First Time

Yesterday: It didn’t rain and it was Valentine’s Day so here’s a 7-spot ladybird sporting a love heart (not AI!).

After more than 3 months of hibernation we took advantage of a dry, albeit freezing, day and visited the plot. I was pleasantly surprised at how it looked - my expectations were low but it’s definitely looked worse.

I was so pleased to see the daffodils are almost ready to bloom in the raised bed. And around the budding fruit trees in ‘the orchard’.

The Apsley mulch has really helped with weed suppression; there are thistles, dandelion and cranesbill but not the grass which is such a pain to weed. We still have a bag of mulch to spread and to replenish other beds. 

One of the last plot visits I made before Christmas was to pull the leeks which had been decimated by leek moth larvae. I was over the moon to see that the garlic appears to have got away without damage, though I think the onions haven’t fared so well.

This is the raised bed where the shallots did well last year - there’s a few of those weeds I mentioned…

They were easily pulled and after an additional layer of mulch and compost this year’s Yellow Moon shallots have been planted and surrounded by a sprinkle of onion fertiliser. We’ve covered it with enviromesh to help protect from various pests. 

This plot with irises and bulbs hasn’t been mulched and is trickier to weed - look at that mess - ugh - but hopefully the flowers will put on a pretty show to distract the eye (the 2 crocuses haven’t quite achieved that) 🤭

This brick provided the brightest spot of colour in the sunshine - look at that lovely moss.

I need to study mosses a bit more, they’re so interesting en-masse or up-close. Looking at the moss world website I think this is probably a common variety Ceratodon Purpureus but don’t quote me!

The birds (robins, blackbirds, long-tailed tits, magpies) were out in number and a kite was circling overhead. There were also two hot air balloons in the clear blue sky - brrr, it must have been very cold up there. We found a couple of 7-spot ladybirds, including that one in the top photo with the heart, soaking up the rays and this wasp was snuggled in the polytunnel.

Aah, she’s holding her antennae down round her face (it can only be a Queen if it’s hibernating). I’ve updated the wasp entry on my Wildlife blog, if you’re interested.

There’s the Sun receding back into the gloom, but it was a lovely couple of hours and we felt revitalised as a result - though we were very pleased to go home for a coffee and a nap.

The title song is provided by Macy Gray recognising the first visit to the plot in 2026 - enjoy ☺️ 

Cool for Cats

We’ve had a huge amount of rain again, the rivers are fit to bust again but yesterday we had some extremely welcome sunshine. We were surprised there weren’t more plotholders on site, but the ground is a bit too wet to dig.

We’ve been clearing weeds, edging and pulling the carrots which had been left in the ground way too long. And there were some proper monsters in there, most had severe slug damage so have gone into the green bin at home - our 3 compost bins are already full.

This is Jamie’s extremely neat handiwork last weekend - making way for brassicas. He added lime and chicken manure pellets after clearing all the weeds; the heavy bags of compost will help to firm the soil before the plants go in (well, they aren’t sown yet!). We hope to have Brussels sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli and Cavolo Nero.

Oh, and this is the area I’m prepping for our three mini fruit trees. Jamie and I have rather different clearing techniques as you can see! Well, my bit of ground is much more weedy and I’ve had to dig a new straight-ish edge. Jamie moved on to hand-weeding the potato plot yesterday. We’ve only bought a handful of spuds: Wilja, Rocket and Desiree. They’re chitting under a grow light at home now.

I saw one tiny crocus flower on our plot, but no other flowers yet. This is a macro photo of the hellebore flowers at home. They’re so pretty aren’t they and don’t mind the shade - perfect.

I found a perfect little frog yesterday whilst digging. It was only about 10cm long and golden. I didn’t get a photo because I had to move it out of harm’s way. I see people have started reporting UK spawn sightings - nothing at Marsh Lane yet. I did see a ladybird yesterday and a digger bee last weekend, but it’s too early for them to come out really, we’re still expecting a cold snap. I cleared the old growth from the perennials but have left them on an empty spot for the insects to stay cosy. It means I can now see the weeds on the flower plot and see a few bulbs are emerging, though the slugs have already spotted that fresh new growth 🙄

Talking of which, look at these clumps of growth along the grass path.

They’re wild onion and have really spread over the last couple of years. They have a lovely onion scent - a bit stronger than chives, and can be used in the same way. You can apparently eat the bulbs too, but they must be very tiny. I’ve never seen a flower on these plants, but I’ll try to remember to check this year.

It’s great to see the longer hours of daylight and some dramatic skies like this yesterday. There’s definitely been some overnight rain, but we’re hoping to get a bit of plot-time in later. 

Enjoy the song provided by Squeeze. Look at the handsome cat! He’s such a friendly fellow, but the magpies are very unhappy when he’s around. The active hedgerow was keeping him entertained yesterday. What a life - he’s got the whole site to monitor 😺

Rinse and Repeat

What a sunny scene of home-sown flowers 😊. 

I must remember to sow lobelia into modules next year. It’ll make it far easier to pot them on. Zinnia seem to be the flower of the moment. And ours are appearing. They’re multi-coloured so some of the orange flowers are zinnia rather than marigolds. 

I’m seeing them everywhere, but look closer and they’re even more fab. No wonder the bees were enjoying them today.

I’m really happy with the Love Lies Bleeding (Amaranthus Caudatus). There are 4 plants around our plots. This one on Plot7 is the most advanced and this lovely long tassel has started to turn the deeper red. Such an amazing plant from the tiniest of seeds. The birds will apparently enjoy those seeds in the Autumn and I may well try some myself, as explained here by the Laidback Gardener’s blog. I hope some will set seed to re-grow next year.

The harvests are continuing and are not very varied, but a bit of creativity means that meals don’t need to be boring. That said, I am missing the kitchen at work where I used to leave all the surplus for my colleagues to take home. I must admit that we left a large patty pan and over-grown courgette on the spares shelf at the allotment and I was pleased to see that someone actually wanted them! I’m also very pleased that the chalk addition to the patty pan watering has largely resolved the blossom end rot problem.

This Rose Harissa dish with sticky rice was tasty though a bit too spicy for my taste (I got carried away with adding the harissa paste!)

The only flavouring in this stuffing, with added pine nuts, was the garlic, shallots and garlic oil. We had this in stuffed courgettes, with some left over for lunch the next day.

This weekend has been so sweltering that cold salads have been best for lunches. 

The temperature has reached 33° in the shade but it's been lovely sitting under the sun umbrella with a deskfan run on a Jackery power station, which we’ve bought for heating the polytunnel in Winter really!

The weather is what everyone is talking about. We even had to postpone our HAHA picnic; not due to rain, but because we’re in the amber extreme heat warning area.

It’s just beginning to cloud over - watch the clouds.

It’s still sweltering and some of us aren’t convinced that the rain/thunderstorms will hit Hungerford over the next few days, but the temperatures are forecast to drop to a more average 23°. Too late for our pumpkin, which has gone into emergency mode and decided to skip a couple of months.

The other squashes don’t seem to have had the same idea, so hopefully more than one fruit per plant, though the ‘tunnel’ hasn’t quite developed this year.

My Florence fennel has sadly all gone to seed. It’s just not been possible to keep it wet enough.

At last the sweetcorn has developed tassels but no cobs are emerging yet, which seems rather slow. We’ll see…

Summing up the last week: Work, water, harvest, deadhead, work, water, eat, sleep and repeat. And, I must say how much I like it 😊 Song title provided by Riton.

Mas Que Nada

This post is mostly going to be about food, with the occasional ‘Come on England!’ because I’m so excited that we’ve reached the Euros final!

The broad beans have been serving us well and I made hummus today using the recipe from The Lazy Cat Kitchen. I did add a bit of chilli and used sesame oil, instead of olive oil.

It’s a tasty dip for charcoal crackers. (Neal, if you’re reading this I meant to say that I pinched a bit of your mint. Hope you don’t mind!)

We enjoyed this broad beans dish as part of a tapas meal. So tasty fried with onions and paprika. The red onion makes it look very different from the recipe I used from The Fiery Vegetarian.

Another tapas dish was this bean salad, with last year’s Gigantes beans, peppers, spring onions and tomatoes. Again, it looks completely different from the recipe, but was so delicious. It covered me for an additional 3 lunches too.

As well as broad beans, the courgettes are now coming thick and fast so we had my favourite courgette stuffed with cheese, onion and mixed nuts stuffed courgette for dinner last night.

We went to the allotment this afternoon, it was cool, grey but at least dry after some torrential rain yesterday. Jamie fed all the plants and I mostly played about with our new camera. It’s an Olympus Tough TG6 and look how tough… This is how you wash it!!

It’s a good handy-sized camera and is particularly good for macro shots. These are two microscope mode shots of a pumpkin flower. So far, so good.

Some of this year’s garlic had fallen over so I pulled it early and it’s dried off nicely so they went home.

I pulled the rest of the garlic today and have hung it in the polytunnel to dry - it’s quite pungent in there! I don’t know whether it’ll help or add to the amount of insect life we have in there.

So that’s what we’ve been doing to pass the time while waiting for England versus Italy; England’s first time in a final since I was one-week old! COME ON ENGLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 

The fab song title means ‘more than nothing’ or ‘more than everything’ and is by Tony Hatch.

Out with the Sun

We had a lovely few hours on a sunny allotment site today and it was nice to see fellow plotholders also taking advantage of the warm sunshine. We even saw some tortoiseshell butterflies and bumblebees so it was very Springlike.

I've re-discovered my Fujifilm camera, with the Super Macro button...

Well, these crocuses look lovely from every angle!

This is the remains of a squash, I think...

Interesting isn't it? 

It was amongst the green waste that we piled on Plot3 in October. Jamie dug it in to the bean trench today, along with some great home-produced compost - look at all those.happy healthy looking worms from our compost bin!

Jamie also transplanted the little rhubarb plant that wasn't doing very well on Plot3. It's on top of a hole filled with compost now, so perhaps we'll get to taste it this year.

I sowed 24 broad beans into pots - Masterpiece Green Longpod. We've not tried this variety before. We normally sow directly into the ground, but the mice enjoy them so much just as they germinate we've decided to protect them more this year. They're on a shelf in the greenhouse, under a plastic cover so we hope they'll survive till it's time to plant them out!

We left as the sun was going down and the birds were singing sweetly as they were going to roost.