Month of May - Arcade Fire

What a beautiful May weekend we’ve had, after a rather grey start to the month.

We've had some of the rain that all us gardeners were waiting for, but there’s little sign of it on the site apart from the weeds growing taller! We spotted a couple of these (below) on the wildlife plot. Often mistaken for fungi, it's the spore-bearing 'flower' of horsetail (aka Mares Tail).

You can see the green shoots of the more familiar ferny plant just appearing. It's an interesting perennial with very deep roots and is a reason why some areas of our site aren't used as plots - though it's only a problem if left to run rampant. We’ve finally confirmed that we have teasels growing on the wildlife plot when we noticed the little 'ponds' in their leaves. So, I never realised that teasels are carnivorous but they gain extra sustenance from insects falling into these rain traps. Here's an interesting read about it.

Our own little pond on our plot has two frogs in it now. The tadpoles, if they haven’t been eaten, are lying low. They're about 6-weeks old now so may be moving on to a meatier diet and legs could start appearing, especially on the ones in the wildlife pond which have always been bigger than others on site.

We’ve been planting and sowing over the last two weekends: Blue Lake climbing French bean, Yin Yang dwarf French bean, Gigantes and Borlotti beans are all sown into pots in the polytunnel. The Zinnia are in modules on a window sill at home and Jack of All Trades pumpkin, All Green bush courgette, Sunburst patty pan and Mangomel melon are in pots under the grow-light. And today I sowed some Florence fennel directly into the ground.

The Shiraz mangetout, grown in the guttering, have been planted out and I added a few more seeds in attempt to get some successive harvests. The frame has a protective net otherwise the pigeons will decimate them as they’ve done previous years.

On the last day of April we planted our potatoes. I’m looking forward to the Salad Blue; I hope they’re as blue/purple as the Congo that we grew a few years ago - I just checked, that was 11 years ago! Wow, how time flies. And yesterday Jamie planted 4 Nicola into bags.

On Saturday we weeded on plot3. It was hard work, as the ground is so dry, but it looks a bit better. Some of the grass was too difficult so I’ll deal with that after giving the ground a bit of a water. I hope you can tell which is the After photo - thought there's still a lot of work to be done before I can get my squashes in (well, they're not sown yet so I have time).Whilst working on Plot3 Jamie opened our storage chest and found a wasp nest - it was only at embryonic stage but we couldn't leave it where it was. We felt guilty, but flicked it over the hedge and ran away as the wasp queen zoomed round trying to locate her babies. I live in hope that she found them and continues the nest in the hedge, but that's probably unlikely. More photos/info on my Wildlife blog.

We've been going to the allotment most days for watering. I like eating my lunch up there but it's so hard returning to work! With no rain forecast for at least the next week we'll be visiting a lot in May, but it is so perfect. We have great tits nesting somewhere on our plot and have seen the bullfinches nearby. Our visits are accompanied by the cuckoo over the marsh and a little bird, possibly some sort of warbler, singing a very repetitive song.

The purple sprouting brocolli went completely to flower and the leeks have woody centres so those remaining have been cleared. I'm still eating the dried beans from last year though and was very pleased with these bean burgers. Borlotti, gigantes and runner beans blended together with chives, tomato paste, rose harissa pesto and some oak-smoked olive oil. I did more beans than I needed so the burger was significantly larger than the bun, but was delicious.

What a lovely month May is! Such a busy site with everyone talking about what they're sowing and growing. Rhubarb will be on the menu this week and broade beans should follow quite soon. Aah... now, back to work Belinda!
Arcade Fire provide the title song.

Holiday

What a beautiful Easter weekend! Lots of sunshine and warm temperatures every day. Those clouds just started to get darker on Monday afternoon - good timing!

We spent hours on the allotment over the lovely 4-day weekend. I dug through the area in front of the bench. Lots of couch and hedge roots to remove from the area which has been under weed-suppressant for a few years. 

One particularly large root took a lot of tugging; when it gave, I discovered that it was a (the?) tap-root of the Lovage plant DOH! So I'm quite expecting part of that lovely plant to die off soon... The wet patches are where I've sown some chrysanthemums - I want that area to be a beautiful flower bed... we'll see!

Jamie was working on the carrot trench and it's environmesh cage then sowed two rows of carrots (Eskimo and Early Nantes 5). We really hope they do better than last year when we hardly had any carrots to eat. We're being more generous with our sowings this year, where previously we've been a bit tight; we've decided to sow lots and plan on thinning more than we usually do.

I've been more liberal with my beetroot, parsnip, radish, spring onion and lettuce seeds that went in on Sunday too. 

The watering regime has started. As you can see the ground is very dry, but there may be a few showers this week.

I cleared some weeds and some of the masses of nigella seedlings near the pond. I transplanted a couple of houseleek and hope that they'll spread across the area.

The pots next to the bench will be moved when I plan to have Love Lies Bleeding growing there. The seeds, along with some more sunflowers, are sown into pots and in the polytunnel so I'm hoping the night temperatures don't dip too low. 

The pots are full of various flowers and bulbs including the tulips that my nephew, George, gave us for Christmas which are just developing. Also the bay laurel from my sister, but the cold winds hit it when it was in a different position and some of the leaves went brown. I'm hoping it'll be happier in that more protected spot.

Meanwhile the wallflowers are providing a lovely scent, even though they're beginning to go over now. They come back every year and are messy but so pretty. My mum always insisted on pulling them up each year and then I'd go searching for new plants each spring.

We managed another PSB harvest along with some leeks. Much of the Purple Sprouting Brocolli is covered in yellow flowers now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see another lot of shoots now that I've chopped these off.

I've made leek and chestnut soup, with turmeric, for my lunches. I had to have a taster - delish.

And lastly, we have a frog in the pond on the wildlife plot! I'm not sure if he found his own way there. He may have arrived with a lot of duckweed, which I think the tadpoles will appreciate as protection.

The song title is provided by Weezer - it may have only been 4 days but it felt like a holiday. Bliss!

Scatman

The robin that visits the wildlife plot is so friendly. He eats from a lid in my hand but isn't willing to stand on it; just takes a mealworm hummingbird-style and eats it on the fence. 

We've had two afternoons on the plot. There was a stiff breeze but the sun shone occasionally so it was pleasant. I showed a new couple round yesterday and leased another empty plot this afternoon. It's a good time for new plotholders when there are lots of people on site in the sunshine. 

Jamie sowed some seeds in seed compost that's he's made up from coir, 25% vermiculite and perlite. He's sown some calendula, tagetes and 3 Brussels sprouts into modules. Hopefully they'll be OK to germinate in the polytunnel.

I retrieved some frogspawn from a puddle on an empty plot on 3rd March. Those frogs really should have gone to a pond.

I’m pleased to say that the foetus have developed and they now look quite tadpole-y. I’ve tried to clear the duckweed from our little pond and have put a mesh over the top.

A couple of other people took some of the spawn away to their ponds today.

I’ve been attempting to clear our mammoth sage plant. 

I was going to remove the sage completely but I found a frog so have left some of it. We want to move our seating there this year so we can plant some of Ivan’s iris at the other end of the plot where they should get more sunshine.

Unfortunately the area has couch grass, stinging nettles and raspberry so it was a bit hard going, but it's getting there. I’m hoping to grow Love Lies Bleeding (Amaranthus Caudatus) next to the bench. The long red tassels looked amazing on another person’s plot last year and the birds apparently love the seed. 

Someone else’s plot last July

I may add some to the wildlife plot, which is a segue to share a photo of some poop that we discovered in the straw-filled compost bin on the wildlife plot. 

It appears to be weasel scat. We have seen one on site before, several years ago. We would welcome them on site, though the birds and voles will be less pleased to share their space with them 😒

On that note, the song title is provided by Scatman John 🥳

Let’s Stick Together

It’s actually May Day, but this post is marking the end of April and we had some welcome rain - very cold rain and hail yesterday - and Froggy has found a friend.

The seedlings and weedlings are happy, finally some salad leaf is appearing.

The wildlife plot has green shoots all over it, but I wonder how much of that is from the seeds we sowed?!

We’d planned an extra long weekend because of Bank Holiday Monday - always good to have a 4-day weekend. I didn’t bank on having Thursday off too, but I felt awful after my second vaccination on Thursday - a week earlier than originally planned. At least I knew the side effects would only last a day, so I pretty much slept through it. There’s some doubt about the vaccine efficacy for transplant patients, but well done to the NHS for pushing through the population so efficiently.

So yesterday, before the hail, we managed to plant the potatoes.

Just Nicola and Kestrel; some in the ground (planted using a bulb planter) and others in potato bags.

While I was doing a plant-swap with Ivan - one of our Rudbeckia plants (self-seeded) for two of his self-seeded Echinacea plants - and planting them by the pond and by the polytunnel, Jamie was busy creating the carrot mesh tunnel. We were just ready to sow when the hail started, so we had to hide for a while. We were watching the magpies.

They were very defensive today; attacking jackdaws and this red kite - I know it’s not a great photo, but they were moving fast and annoyingly the other side of the wires!

Eventually we got the carrots sowed - a row of Eskimo and one of Early Nantes.

Soon after that we went home as it was chilly and too wet to do more. We’re hoping to get a few more seeds sown at the weekend, though the weather is rather hit and miss. Here’s a link to a FREE online event if you’re interested. It’s the author talking about her book regarding mental health and the benefit of gardening.

Aah, look at the plot after rain, so much healthier-looking. And there’s the carrot tunnel at the end of Plot7 next to the beets.

The song title is for the frogs, not humans yet - keep on keeping your distance please 🙂 and stay safe.

Wildflower

Look at the beautiful blue sky. What you can’t see is how chilly the strong wind was yesterday! Though I’m pleased to say that we’re quite protected at our end of the site.

You can see how dry the ground is, so we're already having to do a lot of watering even though there isn't that much in the ground so far. We're encouraging the garlic to bulb up and have been weeding some of the flower pots to help the struggling plants that have been swamped in them for months!

I planted out the celeriac seedlings. I need to remember never to bother trying to grow my own celeriac from seed in future years - the tray I bought had more than double what I needed and cost less than the seed packet (and my home-grown seedlings are pathetic!). I made a wonky trench for them so that I can keep them wet (they need A LOT of water) and earth them up when they need it.

I’ve protected the celeriac with the fleece tunnel as our night-time temperatures are still low and it may prevent some evaporation. I planted the beetroot and that’s under the green tunnel, but it shouldn’t really need protection; it just looked a bit vulnerable in the middle of that plot. Talking of tunnels.... we think that’s a vole in our shallot patch...

I planted some rainbow chard seedlings in a raised bed. And Jamie planted up some strawberries in this hanging planter, these are in the polytunnel (and are also wonky), it’ll be nice to get some early strawbs and maybe the birds won't venture in there.

Our main job today was to sow the wildflower seeds on the HAHA wildlife plot. Lots of different seeds, as you can see; some we bought, most were gifted or freebies. Hope they beat the weeds to the surface! We may get some rain this week...
The bog garden isn’t worthy of a photo; a couple of plants died (maybe frost damage) but the irises and a couple of others look like they’ll survive - well, it’s early days.

And last of all today, here's one of the frogs in our little pond. There are at least two that we've seen - they're both small, not ours from last year. The water has a lot of algae so I've been clearing it and need to get some more weed. Oh, and we heard the first cuckoo from across the marsh in the week - I do love having lunch at the allotment, definitely a bonus point for working from home! Although there's a lot of sarcasm from all the retired plotholders when I have to go back to work for the afternoon :-}

The song title is provided by Smashing Pumpkins, perhaps I should have saved it for when we have a plot-ful of wildflowers... no, best not tempt fate ;-)