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!

Raining Again

This was such an amazing rainbow! It was so bright and huge, much more impressive than this photo shows but it’s the best I could get. So beautiful, I stood and stared for a while.

Sunshine and showers definitely sums up the weather over the last couple of weeks/months. I’ve got a few days off for Easter, but the hoped-for plot-days haven’t worked out yet…

We’ve had plot visits and have even done a bit of weeding but it’s hard work having to do it by hand because the ground is too wet to walk on let alone to dig.

Well, that’s the leeks patch cleared to make way for root crops. It’ll need better digging than that to grow some straight carrots!

The leeks were good this year. It’s worth planting them nice and deep to get plenty of white stalk.

The blackthorn has flowered in the hedge but the lovely flowers didn’t last long. The wind, rain, hail didn’t help, but hopefully they were pollinated.

We’ve seen bees enjoying the dandelions, dead nettle and grape hyacinths as well as the other Spring bulbs that are popping up here and there.

I was pleased to see some tadpoles in our little pond although I haven’t seen them since. I have seen a couple of frogs recently though and there’s some frogspawn appeared in the pond on the HAHA wildlife plot.

The teasels on the wildlife plot in a rainstorm yesterday (Good Friday). The sky went black but no thunder like we had on Thursday when the hail was apocalyptic.

Here’s Jamie fighting against the wind and rain while we were trying to secure a honeysuckle trellis which had collapsed on the wildlife plot.

We have achieved some tasks in the last couple of weeks. I’ve managed to weed and feed the garlic bed and Jamie’s cleared the bean tunnel.

And we’ve collected some of the manure for future use - it’s in a compost bin for now. £1.50 a barrow-load from HAHA - what a bargain 😊

Talking of HAHA. We have a fully tenanted site again - it’s great to see the newcomers joining us old-timers 👨‍🌾 And on the sunny breaks it has been a lovely busy site with lots of chat and catching up with plot-buddies. Aah, we do love our allotment and we really should get out there while the Sun is shining because it looks like today may be dry…. with just a small threat of showers… Moby provides the song title.

The Importance of Being Idle

I was pleased when it was sunnier than expected yesterday morning and we had a lovely few hours on the plot. The clouds started developing while we were digging the area for the leeks. That’s where the broad beans were.

The leeks were sown en masse at the end of that patch - the whole packet. That method has worked for Neal in the past, so we followed his example and the little leeks look pretty good and ready to be planted on. There should be plenty left over for sharing once we’ve planted ours - I don’t think we’ve ever planted them so early.

Apart from that bit of digging I’ve had a relaxing few days pottering around on the plots. We’ve been watching juvenile robins and bullfinches in the hedge, it’s been lovely. The bullfinch father seems to be pointing out the various locations for food by whistling for his young ones to follow.

We pulled a Nicola potato from one of the bags; probably enough for three or four meals. We had all the tiny ones as part of a salad containing 7 other home-grown veggies.

And this is the ice cream dessert with the gooseberry and blackcurrant sauces from Ivan’s fruit. What a treat!

I should have, but didn’t, do the Big Butterfly Count; there’s still another week or so. This brimstone butterfly (I suppose it may not be the same one) has been hanging round Kate’s runner beans for two days now. Our beans are nowhere near this stage! Lots of people are already picking beans and we don’t even have flowers 😖

We do have beans on our Yin Yang dwarf beans though. I was considering eating the pods but it seems that they are best grown as shelled beans even if not dried, so they have quite a bit more growing to do. These are the fab looking black and white Orca beans that were grown from our last year’s collected seed - also known as Calypso beans. 

I mentioned in my last post that the asparagus peas are doing well this year. I let some pods grow a bit bigger and they were very tasty - I boiled them for about 10minutes then cooled them before adding to this Beetroot and Quorn roast salad lunch.

Courgettes are still part of every evening meal and were good with this fried gnocchi in a tomato and garlic sauce. Mmm, I do so enjoy this time of year and I even don’t mind doing a bit more of the cooking.

I did a bit of clearing by the pond - we really need to tackle the bindweed. This scabious is enjoying a bit more light now I’ve cleared some of the Nigella seedheads.

And, having cleared some weed from the pond, a froggy appeared! 

I am enjoying my time off work and I’m pretty sure my cold is thinking about moving on which is why I’m taking it easy 🙂 Great song and video by Oasis - enjoy!

Day of the Sunflowers

This is the veggie bake I made at the weekend - so pretty, but it took a long time to cook even though I’d thinly sliced the veg. The veg (potato, courgette and tomato on top of fried onions and garlic) was covered in a cheese sauce and baked.

The tomatoes were kindly given to us by fellow plotholder, Iulia. She gave us a bagful of different varieties, which was a real treat. She has said that I can dig some of her abundant horseradish. I saw a Nigella recipe with tomatoes so will have a go at that. When (when!) it rains, the horseradish smells so lovely but I don’t want the meal to be too spicy hot.

Some of those split tomatoes were boiled down with garlic and smoked paprika, which we had with gnocchi (and courgette) last night.

As you can tell, courgettes are still playing a major role in our diets! We thought the plant was dying back a couple of weeks ago but it (and the patty pan) have had a new lease of life. So... we made patty pan and carrot chutney at the weekend. It looks rather like marmalade, but I’m sure it’ll be tasty. It’s using our go-to recipe where we just change the veg for what we have available. We only made one and a half jars this year.

We had a most enjoyable HAHA picnic on Bank Holiday Monday. It’s so nice to sit and chat with our fellow plotholders. I made a colourful purple potato salad for the picnic and we’ve bean eating a few more of our super-sweet Lizzano cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

And the prizes were awarded by Ted for the Plotholders Choice award (well done to Jenny) and the Tallest Sunflower (well done to Zoe).

Zoe’s sunflower measured a towering 3.51m! Somewhat surprisingly, the first and third tallest on site are both multi-headed sunflowers. They’ve made an impressive display around the site, so I’m sure we’ll run the competition again next year.

Here we are measuring Zoe’s earlier in the day. Jamie’s job was up the ladder (I realise he's not in the photo!). This year’s top two heights were taller than last year’s winner - which was 3.21m.

No ladder required for measuring ours the day before, which now seems a paltry 2.49m.

I bought some potted perennials at the market yesterday (Jacob’s ladder, Coreopsis, Leucanthemum and Scabiosa). I’ve planted them in front of the bench for a more permanent display. I cleared some of the terrible bindweed round the pond and a golden frog appeared to see what was going on.

That was the last day of my long weekend; it was a welcome break from work. Yesterday afternoon we dug an area on Plot3 for planting some of Neal’s leeks. It was quite exhausting, the ground was hard in places and just dust in others, but it looks better now and perhaps we’ll get a bit of rain ahead of the leeks going in at the weekend. 

I peeked under the netting at the Chinese cabbage and pak choi that I sowed at the beginning of the month. I’ve left the enviromesh on to stop it being nibbled so much. I need to thin the cabbage but the pak Choi is probably ok.

And we've been having a few of the thinned baby carrots. Some are really tiny and so tasty.

Jamie sowed some Winter lettuce in the raised bed and then we played with the bubble machine 🤭

I'm eating chard and beetroot with other bits and pieces for lunches. The mornings are still beautiful but the sun is rising later and setting earlier, Autumn is definitely in the air at times.

The song title is provided by Basement Jaxx.

Army Dreamers

We have froglets! The tiniest you’d ever see! I’m so happy 😊

There are a least five. The weird thing is that there are still lots of tadpoles which haven’t even developed legs yet. And, weirder still, the frogs are smaller than the tadpoles! 🤔 Here you can see how small this one is compared to duckweed.

After a bit of a chilly start to the week, yesterday was lovely and, because it was a Bank Holiday, the site was really bustling. We planted out our three types of climbing beans: Scarlet Empire runners, Lingua di Fuoco borlotti beans and Blue Lake French beans.

Jamie’s planted the All Green Bush courgette and the Sunburst patty pan. We’ve put slug pellets around these small plants with netting/fleece for protection from the weather and to stop the birds eating the pellets - they are the legal ferric phosphate ones, but we’d still prefer the birds to steer clear.

I’ve sown another row of carrots… 3rd time lucky? And I’m pleased to see some of the parsnip seeds have germinated on the ‘paper towel trick’, so I’ll plant them today.

I finished digging the other trench in the squash tunnel after we’d had a bit of rain at the beginning of the week. So the ground is waiting for the plants now…. They’ve just begun to germinate, so are a bit slower than I’d hoped.

As you can see, Plot3 is still a plot-in-waiting, but at least it’s weed-free now though it won’t be if we don’t get some plants in soon!

Here’s me with fellow committee members, Liz and Richard, with our HAHA-decorated jubilee tree. All the organisations in the town were offered a High Street tree to decorate. And this is what my pompom bees were for, along with seed packet/veggie home-made bunting and decorated flower pots.

We wandered up the High Street yesterday to look at the other decorations. I think it’s a nice idea. Here are a few of the trees. I really like the Nursery School’s golden wellies 🙂

Anyway, back on the allotment. We’ve been potting on marigolds, colourful chard and amaranthus (love lies bleeding).

We’ve had our first harvest of delicious broad beans.

Before applying spray to the annoying black fly, which always breed quicker than the ladybirds 😖

And I thinned the beetroot so enjoyed those thinnings with a halloumi dinner the other night. They were rather earthy-tasting - needless to say, Jamie didn’t want any 😀

The potatoes were earthed-up and fleeced at the end of May as there was concern for a frost. It was fine, only dropping to 3.5° then on the night of June 1st the thermometer recorded 1.4°! But no frost damage.

There are more bees and beetles about and we watched this lovely mullein moth caterpillar chomp through a flower on the wildlife plot (apparently they can stay as a pupa for 5years!) but butterflies and ladybirds seem to be laying low at the moment. We need a few less blowy days I think.

Anyway, it’s time to get back onto the plot. Great song by Kate Bush dedicated to our army of tiny frogs (apparently that is the collective noun).