Sail Away

Friday was a beautiful day and I was off work - hooray - so we spent a few hours on the plot.

I collected two bagfuls of grounds from the coffee lounge at work - we get through a lot of coffee each day! I added some to the compost bins which are still housing rats because I still need to mix them up a bit. Apparently rats don't like coffee, though they like everything else I put in the bins.

Jamie cleared the plot where the potatoes will be planted.

Then he dug in some 6x and the coffee grounds - hopefully a slug deterrent and a bit of acidity to prevent scab...

Voila! A lovely dug plot and a painful Jamie - it's hard on the back/knees/arms/hands for these first few plot visits of the year!

While Jamie did that, I worked on the raised bed. Lots of weeding.

And now it's ready to become a salad bed.

No sign of the broad beans yet, but the marigold and salad seedlings are on their way, in the greenhouse.

Look at the temperature range in there!

On Saturday we arrived on the plot just in time for a little lunchtime soiree with David and Ivan and some of Ivan's home-made wine. The blackberry and apple was delicious with some crisps and olives. We did manage to do a bit of allotmenting afterwards - I planted up 5 tubs with Summer bulbs - hopefully they'll be in full flower for our fete on July 7th. And I also planted the five Chinese Lantern plants by the greenhouse. Hoping all these can survive the chilly nights.

No frogspawn has arrived (I may bring some in from elsewhere), so Alfie provided us with some cheer for our little pond.. unfortunately the little boat didn't float so I had to balance it against the edge :-)

And that is the reason for the song title <ahem - poetic licence>

In Bloom

The main point of this post is to show off these lovely flowers we have, thanks to fellow plotholders. Beautiful, sweet-scented pinks (from Ivan's plot) and lovely cornflowers (from Alison's plot) - they're the tallest cornflowers I've ever seen and certainly aren't the larkspur that the seedpacket showed!!

And more beautiful sweetpeas from Ivan's plot. Mine still have no flowers.

It's been a warm week with no rain so we've been watering, watering, watering every day after work. We've got plants that are desperate to get out of their pots and into the ground, but there hasn't been time so that's the plan for the weekend, however, it's World Cup time (Yay - Come on England!) so we'll have to fit the allotment in around the matches. This photo is through the pot of Summer bulbs (Ixia and Dutch Iris) I planted in March, which are looking lovely.

We've had lots of delicious strawberries during the week and I've had some tasty salad leaf and radish additions to my lunches - not enough to make a full salad yet though.
The coffee lounge at work has started bagging up their coffee grounds - I couldn't resist, so added these to our compost, I need to think of a better way of making use of them really.

A great Nirvana song title to enjoy.