Man on the Moon

Last night Jamie and I had a bbq on the plot and were joined by lottie-buddy Kerry to do a bit of star-gazing and bat-watching. We'd preset the camera to try to capture the moon. This is probably the best one (with a little studio engineering).

Many others looked like this, but most were a lot more blurred. I've cropped this and changed the contrast otherwise the craters were barely visible. I need more practise, or a different camera.

I'm hoping that the Super moon - super BLOOD moon - super blood BLUE moon(!) will be visible on Friday night to try again... This week's lunar eclipse is meant to be a good one - but we're also forecast rain... hmm, which do we want to see more?! I know what the birds want - they've been queueing up for our birdbath - only Robbie is brave enough to drink from it while we are sitting nearby.

My Birthday week off work has been lovely so far. Sunshine all the way and scorching temperatures have meant that the watering regime continues, but that's fine when we can do it at our leisure.

Pimms and cake on the plot - nice

We harvested our first potato bag - Foremost. It produced a good crop of tasty perfect-sized tubers from just one seed potato (I forgot to weigh them before we ate some, but the remaining ones weigh 2kg).

And look how many more were waiting to grow!

So this post's title had to be moon-based.... so here's a bit REM to singalong to.

Yellow

It's been an extremely hot few days and we've visited the plot each evening to water the seeds and feed the tadpoles. Even I'm struggling a bit with the lovely heat as it arrived too quickly for my body to go from chilly to sweltering - but, really, I shouldn't complain!! Especially as it's really helped the plants to come to life...

I left work a little early on Friday - it had to be a barbecue evening and we got to use our new enamel mugs for the first time too. They were on sale through Photobox and only cost £6 each with our own photos.

It was so lovely to sit on the plot as the sun disappeared and the slice of moon became more visible. We were so pleased to be joined by the first bats that we've seen this year - flitting about under the ash tree beside our plot.

Then wandering home, slightly tipsy from the wine, along warm roads - just like Summer. This blossom photo, and the daffodil, were taken at night with the flash - it's a good effect.

Yesterday (Saturday) we spent a few hours on the plot transplanting marigold seedlings and Jamie sowed some Russian Giant sunflowers. And I stared at the tadpoles quite a lot, they're so fascinating - I don't think I paid attention enough when I was little. They're not just black anymore, which again confirms that they're frogs, not toads.

I (and a few other plotholders) went to Hungerford Primary School for an hour to help with their Make a Difference Day. I planted up some grape hyacinths and took along a pot of wildflower seeds, collected last year, plus some herb plants (sage and chives). The site looked more cheerful and loved when I left and a lot of volunteers were still working - hope it stays that way for a while at least!
And here's Coldplay with the title track...

Booooiiinnnggg!

It's officially Spring!

And the sun came out for the Northern hemisphere's Spring equinox, as days become longer than nights (even though that's been the case for a couple of days actually. I guess it's some sort of astronomical licence).

We enjoyed listening to the birds who were singing sweetly in the sunshine while we struggled with roots, weeds, strawberry canes and stones. But Hooray! We managed to finish the section on Plot3. We're hoping to plant some potatoes here but there are a lot of roots to contend with...

A few plotholders and neighbouring gardens had fires today. We started one but the couch grass and raspberry twigs were still a bit too wet still so we left it for another day. Shame, I do love a bonfire.

We left with the moon to our East...

 and the sun to the West. I look forward to more of this Spring weather!

Burning New Year Wishes

We had a lovely couple of hours on the allotment this afternoon; quite surprised to be the only ones there as it was so sunny and pleasant, but I know some people had to go back to work this week.

We were joined by many different birds: a robin, blackbirds, long-tailed tits, blue tits, terns and even the little egret flew over a couple of times - none was willing to pose for a photo though!

So I've sneakily added this photo of a kingfisher which I saw the other side of the hedge, on Freeman's marsh, on Monday (well, it's probably the one that we saw on the allotments last year {poetic licence!})

Jamie and I got on with our chosen jobs. Jamie cleared and dug manure into the sprout bed for next year's Christmas meal! (We missed them this year) The patch is covered in weed suppressant now and we'll weigh it down so the earth is nice and firm, just how the sprouts like it. That quarter will mostly for brassicas and root crops. There's a row of beets still in the ground but they're probably destined for the compost - I think the mice have started enjoying them already!

Before Christmas I went to a Chinese supermarket and bought, what I thought, were some paper hanging lantern kits (not the pretty set-fire-to-wildlife floataway type). I asked a Chinese girl at work for some advice and, after speaking with her mum, she said the paper wasn't for displaying (it would bring bad luck) and that I should write wishes on it, then burn them and put the ashes in a mountain stream (tricky, in Hungerford) or in a tree. Well, I figure on an allotment is probably acceptable so that's what I did. I burned all my wishes and some dried cuttings, but not as much as intended as the smoke was blowing straight along the hedge towards the nearby house and we don't want to cause problems for our neighbours. The ashes were watered into the ground, so my wishes can grow (I think that's the general idea).

It's rather a dull pic so I edited it a bit

I spent the rest of the time moving the compost bins to their new position. It's back-breaking after not doing much for a few weeks! It was a good opportunity to give the compost a turn - I'm pleased I didn't find any mice in there. I added some vegetable scraps, brown cardboard waste (and the remaining Chinese paper) to it. It's looking good; masses of fresh pink worms - lovely!

We left as the sun had gone and the moon was shining. A happy start to the new year - let's hope those wishes work :-)

 

Coming out for the sun, leaving with the moon

Blue sky! How lovely to see!

That's the last of the Christmas Quality Street scoffed. 
 
I love that their plastic wrappers are made of corn starch. It means they can be composted and disappear totally. Our compost is surprisingly looking rather dry - all the runner bean stems in the bin probably should have been chopped up a bit before bundling them in.

The cat was making the most of the heat from the stonepile and keeping an eye on the coal tits in the hedgerow.

It was lovely to see other plotholders around too - we emerge from hibernation as soon as the sun shines! It is still too wet to do any work. Good job! as I really just wanted to play with our new Fujifilm X-S1 camera which we got as an Amazon bargain. 

This is my first ever non-compact camera, though not a full-on SLR (apparently) so bear with me as I've no idea what I'm doing if I move away from the Auto options! I'll be keeping my trusty Olympus SZ-31R on hand for a while yet...

Meanwhile, Jamie was checking the measurements of plot 8B, as the potatoes are going there this year to give Plot 7 a rest. We've got lots of planning to do. We're thinking along the lines of nematodes to protect our spuds from slugs. One thing we've decided is that we won't grow as much of everything, which ends up wasted....

... Did I say that last year?!

Ps. We did leave with the moon, but not because we stayed out for hours; the moon was on show all day.

Happy Birthday...to me!

What a fantastic day! Blue sky all day long. We had a very lazy time on the plot - barbecue, sangria and beer - work wouldn't have been possible even if we'd wanted to (far too hot).
We started at about 11am, had a wander and a paddle in the river along from the marsh in the afternoon - sad to say I had to escape from the sun for a bit, just too much with no shade - my silly-looking hat didn't help much!

We went home at about 6pm then back up the plot for dusk and bat-detecting. There weren't many around, which was suprising as there were loads of moths on the air. But when we got our torch out we could see slugs and massive snails everywhere!! There were loads of little slugs inside most of our netted areas :-( That's the trouble with netting up to protect; it doesn't let the predators in to clear up... what we need is a pet hedgehog!

New moon

When we walked back under the railway bridge there were more bats than we saw by the plot - they were swooping under the bridge taking the moths that were hanging round the street light. They are lovely to see, but couldn't get any snaps of them.

Mostly beasties & phenomenon

Well, we got up to the allotment at 4:15am ready and waiting for the 'supermoon' only to be disappointed because there was thick cloud cover - such a shame, it could have been a goodun!
We fleeced up our potatoes yesterday expecting a frost but due to the clouds there wasn't one though it was pretty chilly - that was an amazing thing too; the temperature was 5.5° at about 5:15am then it dropped suddenly to 2.8° just before the sun rose (though we couldn't see it).

Being at Marsh Lane for the dawn chorus, including a very noisy cuckoo, was fabulous. The birds are going crazy at the moment - we've been watching a robin feed his mate over the last couple of days. She's quite demanding!

This male blackbird was warming itself on the warm stones pile

Anyway, after that early start we did get back up the plot later today to do a bit of faffing and chatting.
Here are some pictures of interesting beasties I snapped yesterday and today.

A queen wasp who got splashed with dirty water, so she was cleaning her antennae

One of the many crane flies around site at the moment

I think this is a 16-spot ladybird - really tiny, ~3mm

I posted the ladybird to the UK Ladybird survey site as I'm not absolutely certain of it's identity.