I gotta Feeling

The blackthorn is in flower and look at the black sky beyond. We had a sudden sharp shower in the middle of a rather lovely warm day last weekend. By the way, in case I ever remember … Blackthorn blossoms before its leaves start to show, whereas hawthorn flowers after its leaves have emerged.

Here are the seedlings. 1 week after sowing, the redcurrant tomatoes and most of the lark sweetcorn had germinated; the courgette emerged a couple of days later. We wrapped them in fleece and they’re now in the polytunnel, getting over the shock of the move.

Zinnia Forecast were sown into window sill modules on 23rd March and those seedlings look like cress so they’re also protected in the polytunnel. I’ve sown Penstemon into modules. They’re a bit more tricksy and need to germinate at 4° before being brought back into the warmth. They’re on our cold doorstep, no sign of life yet.

I’ve been logging into work really early (before 6:30am 🥱) and then we can have a couple of hours on the plot after work - that’s the plan but it doesn’t always work out. We’ve lit the chiminea but a cold wind has meant we’ve had to cut visits short. Jamie is suffering some bad neuropathic pain down his left side, he’s on pills but we hope the warm weather will soon arrive which may encourage a bit more movement.

Jamie started a bit of weeding of the garlic and the plants definitely look happier now, especially with a bit of added garlic fertiliser. Luckily we’ve had a little rain after the photos were taken; the ground is surprisingly dry after our drenching Winter. The area beside them will be for the potatoes in a few weeks, so that’s on the list for clearing soon!

We reclaimed some pallet collars which make excellent raised beds. This will be for some shallots. After not moving for a few months I’m finding the exercise to be quite <erm> challenging! But allotment visits are definitely good for mental well-being.

I popped up to unzip the polytunnel the other day and I really wanted to stay. Look how many birds were singing during a 30second recording! So beautiful.

Our broad beans really didn’t enjoy our Winter this year, so we’ve popped seeds directly into the soil to fill the gaps.

Ok, I realise there are more gaps than plants at the moment! But there are flowers, so hopefully we’ll achieve a bit of succession harvesting…

And finally. Some PSB is appearing! Such a slow harvest, but I do think it’s worth the wait. There are more florets than that!

And now I think I’d better go up to open the polytunnel. It’s been a cold night but bright sunshine will now be heating those little seedlings up too much. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the partial solar eclipse later. It does look beautiful out there, but I gotta feeling it’s going to be cold!

Black Eyed Peas give us the song title - dance around, keep warm!

It’s a Beautiful Thing

It’s been rather rainy and feeling rather Autumnal, but I have a few days off work for the Bank Holiday so that’s a bonus!

I’ve been a bit poorly so didn’t make it to the Horticultural Show - I only had a few photos and a ‘longest runner bean’, which wasn’t record-breaking, so I decided to have a slob day instead. The Sun eventually came out in the late afternoon so we went up the plot to feed everything after they’d had a good drenching.

If you you look at my Wildlife on the Allotment blog, you'll see that we've recently been watching what goes on when we're not on the plot - we aimed the wildlife camera towards the water bowl. The hedgehog(s) are a regular visitor, the fox has been seen a couple of times as has a mouse, along with the big fluffy black cat and Marmalade/Major/Orlando - just 3 of the names the ginger cat has! The magpies are ever-present and looking a bit bedraggled at the moment - assuming this is one of the parents.

The female pheasant still has 2 chicks left and it's usually a shock to see her when wandering past an overgrown plot. One of the not-so-little ones is more adventurous than the other. 

The squirrel is also a regular visitor. It doesn't usually venture as far as Plot7 when we're there, but we've seen it under the trees by Plot3 and in the hedgerow. In one of the captures it was bundling up moss so appeared to be collecting nesting materials and it's certainly enjoying burying things for Winter.

We put the wildlife camera in the polytunnel for a couple of nights. Apart from a mouse and the hedgehog trundling by the only other thing we captured was birds - enjoying an early morning dust-bath! We think they're wrens.

We've had a few plot visits, to pick a few things - mostly cucumbers and that one tomato (we have had a few more than that!) from the outside plant.

And Jamie pulled a Desiree potato - some whoppers in there and, dare I say it, no slug damage!

Here's another calendula with raindrops - such a beautiful flower. I can remember them being my favourite when I was little.

And another trug. Although our runner bean and french bean plants were pretty decimated by slugs early in the year, they are producing plenty of tasty beans. The stripey courgette looks good and ... have I mentioned the cucumbers..!

So, with 3 days left of my bank holiday break, I'm feeling in the mood for a picnic so looking forward to that later this afternoon and if we're lucky we may get a bit of star-gazing in too. Enjoy the Bank Holiday and here's a song to start the day...Ocean Colour Scene - beautiful 🎶

Bank Holiday

What a lovely start to the working week - an early morning walk around the wet allotment, enjoying the warm morning sunshine and the birds chattering around us.

We've just had a traditionally rainy bank holiday weekend but we managed a few hours on the plot all three days and it was pretty warm. I picked these chive flowers to make chive flower vinegar, but I need more than that so will have to see if the plants produce enough when they re-bloom.

Finally I cleared this area of weeds so I could direct sow mangetout. It’s usually one of the first harvests but the weather has slowed us down this year.

Things are definitely looking up though as seeds are beginning to germinate (PSB and sprouts were up within a week) and we managed plenty of sowing this weekend too. Jamie’s sown squash, sunflowers, calendula and marigolds. I’ve sown zinnia, ipomoea and echinacea. These are all in the window sills and under the growlight at home, we’ll move them up to the polytunnel as soon as they emerge - plenty more to sow!

We've potted up one of the tomatoes and a courgette in the polytunnel. That was a muddy job in the rain with a sodden bag of potting compost!

There's a lot of lush greenery on the site but unfortunately most of it is weeds that need pulling and the grass edges are harbouring masses of slugs and snails. There are a few other ‘pests’ hidden in the undergrowth too…This is one of a pair of female pheasants and there happen to be two males too - uh-oh! They do eat insects, but not slugs and actually I think they prefer fresh new seedlings...

There are points of lovely colour too. Just this one iris so far but what a beauty.

We've re-thought our plan for the year - quite late, I know but it'll be fine.. it all catches up eventually...

This is Plot 7. There are more spaces left over than the plan shows. I'm hoping to fill them with more flowers and I usually gain a few additional vegetable plants from the Freebies shelf or as gifts.

This is the 'other half' of Plot 8. I've got three varieties of carrots which I really need to start sowing, but that part of the plot definitely needs better digging so that I get some straight carrots/parsnips/salsify.

We're bound to wander from the plan, but that covers most of our needs. Of course Plot 3 is where our other brassicas, cucumbers, beans and garlic will grow. I'm thinking that I should also grow celeriac as it seems to be threatening to be a wet year...

So that's how we passed our bank holiday weekend and here's a bit of Blur to hum along to - hope you had a good one too and now it's back to work A-G-A-I-N!

Blowin in the Wind

This beauty was on our butterfly bush at home along with two others, a white and a couple of peacocks! I’ll be lucky to see that many when I do my Big Butterfly Count on the allotment later this week.

It’s late July but the weather really isn’t playing fair! It’s been extremely windy and wet, so it’s not great for gardening but it’s good growing weather. 

I’m pleased to report that the only victims of the wind were a nasturtium and part of a bean plant - amazed (and relieved) that our sunflowers were still standing. Luckily most of the Yin-Yang dwarf beans are protected and I’ve secured them with string now that the beans are developing.

The courgettes are coming thick and fast now. They’re featuring in most meals - mainly just sliced and fried in chilli oil. They’re delicious eaten hot or cold. I may get the spiraliser out for our gnocchi meal this evening.

We had left a couple to get a bit bigger (honestly, it was a plan!) for stuffed courgettes with grated carrot, nuts, garlic and mature cheddar cheese yesterday - so delicious. 

The chantenay carrots have grown well. The mangetout and asparagus peas accompany nearly every meal even sandwiches for most of this month! They’ve been prolific this year. The asparagus pea are a pretty plant. The Cornell’s squash (I thought it was a bush variety) is going to swamp them soon though.

I’ve started harvesting the Florence fennel. I’ve kept it under netting in an attempt to stop it going to seed but some of the bulbs are beginning to elongate rather than bulb more.

They’re so tasty and the smell -mmm, delicious! I made this meal from a trugful of goodies the other night.

Frying the courgette chopped tiny like that was a nice addition and the courgette was almost hidden in the passata sauce 🤭

Not satisfied with just our own veg, we’ve also enjoyed some of plot neighbour, Neal’s. The turnips are a lovely peppery addition fried, roasted or raw. I may sow a row myself.

And Ivan’s fruit bushes have given me a little job to do this morning, until the rain stops.

The song title is brought to us by Peter, Paul and Mary - a blast from the past.

The Time is Now

OK, so it may not be Summer, but this is the kind of weather I like to see when I have more than a week off work! It was so beautiful yesterday after a grey start, so I’m hoping today will be the same.

The site has been very active over the long May Day weekend. People arriving with egg boxes full of spuds with the same plan as us. We haven’t gone over the top with potatoes this year. We have 2x2 Nicola in bags and these in the ground. Sarpo Mira is a maincrop with good blight resistance; Desiree is a maincrop which makes amazing mash and Nicola is a second early which is a tasty salad potato and good for mashing.

The beetroot seedlings are struggling to arrive but some of the seeds that we sowed a week ago in the polytunnel have started to appear so morning visits will be needed for opening the doors and watering if it’s going to be warm. The temperature quickly rises to over 30° in there if the Sun appears.

A few more seeds sown at home this weekend are: Radish Rat’s Tails, Bush Delicata squash, Sunburst patty pan, All Green courgette, Tall Timbers sunflowers and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins. Also, lobelia which made me think that I shouldn’t have complained about the size of the Nicotiana seeds last week! And these are the parsnip seeds that I germinated on paper towel in a plastic lidded container.

They’re sown into the ground which has been under black weed suppressant for a couple of weeks. I sowed two rows: the row on the left in this photo was pre-germinated, so will see what difference it makes, if any. I’ve put a cover over them more for protection from birds than any good reason.

A few more seeds sown were radish and perpetual spinach in the raised bed. The Egyptian walking onions are growing very slowly and look very similar to the grass and weeds that I had to clear but now the weather is cheering up a bit they may get moving (not walking yet 🤭). 

And lastly, two rows of Spring onions, some red, some white have been sowed on Plot 3 where Jamie also spent a lot of time yesterday digging the hole for the melon to grow.

The purple sprouting broccoli on that plot is beginning to flower. I’m hoping to get at least one more harvest. I included some in this Katsu curry with Cluck the other evening - delicious.

I appreciate these photos are mainly of dirt, but well, it’s that time of year.  To make up for all the brown in this blogpost, here’s a beautiful little phlox flower that’s growing on the fringes of the HAHA Wildlife plot bog garden.

And here’s a ladybird, they’re just beginning to emerge and will be looking out for mates now. I hope the larvae arrive before the blackfly this year!

The birds have mostly paired up now - we’ve seen pairs of goldcrest, blue tits and great tits in the hedge. The robins are feeding their females and are very demanding of us with their tuneful song. The jackdaws and magpies are squabbling even more than usual and are most upset by the carrion crow that has a nest nearby. And there is a flock of starlings that swoop down from the power cables when the site isn’t too busy.

As you can see, it’s all happening so the song title provided by Moloko is very apt. Enjoy 😊