Last day of holiday :-(

The last few days of my fortnight's holiday have remained very warm and mostly sunny. We had rain overnight on Wednesday which produced another 4.5mm of rain but we've still been watering a lot as the ground dries out so quickly.

We've been eating from the plot all week; potatoes, broad beans, raspberries but mostly courgettes. I'm desperately looking for interesting courgette recipes, though so far plain, topped with a cheesy-nutty concoction is winning. We've managed to give away several as we've had so many family visitors to the plot this week, but now the green courgettes are arriving along with the Floridor yellows.

I couldn't resist modifying this cloud photo I took - the evening cloud had such a perfect formation! I immediately thought of this pic of Aeolus (or one similar).

I wanted to paste in an arty wind-blower, but couldn't find anything suitable so had to use me instead :-)

I did the 2013 Big Butterfly Count today - details on my wildlife blog.

Rain!

We went to the site in the morning and did a bit of labelling on the HAHA Plot. As it's meant to be 'unusual veg' we thought it would be sensible to let people know exactly what is growing there. The squashes are doing well, as are the asparagus peas but I don't think the globe artichoke liked being transplanted - it doesn't seem to have grown at all since the move..

It was so humid we couldn't do anything energetic and only did a bit of watering because we have the promise of rain later.
I could have done the butterfly count today,  though it wouldn't be a particularly average day (see wildlife blog)!
 

In the evening we walked up again to pick potatoes (International Kidney) for dinner. We got a healthy haul from the one plant and they were very tasty but did fall apart in the pan after just 17mins of cooking. I had a few mangetout too and the strawbs are for tomorrow's breakfast. 

Juat as we got close to home it started to rain but we got indoors before we had the most tremendous thunderstorm - very exciting! Haven't heard thunder that loud for years! And with it came the RAIN.

Heatwave - it's official!

Southern England has just moved into Level 3 Amber alert heatwave, according to the Met Office. This is because we've exceeded the threshold temperature of 30° by day and 15° overnight for at least 2 days - feels like 14 days to us!

The courgettes are making the most of all the watering we're doing - I had to put 2 big ones on the shares table today. We picked some more strawberries and I got a handful of mangetout - Malcolm provided a few more so that I've enough for my dinner tonight.

We've found more evidence of dust baths and today I found feathers - pretty sure these are pheasant feathers.

Talking of birds - take a look at the wildlife blog entry for today! Here's a teaser...the video is gruesome...



First Timelapse on a hot day in June 2013!

It was a really hot and lovely day on the allotment. Jamie and I spent about 6 hours there and we were actually on our plots so feel like we've achieved quite a lot.
I used this new app for the first time - this was just a freebie version so the quality isn't that great. However, I've now bought the Pro version so expect to see a few more timelapses on this blog in the future :-)

The hardest part was finding where to stand my phone hence the low-level view! This was filmed over about an hour and a half.

In the video I'm transplanting quite a few lettuces - lambs lettuce and lollo rosso. I also put some where my remaining three (yes, THREE!) florence fennel are. You'll see I've loaded the ground with slug pellets. I'm wondering whether the proximity to the sage is the problem - it's a bit of a slug/snail haven in there. Well, they've got plenty of lettuces to scoff now so maybe that'll keep them off the remaining fennel...

Jamie planted up the two Rocky cucumber plants. One in the ground and the other in a pot and that will hopefully trail across a framework. I planted up another sprout plant and some summer cabbage (Minicole) - protected under an enviromesh tunnel. I also planted up eleven Speedy french beans - the only ones that we've managed to germinate this year.

We did lots of weeding and Jamie cut the grass and did the edging. We fed the strawberries and tomatoes with Tomorite liquid feed. There are lots of flowers on the tomatoes and the strawberries are providing us with plenty of fruit for desserts.

The raspberry bushes have got bashed about by the wind (and Jamie's mowing) so I need to stake them up tomorrow. There are lots of flowers and fruits appearing and it's the most popular plant on the plot for bees at the moment.

I chopped all the chives back to ground level as the flowers had just about gone over and I didn't want them to seed everywhere - the chives will grow back quickly enough. We'll need them for our new potatoes soon :-)

 

Broads and Strawbs

We've had a few visits to the plot since last week. Jamie transplanted the beets into the raised bed and we've got all the squashes in their places now. Still haven't got the brassicas planted up so we really need to get them done in the next week.

This evening we've got broad beans - our first harvest from the over-Wintered plants. We've also got a few strawberries for dessert and plenty more to come.

My florence fennel is down to seven plants now. I specifically grew them to go with my celeriac. My celeriac has bolted; I cut the flowering core out but don't know whether they'll bulb up now. Looks like I may be buying fennel and celeriac soup or relying on someone else's produce!

Something (probably a bird) got behind my protective netting on the mangetout and has made a real mess; a broken and tangled mess. I've protected it again and hopefully they'll still produce some pods...

We had the HAHA AGM last night. It was good. Lots of people turned up and (after the official stuff was out of the way) we had a good night of chat. Throughout the evening we had a slideshow of photos from Marsh Lane since the site was first chosen in 2008 to date. So fabulous seeing the changes over the years.

I've posted the slideshows to Youtube, so here's a link to them:

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

 

Ugh - Leased land is rubbish!

Oh no, here we go again....

De-ja-vu of 2009

We've been told by the developer/landowner won't extend the lease on Marsh Lane because it could put a block on future development of the site :-( Basically we can't use the site as an allotment even though there's no planning application in sight yet. So frustrating!! So much time and effort put in to make the Marsh Lane site such a brilliant commodity for Hungerford.

There's the likelihood of an alternative site but at present that would also be on a short lease - not a great position - can just imagine re-posting this in another 4 years....
We'll have to see what happens at the HAHA AGM on Monday evening.

On a plus note, in the last week we've eaten our first handful of strawberries - bad luck Jamie for getting the one that the red ants had got into <bleah>
Jamie also planted out six more Scarlet Empire runner beans and two jack-be-little squashes.
My fennel is still being eaten. I tried spraying with various things - the detergent seems to have got rid of the greenfly but I think slugs were joining in the fun. 7 plants left now....
 

Unusual Veg Plot

This trendy photo was taken by Ethan - he found a setting I'd forgotten existed on my camera :-)

That's me, still clearing the HAHA plot. Nearly done... Nigel gave us some mooli radish seeds and some salsola Liscari Sativa. I'd never heard of that before but looks like it could be interesting - if it germinates. It needs to be reasonably cold for successful germination so I'll sow in a tray at home on the doorstep, which is always in the shade.

I sowed some more mangetout on our plot and also a test sowing of Asparagus pea, to see how long they'll take to produce once they're on the HAHA plot.

I also sowed some more radish on top of the row of wild rocket, which was a no-show. Oh yes, and our sweetcorn has germinated at home - 15 out of 20 so far. We'll take them up the plot soon...
 

Watching/Growing/Planting/Sowing

Wow! What a great week to be on leave! Such a lovely sunny day that even the wind was warm.

Jamie potted up the three peppers, using a sand and potting compost mix. They're in pots on weed suppressant near the tomatoes.

I planted a row of French marigolds between the carrots and parsnips. And put a staggered row of pot marigolds (calendula) alongside the tomatoes.
The salsify is barely visible but they all seem to have germinated. Here's a macro-shot of it - very easy to miss or mistake for grass!

The French beans haven't appeared (well one did) so I sowed some into individual pots and have left them in the greenhouse to germinate. I also sowed a tray of Winter cabbage Tundra in modules which should be fine germinating outside, under netting.

At last we've also sown a root trainer tray of Sweetcorn supersweet which are under the grow light at home.

A little bit of Robbie news - his chicks have fledged. We saw two sitting on the fence and Robbie was feeding them both. One of them did a circuit round our plot, but didn't land. Hopefully I'll get a photo of the family soon.
At one point Robbie was sitting on our bench and was letting out a really high-pitched sound but frozen in position. When we looked about we saw that the kestrel was on the telegraph wires watching. Once the kestrel flew away Robbie started feeding again.
That reminded me to fill in the Kestrel Survey online!

Post Number 300!

Not a terribly exciting post but still it's a milestone :-)
We visited a very windy plot in the afternoon. It was very busy and we have new neighbours (on the plot where we saw the toad yesterday).
We took our tomatoes up but have protected them with fleece as they aren't used to being outside. A very good job we didn't take them up yesterday - it was 1°. Some people's potatoes and squashes had been burnt by frost, but it looked like our end of the site was protected - possibly because of the canal or the hedge.

Look how cosy our toms look.
The wind didn't make working with fleece very easy! We've round it round one of our bean wigwams for the time-being. We sowed another 11 Scarlet Empire runner beans yesterday as we've only had 3 germinate so far.. and still no sign of any french Speedy beans yet.

We shouldn't get any frost now but the next few days we're expecting rain and more wind - bleah!

I snipped off the excess parsnips, so just one per station now. We did some weeding around the rhubarb and removed some more rogue spuds which are appearing all over the site!

We left with three lovely leeks which will be soup quite soon - they're the leeks Malcolm gave us and have been in the ground since 8th August last year! I left a few in the ground but they'll have to go soon as they're in the way of the squash/brassica plantings.

I wrote a small piece for our local quarterly magazine. Some people on site think I have information about the end of our tenancy - I don't. Along with the 80+ other plotholders I'm waiting/hoping for a decision soon...
 

A Seven Hour Day

Yes! 7 hours on the plot today. Much of that time it was sunny and hot - perfect!

There was a bit of construction going on. Jamie made up the sprout cage; 3m x 1m and 1 metre tall - that's for four Brussels plants with a few summer cabbages too. We're still keeping the potting composts/manure bags on the earth under the cage so that the ground keeps as compacted as possible - just what the sprouts like to stop them 'blowing'.

Then we put up the trellis for the Uchiki Kuri squash - it turned out a bit arty! Hope the nylon rope is strong enough to hold the squashes.

I potted on all the squashes which had germinated. Lots of yellow ball courgettes, should be a few of them to give away soon.

I sowed a row of salsify on plot 8 and put a row of transplanted lettuce alongside; Tom Thumb, Red and Little Gem varieties.

I also sowed a row of wild rocket by the onions and transplanted a couple of little self-seeded coriander plants (not sure how well they transplant though). I sowed some more petit pois as hardly any have grown, but the mangetout are looking good - seems the pigeons haven't spotted them yet!

 

All the while we had Robbie flying around us and eating worms, competing with his nemesis Mrs Blackbird.

We're a bit concerned about our tomato plants, which are still at home in the windowsill. They look healthy at the top....

 

But, at the base the leaves are dying back rather rapidly.

Really want to get them up the plot, but again the weather is threatening to go cold over the next couple of nights..

Plot 8 takes on another tool - and wins

We had such a lovely day on the allotment today. It was warm (16°) and sunny with no wind - yay! And, look! We finished digging Plot 8! Unfortunately whilst excavating one of five huge chunks of concrete the spade broke :}

Here are the squashes, no sign of the Cornells Bush Delicata yet, but the courgettes look happy and the winter squash (Uchiki Kuri) is getting there,,,

Unfortunately the celeriac hasn't germinated yet, but hopefully it will get going soon. The florence fennel, silverskin and salad onions have all started to germinate as have the mangetout.


Mangetout

We did a bit of clearing up - this potato was a rogue spud from last year. Really don't want a potato plant amongst our shallots!

I've updated the wildlife blog. Obviously with a couple of pictures of Robbie (still refusing to feed from my hand), a moth and a knotted worm!

 

 

A Sunny Bank Holiday!

Such a lovely May Day holiday - there were a lot of other plot holders around making the most of the sunshine and amazing temperature. We had a barbecue but escaped early afternoon as it was too hot (my resolution not to moan when the sun shines is officially broken!). We'll go back to close the greenhouse down a bit later.

From Plot 7

Look how dry the ground appears, but a couple of inches down there is some moisture; In the morning there is dew so it's not quite as dry as it looks. Still no sign of parsnips or the broad beans we sowed a couple of weeks ago.
We've moved the flowers and beets which have germinated under the green mesh cloche, in the raised bed, which is cooler than the greenhouse.
Today I sowed these seeds in modules and they're in the greenhouse:

• Scarlet Empire runner beans
• White flowered runner beans - we don't know their name but they are apparently self-pollinating

I also sowed 4 small rows of Rondo F1 Florence Fennel. I sowed 3 seeds per 'station' and spread the stations out as each plant should be spaced about 15cm apart.
I also sowed a row of PeaWee 65 petit pois and Carouby de Moussane mangetout. Jamie repaired the pea frame which had gone rather wobbly since I moved it from the other quarter...
More potatoes have burst through!

From Plot 8

 

Readying for Runners

Another lovely few hours on the allotment today. It was mostly sunny, though the wind was chilly, so we needed to keep busy or at least sit in the sunshine! The temperature last night was -2° but finally reached double figures today 10° while we were on the plot - it's getting there, slowly...

The first thing we did was dig circular trenches for our runner bean wigwams.

We put 2 bags of mushroom compost in each trench. We have two types of runners this year: Scarlet Empire and a white-flowered variety which we were given by a fellow plotholder last year.



While Jamie dug over the rest of the bean quarter, I piled manure round the raspberry bushes as a healthy mulch. I covered the area where the fennel is going with black plastic to try to warm the ground a bit. Also managed to square off the dug area on Plot 8a, still a lot do be sorted on plot8b though...

Panorama of Plot 7 - Three Quarters ready...

Spotted this pheasant clearing up one of the empty plots near us - there's nothing for him on our plots at the moment. I've updated the wildlife blog too.

 

British Weather and British Birds

The sun was shining and it was considerably warmer than it has been for more than a week (about 8°) so we were really pleased to go to the allotment to do the RSPB Birdwatch.

These are our figures:

•   Robin: 1
•   Magpie: 1
•   Pigeon: 3
•   Rook: 10
•   Chaffinch: 3
•   Blue Tit: 1
•   Great Tit: 1

I was disappointed that there wasn't much birdlife around ... the blackbirds didn't show up and we sometimes have a whole flock of long-tailed tits in the hedge but they were a no-show too.

We did a bit of digging and tidying while we were there. Jamie dug the parsnip plot and dug up the rotten parsnips - which were all we had to show of the ones we sowed last year. He then added a bit of the 6X compost and dug it in - this is where the peas/mangetout are going this year.

I cleared weeds from the plot where purple Congo potatoes had re-grown. I found some reasonable tubers which I brought home. We're a bit concerned that it may not be too obvious whether they're blighty (because of their dark colour), but will take a look.
It's still too wet for proper digging - can't step on the soil without taking more home than we leave behind!

We decided to pick our leeks and sprouts just as it started to spot with rain. Two minutes later there was torrential rain, hail and strong winds so we had to run to the container for cover! On returning to the plot to return the leek cage to its proper place we found this...

...a broken leek cage and a broken sprout cage! Well, it was very strong wind!!
We covered them as best we could and went home wet, cold and a little bit more miserable than we had been 15 minutes earlier!

NB. Wildlife blog also has an update

 

Clearing through the showers

As soon as we arrived at the site it started to rain - we really should try to move faster on a Saturday morning!! There were a few heavy showers throughout the afternoon but we escaped to the container with Neal and Malcolm for one of them and managed to work through the others. Sadly, our umbrella that I was so proud of a few weeks ago, broke on it's second outing :-(



Rain's a-coming

Jamie cleared the area where the onion netted cage is - we're going to sow some Aqua Dulce broad beans in there over Winter. We're hoping they'll survive better than they did last year. Kerry told us that she protected hers with enviromesh and got a good early crop this year, so we thought we may as well give it a go. Jamie added some chicken manure pellets to the ground and hoed it in well.


Not a great pic, but I like the shadow of this black wasp

I cleared the cabbage patch. We had one giant cabbage left and one little one. They've gone over though - have black tainting along the inside of the leaves so they went into the compost bin, apart from the stems which would take far too long to rot down (so the Council gets them).

The leeks are looking quite good, even with the rust. Quite a few people have leek moth damage but the enviromesh seems to have saved ours so far. Our ones from Malcolm, which aren't under netting, also seem to be doing alright - he said his look better on the side that's protected by the runner beans so maybe ours are protected by the marigolds and the carrot netting on the other side.

The temperature in the last few days has still only gone down to 4.5° - the courgette plant has succumbed but still hasn't collapsed completely. And the Cornells Bush Delicata has still not been frosted so they're still ripening up.

This is evidence of mice in our raised bed - look at those little teeth marks! They really like beetroot! Our sweetcorn seem to be ok but pheasants have desecrated other plotholders crops :-( We'll probably pick the last of ours tomorrow.

Beautiful day in between the showers