Two Out of Three Aint Bad

I don't always view the world through rose-tinted spectacles, but they do make the clouds look amazing.

This 3-day weekend has brought us some pretty good weather, very hot when the clouds moved aside - a bit hot for digging yesterday but today it was cooler with a strong wind. Finally another section of Plot7 is cleared, but look how dry it is. The threatened rain still isn't reaching Marsh Lane.

We've dug a trench for beans on Plot7 - I've sowed Gigantes (which seem to be like butter beans - to be eaten when the pods go brown) into pots in the polytunnel. And we'll also have Yard Long beans on that section. Jamie prepared a spot for our HAHA competition sunflowers there too - the trenches have some of our lovely home-made compost in them.

Behind the wheelbarrow in that photo is a curry plant (Helichrysum italicum) - I love the smell, we just occasionally get a whiff as we're walking by or working on the plot. It's not edible.

Jamie sowed our carrots - under the enviromesh - Eskimo and Early Nantes 5. And also a row of Albion parsnips; it would be nice to have a home-grown parsnip as we missed out last year.

The radish, spring onion and beetroot are growing quite happily in the small raised bed, now that I've covered them to stop the birds pecking at them. We have plenty more seeds in the polytunnel now too. Our Benchmaster Runners will go on Plot3 and they, along with Pickwick dwarf runners, have mostly germinated, along with kale, purple sprouting broccoli and chard.

The HAHA Plant Sale is on June 8th and after that we'll have room to set up our tomato plants and peppers in their grow bags. That empty hanging basket is going to have a tomato plant in it - a freebie from Wyvale Garden Centre.

The Wilko irises are looking lovely, especially when the sun shines on them.

And the one remaining quarter of Plot 7 is looking lovely but those poppies really do have to go! I need to plant sweetcorn there...

The Californian poppies are so beautiful though.

I've been disappointed to see that our shallots are producing flower heads - I snip them off as soon as I see them, but they'll stop the bulbs growing to their full potential. The same is true of garlic, but not so concerning - I may try eating the scapes - they're meant to be a delicacy. Apparently when they straighten out and grow upright, the garlic is ready to pick - I'll probably just rely on the leaves going brown as I normally do..

And the song title... well, there are three frogs in our pond! Two little ones and the big one, but I've not seen all three together yet.

 Meatloaf provides the video.. Oh, and today I took home my first harvest of salad leaves for my lunch - hooray, so it begins. Not only living on rhubarb :-)

Since Yesterday

We've had a few hours on the allotment this weekend. It wasn't raining or snowing and in fact we saw a little sunshine which was very welcome and decidedly Spring-like.

Jamie cleared an area of weeds on Plot3 during the week - our shallots are desperate to be planted and that's where they'll go. Then yesterday we cleared a bit more..

The grass that self-seeds is really annoying, so it's a hands-and-knees job with a hand trowel initially, which is laborious but worth it. And a friendly robin cleared up the grubs as we uncovered them.

So since yesterday (hence the song title) we've dug through more than half of Plot3 - that was a good start, though we're extremely achey. Actually I was aching so much that I forgot to take the final 'after' photo - you know how it is when you've been working on the plot for the first time in months!

Jamie added some quality home-produced compost, with a sprinkling of 6X, around the small rhubarb plant that didn't achieve much last year. We're hoping this is its year, though it is competing with a lot of tree roots in its current location.

We left as the Sun dipped behind the tree-line - how lovely to still be light(ish) until 5:30 these days. I'm glad February is a short month and it'll soon be March. And in the meantime I hope I buy a new camera as you may have noticed the splodge that's appeared on all my photos :-{

Strawberry Switchblade provided the song.

The Three Bells

Another dull day, but this time no rain so it was slightly less awful. The temperature was reasonably mild too, but a little sunshine would have made a world of difference. I put a filter on this photo of the ash tree - to make it a bit more interesting.

Today I was counting birds for the the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I thought they were going to be a no-show, but although numbers were low there were quite a few different species (even the robin wasn't keen on posing though).

For an hour from 3:15 we counted:
 2 x Robin (annoying as we've seen 5 together (fighting) recently)
 1 x Great tit
 3 x Long-tailed tit (we've seen 6 or 7 of these together before)
 1 x Pheasant
 1 x Wren
 1 x Blue Tit
 1 x Blackbird
So, not great but not too bad either. I didn't count the two swans which flew over; I heard the lovely noise their wings make but couldn't get to my camera in time. On the walk to the site we spotted this little squirrel in the churchyard - I know some people don't like grey squirrels, but I do.

We spent the rest of the time doing more tidying and filled the fourth dalek compost bin mostly with old stalks of sweetcorn - chopped and mashed up a bit to break down easier/quicker. Jamie packed a load of stones in around the compost bins - perhaps it will help keep the rodents out. By the time we were ready to leave it was getting dark, so we had one more cuppa and picked our veg (leeks and the giant swede) and walked home.

The church (St Lawrence) was all lit up and the bells were ringing so it earns a photo for looking so pretty.

I think it is a Swede - Best of All (from Kings Seeds)

I was fully expecting the swede to have brown heart (caused by boron deficiency) as a couple of our roots have had traces of it, but it was perfect all the way through and weighed over 1kg! It's currently being made into swede & leek soup with the addition of smoked paprika as on first tasting it was a little bland - now I understand why 'swede soup' always includes lots of other veggies!

Jamie's using the other leeks tonight in a sausage and leek dish and is making leek and potato cakes tomorrow. Still plenty more to go though...

So, today's song is... not very related to this post, but there are bells in it and it explains why I did what I did to the tree photo (the singers are The Browns). Also I love this song, though the male singer is a little bit creepy :-)

Grey Day

Not the best day for showing a new plotholder around the site, but she is very happy with her new mini plot. In fact we've had four other new arrivals over the last couple of weeks so I hope the weather cheers up soon - for them and us! At least the rain stopped for a short while so we could get the kettle boiling.

Jamie sowed our Sutton broad beans in the greenhouse and put their little cloche tops on to protect them from mice. It's nice to be sowing something, but we've got lots to do before anything can be planted out. Plenty of time though...

I spent the afternoon clearing and composting. Three compost bins are full, but it will soon shrink down and make room for more green waste to be added, though I may need to use a fourth bin given the amount we still have to clear.

Jamie did 'neeps and tatties' for our lovely Burns Night meal with a Stahly's veggie haggis on Thursday - so delicious, with our own swede as the neeps but we had to buy the tatties.

Yes, I know I'm in pyjamas - it's the only tartan I own :-D

Leeks and carrots are still our main harvests at the moment. We had a tasty cheesy pasta bake with them last night. Here's a little timelapse.

We seem to have a never-ending supply of leeks! This was a bunch that I stuck in the ground last year - I couldn't bear to waste them but couldn't be bothered to plant them properly - they look in pretty good condition, as 'Baby Leeks'.

They certainly look better than the ones we planted into pots... when I say "planted" they were basically dumped into soil and abandoned, so that may have been the reason for the poor show :-)

Here's our french garlic that we bought at Hungerford Food Festival last year. Not many plants this year, but the cloves that we planted were huge. We usually end up with far too much.

The bunches we stored in the greenhouse are starting to sprout but there's still more at home which is lasting well.

And look what we spotted on Plot 3! Our very first purple sprout - I did have to zoom in to photograph it, so broccoli won't be replacing leeks and carrots on our menus any day soon!

The very apt title is provided by Madness.

Setting Sun

We were actually on the plot for over 3 hours this afternoon. OK, so not quite all of it working, but most of it... We had a welcome break with fellow plothoholder, Ivan, drinking his quince wine (Japanese quince, Japonica) and warming ourselves over the barbecue embers as the sun was sinking below the treeline.

It was a cold day but quite pleasant in the Winter sun and we had a plan - to move the compost bins from Plot 7 to Plot 3 and we achieved it. It was very tiring; lifting, wheelbarrowing and mixing - we each covered about 6km including the walk to and from the site.

We uncovered this lot while we were moving the bins... That ruined their hibernation but I'm sure some thrushes will be happy to find them where we flung them over the hedge! I'm pleased to say we didn't find any mice or rats.

Composting is so satisfying. All three bins had enough fully composted to fill a whole other bin which we'll use in our bean trench a bit later in the year.

The remaining unrotted compost we mixed up with some manure and more plot waste. We have plenty more to add, including some giant beets and more sweetcorn stalks. It's so great to create lovely organic compost from waste.

So now Plot7 has an empty spot... hmmm, what to fill it with this year...?

Well, we have had some seeds delivered, but these are mostly for our squash grotto, which needs a lot more work.

Title song provided by the excellent Chemical Brothers

Earth Song

It's Earth Day - a day to celebrate our amazing planet and encourage people to be more environmentally friendly. Making compost with food scraps and waste paper/card has got to be up there as one of the most satisfying and environmentally friendly things we can all do.

I mixed up the contents of our bins today. Mostly because there was a hole under one and we were worried that there would be a rat nesting in there - I'm pleased there wasn't! Our compost seems a bit wet, but the worms love it and it always turns out good in the end.

There it is, earth in the making!

It was an unexpectedly beautiful day, with pretty much full sunshine all afternoon while we were on the plot. This is our valerian, with its lush greenery - looking tropical in the afternoon sunshine.

The flowers are forming but the stems are hollow so don't seem like they'll be frost tolerant...is there really a snow/frost risk for us next week??

I sowed some more seeds: Red Brussels sprouts, Nelson Brussels sprouts, Minicole cabbages, Victoria Florence fennel - all in modules and under cover in the greenhouse.

The Toledo leeks have germinated but the other year-old leek seeds haven't. I love the way leek and other onion seedlings always start bent double like this.

The Aster seeds haven't germinated as well as the marigold seeds have, but hopefully there will be enough for a nice show of flowers.

The mangetout has grown well and I hope to get the frame up for them tomorrow but will probably wait another week before planting them out.

We're living on rhubarb, it's delicious, but the plants will need splitting later in the year. One of the plants isn't so happy; the stems are short and the leaves look a bit yellow.
I broke open this stone - I was hoping to find some crystals inside.

It was full of chalk - interesting, but I would have preferred crystals!

So, for Earth Day, here's Earth Song by Michael Jackson...