It seems there has been a lot of rain at home but looks like the weather may cheer up for our return - yay!
Some beautiful warm sunny weather encouraged us to have a cream tea on the plot and look who joined us 🙂 There were also brimstone butterflies, more peacock butterflies and lots of bumblebees - a proper feel of Spring.
We’ve had a productive week. We went shopping and bought lots of seeds for the year - some gifted seeds in there too. We have a few left-overs which we didn’t bother re-buying this year.
They’re all pretty basic, nothing very exciting but hopefully that means they’re easy growers… And we’ve started sowing! There are 3 pepper seeds in each section - two types of pepper which will stay at home at least till they germinate, which may be 3 weeks.
Bequinho Red and California Wonder Peppers
If successful some of these will grow in one of the new raised beds that are now in the polytunnel. It was a lot of work clearing and tidying the polytunnel then filling the beds with layers of rotted wood chip, chicken manure and Apsley mulch - they’ll be topped off with tomato bags when we’re ready to plant.
Good timing for another warm day yesterday - 60 perennial plug plants were delivered in the morning - on sale for £10 from Dobies - they’re so teeny weeny, each seedling + pot measures at most 6cm tall!
We both found it rather therapeutic potting them on sitting in the sunshine. I was careful to label them, but I think a couple of labels got mixed up 🙄 I’m sure it’ll be obvious once they’ve grown a bit…
I don’t expect we’ll keep them all, but I’d like a new flower bed where all those pots are being stored, so will see if that plan works out.
These are the varieties (pasted from the Dobies site as I’ll need this info later):
Achillea millefolium 'Cerise Queen' - Easy to grow, even on poor dry soils, and ideal for wildlife gardens where it attracts butterflies and other insects. Height: 60cm (24"). Spread: 60cm (24").
Aquilegia caerulea ‘Mrs Scott Elliot Mixed' - Nodding spurred blooms, in a range of pretty colours are carried delicately on tall wiry stems. Height: 60cm (24"). Spread: 40cm (16").
Coreopsis 'Golden Joy' - Easy to grow, low maintenance and will grow in most soil types and environments. Height: 45cm (18"). Spread: 40cm (16").
Delphinium ‘Dark Blue & White Bee’ - Intense dark blue flowers, each with an unusual white "bee" shape at the centre! Height: 90cm (36"). Spread: 30cm (12").
Dianthus barbatus ‘Rockin Red’ - This new interspecific hybrid brings the strongest shade of red we’ve seen in a Sweet William. Height: 50cm (20"). Spread: 30cm (12").
Foxglove ‘Dalmatian Mixed’ - These short lived perennials will happily seed about to create dramatic drifts and attract wildlife to their nectar rich flowers. Height: 50cm (20"). Spread: 40cm (16").
Geum ‘Mrs J. Bradshaw’ - Well-loved and consistently popular, this variety bears flame-red, semi-double blooms on thin wiry stems. Height and spread: 60cm (24").
Leucanthemum ‘Crazy Daisy’ - Wonderfully frilly, white, daisy-like blooms with soft buttery yellow centres that perch on upright stems. Height: 60cm (24"). Spread: 45cm (18").
Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria’ - Tall spikes of deep maroon foliage topped by glowing scarlet blooms bring a welcome splash of late summer colour, when many flowers have already faded. Height: 90cm (36"). Spread: 30cm (12").
Verbena ‘Buenos Aires’ - The long lasting blooms of the stunning variety are guaranteed to attract clouds of bees and butterflies into your garden. Height: 120cm (48"). Spread: 60cm (24").
Feeling rejuvenated by the Sun (but slightly regretting it today!) I also did a bit of digging and a little sowing too; 3 pots of heirloom sweetpeas - taller pots to help with their long tap roots.
And a drainpipe of Snow Wind mangetout - a drainpipe for ease of planting without damaging the roots. These are meant to be self-supporting but I intend to grow them with the sweetpeas.
There was a touch of frost last night but all those should be okay in the polytunnel. We had a little walk this morning, but it’s not as nice as the last couple of days so we didn’t go to the plot. I potted on a couple of little house plants - they’re meant to be ‘very easily maintained’, both want to dry out completely between watering and like a warmer climate (like us). The Ceropegia Woodii aka String of Hearts should fill out and can be a lovely looking plant. Hmm, I wonder …
That’s all for now. Enjoy the lovely song by Bobby Hebb - can’t believe I’ve not used this before!
Sue Garratt wrote on her November blogpost that there hadn’t been “any weather” which was certainly true for the first couple of weeks of November with really gloomy dull days - no rain, no Sun and no wind.
It was unseasonably mild though so we enjoyed a Sunday night (it feels like night at 5pm now) picnic - the cat found the crisps 😄
The next Sunday we enjoyed some sunshine at Newbury’s Vegan market - mmm, that Vegan Street Diner hot dog is so delicious!
This last week has made up for the earlier lack of weather. We had snow flurries on Tuesday, barely settling, but pretty to look out at.
Wednesday brought a severe frost which took out the last of the delicate plants. I had to take the photo through the fence as the gate was frozen shut during our morning visit!
So very cold, brrr. Down to -4° in the polytunnel. And this ice was taken out of the birdbath on Friday morning.
And today the weather is torrential rain and windy as we feel the edge of Storm Bert. It really isn’t an allotment day but we’re having our windows replaced so we thought we’d leave the fitter to get on with it.
We have a skip on-site for the, now postponed, Work Party tomorrow so we’ve been clearing junk from our rather overgrown storage <ahem> wildlife area…
That’s where the great tits nested last year, so we won’t clear it completely (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). But we’ve cleared some crates which were completely overgrown with ivy and a snail hotel. We’ve seen mice around there too which may be helping reduce the snail population.
It’s a rather colourless world now but the spindleberry was looking beautiful; such great looking berries.
And some rather exciting news - I won a book from Real Seeds! I often buy squash and bean seeds from the company that sells seeds that are sometimes a little bit different from usual suppliers.
So the song for today is provided by The Doors. The cars are hissing more quietly now! Enjoy!
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.
It's the 1st August today so I'll be logging back into work a little later after a gloriously relaxing break - and when it's hot and sunny in England who needs to travel further than their allotment? 😌
Most days were spent on the allotment, with morning and afternoon visits. It's been extremely hot, with temperatures hitting 30° at least a couple of days. We've enjoyed various picnics including hot dogs ..
And a Cornish cream tea...
We've spent some lovely time with friends popping by.
Our plots are slowly growing, but there's so much bare soil compared to previous years. I hope there's enough Summer left to produce something for us to eat..!
Harvests are sparse - we're still waiting for our first courgette - but there are plenty of salad leaves, radish and flowers to create colourful lunches.
I did the Butterfly Count on 30th July - the sunny weather has certainly increased the fluttering and buzzing: 2 x Meadow Browns 4 x Large Whites 1 x Marbled White 1 x Red Admiral 1 x Holly Blue 1 x Brimstone Of course, most of them refused to pose, but here's a red admiral and a meadow brown - I would have seen more if I'd moved to the Wildlife Plot or the meadow at the top of site, but, well, I was on holiday 😉
We've greatly enjoyed watching the swallows darting across site practising their manoeuvres. They're gathering on the wires and when they all launch together it's fabulous - impossible for me to photograph.
Another entirely different enjoyment was the deafening roar of the B52 bomber which passed overhead on its way back from the Fairford Air Show - amazing. And the two F16 fighter jets that circled a couple of times - the noise was fantastic (in peacetime).
It wasn't a sunny day but no rain. Walking on the boardwalks we saw lizards and the giant horsetail was amazing to see - ours on the allotment is puny in comparison! It was a lovely place to walk and I look forward to having a similar site minutes away from our flat!
So now I had better get ready for work and it's just rained, perhaps we'll get a thunderstorm later.. The song is provided by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - singalong, the sun will be back later 🌞
