Start!

It’s been a very, very hot week. And dry; showers have passed us by and we’ve literally been able to count the raindrops! That’s not very helpful rain at this time of year so we’ve been watering and watering - backwards and forwards from the troughs. So much walking in fact that I've already exceeded the 68,000 steps for Kidney patients so I need to think about a new target...

This potted rudbeckia fulgida was looking how we felt, but (like us) perked up after a long refreshing drink. Over the weekend we planted up most of the remaining seedlings - I've added a row of rainbow chard and french marigolds to that plot - each plant getting a good splosh of water, but they really want some decent rainfall.

We've planted the two aubergines from the HAHA Plant Swap into the polytunnel - I'm not really keen on aubergine but will eat them if they're home-grown and they are such a lovely looking fruit (yes, like tomatoes they're a fruit not a vegetable - I had to look it up).

I've planted up two flower troughs for HAHA - I'm rather ambitiously hoping that they fill out a bit ahead of next weekend's Open Day, but I think that's rather unlikely!! Oh well, they should look cheerful in July and August.

I'm pleased to say that the mangetout are finally being harvested - a few being chomped on the allotment and others being added to various meals. Even if they don't make it into a meal I pick them to keep them producing so they don't run to seed. On the other hand, I'm pleased to see that these have run to seed. These are the Radish Rats Tails, which should produce long pods for adding to salads, stir fries or for pickling. I'm looking forward to seeing them form.

In the background of that photo you can see the sunflowers and the two mini cucumbers which have been planted up into pots. The mangomel melon is on Plot3 too and is planted into the ground with weed suppressant surrounding it. You can, just about, see it in the background of this sunflowers photo - all 3 plants are surrounded by netting at the moment to give them a fighting chance against everything that may try to stop them growing (which includes the weather).

I'm pleased to see that the Paris Silverskin onions that I sowed about a week ago have germinated. I like onion seedlings with their little bent stems. It makes them easy to spot amongst the weeds. These are sown into the raised bed but in recent years have been purely slug food - would be nice to have a few to ourselves this year....

I was looking at our garlic on Saturday as I was expecting it to be time for them to be pulled however they are still one bulb rather than broken into cloves. The Winter frost is meant to aid the cloves forming. Ivan advised that I should just leave them and in a few more weeks they may well separate into cloves. If they don't it seems that they can still be eaten as 'wet garlic' - they just don't store well.

They look ready, but the bulbs are showing that they're not.

The broad beans are providing us with regular harvests, they are so delicious. We've had several meals including a broad bean curry, broad beans in parsley sauce with souflettes, broad beans in a tomato sauce and in this stir fry with tofu knots (really tasty!) and radish (a nice colourful addition). The tofu knots are dried so I soaked them overnight prior to frying - we had 6 each and there are lots left over so that's a handy stash to keep in the cupboard.

Ivan gave us a plant (I thought it was a weed) that had appeared amongst his irises. It's now flowered and what a beauty! It's a Siberian Larkspur (Delphinium Grandiflorum) and is such a beautiful colour on its tall flower spikes. It's an annual delphinium apparently but will hopefully self-seed in the flower patch. Look at at that colour - it's like ultraviolet in the sunshine.

And Ivan gets another mention as he let me pick some gooseberries - payback was a bit of weeding. I used the nice simple recipe from the BBC Good Food website.

The song title provided by The Jam  is in reference to our first courgette of the year - I'm sure there will be many more to follow.

The flower was huge; the courgette tiny 😊 And, I've taken so long writing this that we've had rain - a perfect overnight drenching and some drizzle this morning before the Sun came back out - perfect. Will see this evening what difference it's made to the plots - perhaps the HAHA flower troughs will be full of flowers 😒

Somebody that I used to Know

March is speeding along and has thrown all kinds of weather at us. The snow arrived at 3am on the 8th so we pulled ourselves out of bed to go for a little stroll. 

So beautiful to see it before the roads were cleared. It didn’t stay for long so it was worth getting up for. The following week we had gales and it’s been very wet so we didn’t have any plot visits plus Jamie had the lurgy; not THE lurgy I’m pleased to say, but horrible enough to not want to venture out.

I was on strike last Wednesday - first time ever - along with much of the country. I would have liked to join a picket line, but showed my support remotely instead. It was rather nice having an unusual mid-week day off even if I wasn’t paid for it. I’d like to think it’ll make a difference, but sadly I don’t think it will.

We had a quick plot visit to see if the wind had caused any damage. Just the usual collection of bags and compost lids in the North-East corner. But we did find a bunch of frogspawn in a puddle so gathered it up and shared it between our pond and the HAHA Wildlife pond. And this is how it looked yesterday, just 4 days on and it already looks a bit froggy!

On Saturday we had a HAHA Workday. It was really rainy in the morning so we postponed the bonfire but we still had a good turnout in the afternoon. We only had one heavy shower but also had some very pleasant sunshine. Rubbish was cleared; empty plots were made a bit more presentable and the Wildlife plot and bug hotel had a rejuvenation. Clearing the couch grass, ribwort plantain and docks which try to take over. 

The grape hyacinths, daisies, dandelions and cowslip are the first bee attractors but this was the only photo I managed to get of a bumblebee this weekend!

I’m pleased to see that our purple sprouting broccoli has finally developed florets - I’m hoping to have enough to harvest next weekend. Jamie has pulled some leeks this weekend and in the week I slow-cooked some of my dried borlotti beans. Using the slow cooker for 6 hours rather than using the hob for 1.5 hours is about 5 times more energy efficient!

I added a couple of garlic cloves and a few Gigantes and podded runner beans too. They were the basis of a couple of tasty meals with passata, chilli olives, shallots and a splosh of red wine. The second day the ingredients had soaked up the flavours of the sauce and had quite a different taste/texture.

Yesterday (Sunday) we spent a few hours clearing the Wildlife plot’s bog garden of weeds and I planted out my Egyptian walking onions (aka tree onions) which have been growing on in the polytunnel - they shouldn't mind even if the weather takes a turn for the worse again.

At one point we heard a commotion with four magpies protesting very noisily at the top of site. However all the humans we spoke to were pleased to see the return of our little friend ☺️

Such a friendly little chap and he’s a rather weak excuse for me to use this great song by Gotye - I still LOVE it. From 11 years ago, unbelievable. Enjoy.

Painkiller

After a busy working week it was great to have two days entirely laptop-free and to be out in the fresh air. I'm looking forward to early morning pre-work plot visits, but not quite at that stage yet!

Saturday was very windy with Storm Otto passing by to the north of us. It was grey and damp but it wasn’t cold or maybe that was because we were trench-digging. We managed to finish off the bean tunnel preparation which we started last weekend.

I did some clearing on the HAHA wildlife plot including cutting back the buddleja and mallow. I didn't want to clear all of the dead groundcover as we're due a coldspell so the wildlife needs some protection, but there are some unwanted weeds on there that need clearing otherwise they'll take over.

Now that I've cut back the old flag iris leaves I can see new growth in the bog garden. A few bulbs are emerging and perhaps with a bit more light there will be some flowers next weekend.
Meanwhile, Jamie weeded the brassica cage on Plot3. I had the last of the Cavolo Nero with a gnocchi meal at the weekend, but we're still waiting for Purple Sprouting Broccoli harvests - we were tucking into it in January last year.

You can see by my shadow that that photo was taken on Sunday which was a marvellous sunny day. Such a contrast to the day before - Otto must have blown all the clouds away!

The hedgerow was full of birds with 3 robins competing for our mealworms along with the obligatory magpies, dunnocks, long-tailed tits, a male bullfinch. Kites, gulls and buzzards were overhead.

Such a beautiful blue sky and lots of plotholders turned out to make the most of it. We were all pleased and amazed at how warm it was for a February day and so welcome on a weekend! It's good to see areas of plots looking loved and ready for a new year of growing.

That's the flower garden in front of our bench. It has a few perennials just beginning to show fresh growth and the ever-present nigella seedlings. There are bulbs growing in most of those pots but only one tiny iris flower on show at present. The Christmas rose Hellebore that my sister gave me is still full of flower at home though and there are plenty of snowdrops around, just not on our plots!

I’m very happy to see that my Egyptian onions have sprouted in the polytunnel. I hope a slug doesn't discover them, they're only tiny at the moment.

The last bit of clearing and digging that I did was round our rhubarb - we should have split it before now. I hope that's my last year of saying that and we actually do it! It's not budding yet but we'll give it some manure and that may get it started. At least it's free of nigella and weeds for a while.

After a few more chats with plotholders we took our aching bodies home. What a lovely weekend. Not exactly relaxing, but very welcome work - ooh my legs! Hence the song provided by Turin Brakes - enjoy.

Celebrate

January sped by and on the non-rainy evenings we enjoyed some amazing skies. The red stripes of this one were so much more dramatic than the photo shows - so beautiful. January offered us two excuses for celebration. Burns Night provided us with a delicious Stahly's veggie haggis and Jamie's version of neeps & tatties, followed by a Scottish film (this year, Shallow Grave).

Then the Lunar New Year, welcoming the year of the Rabbit, meant we could have a tasty mix of pan-Asian (I don't think we can claim it was chinese) fare, including these Itsu bao buns which are the most delicious! Followed by Chinese film Lian Bian (King of Masks).

Perhaps that's why the usually longest month of the year disappeared in the blink of an eye and now we're into February. It's started mild and not too wet so we've had two weekends of some allotment work. Jamie cleared the strawberry bed which has been entirely swamped by bindweed over the last couple of years. We're going to grow the strawberries in growbags this year in the hope that we can recover the area underneath. And I planted up the Egyptian onions (aka tree onions, walking onions) - look how tiny they are!

I should have planted them on arrival but the weather was too cold and unfortunately some of the bulblets were past their best - I hope I at least get a few to grow. I found out about them in a book I received at Christmas from my nephew - it's a little set of old Gardeners Companion books by Dr Shewell-Cooper (I can't help reading it in a Mr Cholmondley-Warner voice, from Harry Enfield 😃). I've also found this useful advice online from the LovelyGreens blog.

The last weekend in January meant it was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. Unfortunately the Sunday wasn't a sunny day and the birds weren't very active, but we saw a few. All of these are regulars at the moment and there are actually 3 robins who are getting very aggressive with each other.

At the weekend the weather was quite reasonable, especially in the Sun, and like many other plotholders we decided the time had come to do a bit of ground preparation. Most of the beds look like this... weeds and lots of grass growth. The wet weather has made it easy to pull most of those weeds though and after a couple of hours both days we now have a cleared potato plot with sulphur sprinkled and dug in.

Aaah, freshly cleared earth is such a happy sight! We seem to have created a cliff at one end of the plot - I'm sure that'll settle a bit 😆

It was lovely talking to some of our new plotholders and old ones who we haven't seen since before Christmas. Ivan gave us a couple of plants for our flower bed - an iris (obviously) and phlox. They'll wait a bit before going out as we're expecting another cold snap.

We had some nuts left over from Christmas so I made this nut loaf - this is my version, adapted slightly from this one online. In fact my hairdresser mentioned it a few months ago - nuts, cheese and wine, how could I resist?

It made a big loaf and we had it for dinner 3 nights in a row. I really liked it, very tasty - hot or cold. As with most nut loaves, it refused to hold together but I would make it again (maybe half the size though!)

It's frosty this morning and once again I am pleased I don't have to go and scrape the car before driving to work. Plus I have a short week which is always a bonus! Have a good week all and enjoy this song by Pitbull - this post has a lot of celebration in it so it seems appropriate.

Who's That Girl?

Look who we found on the site. 

Interesting isn't she, made of terracotta. She was dirty so must have been buried for a while.

Is she from a previous plot holder or from canal dredging before the Allotments were here? If anyone knows anything about her please let me know. I couldn’t find anything similar on the internet. And, of course, if you want her back because you lost her! Intriguing, it has the makings of a creepy novel ...

Last Saturday was a lovely sunny day after the rain the day before. I sowed various salad crops in the large raised beds (radish, salad onions, perpetual spinach and other leafy crops). I planned on doing more but another plotholder was having a bbq and brought me over a glass of wine and that was the end of my work for the day! Wine, sun, allotment - Marvellous :-)

On Sunday we sowed a couple of pumpkins (New England Pie) and courgettes (All Green Bush) at home under the grow light. They had germinated within a week. So they're growing on in the polytunnel now - the temperature is meant to warm up for a while. In the polytunnel yesterday, hiding from the wind and rain, Jamie turned to hand pollinating the strawberry flowers, because there haven’t been many insect pollinators in the poly recently. I hope it’s done the job. We’ll know soon, as the petals should drop as the fruit starts to form.

We stayed chatting for a while on site, but it was too wet to achieve anything. We were looking at the masses of tiny seedlings appearing on the wildlife plot. Talking of wildlife, I had to put netting round my mangetout in the week because the pigeons have seriously nibbled the little plants - the twiggy sticks were quite a good deterrent until they blew away in last weeks storm!

The Eurythmics provide the song title.