Changes

Here we are in June and some real rain arrived yesterday.

We were enjoying coffee in the polytunnel watching the plants enjoying the rain. In between some torrential downpours I managed to plant out the dwarf purple Mistik French beans which germinated at home in a week and direct sowed a row of these Jacob’s Cattle Drying dwarf beans.

We have three wigwams of climbing beans: Scarlet Empire runners, Greek Gigantes and Lamon Borlotto, which have been difficult to germinate this year. I’ve attempted to direct sow a few to fill a couple of gaps but may only have four plants.

We started the month with a plot barbecue for Jamie’s birthday. We had to delay it for a day so we could sit and enjoy sunshine rather than hide from the wind - May has been such a windy month. It was a really lovely day and Ivan joined us for a while too. 

Our first broad beans were included in the salad. We’ve picked another lot for dinner tonight; blackfly are out in numbers so we have resorted to spraying as we haven’t seen any ladybird larvae yet.

Plot7 still has an area that could be planted up, but I’m not sure it’ll happen unless I buy some plants and maintain my method this year of <ahem> casual no-dig! At least the front quarter should fill out with parsnips, nasturtiums, radishes, asparagus pea, a sad courgette and the dwarf beans.

The leeks have been left to flower and look quite interesting like penguins looking skyward, but are taking a long time to bloom. That was yesterday’s stormy sky but no thunder and lightning.

The flowerbed on Plot8 is looking lovely with the highly scented valerian, red Geum and Nigella. Zinnia, verbena and other flowers should start filling those gaps quite soon.

If you know the scent of valerian, this photo will fill your nostrils with the memory. Such a lovely plant.

The pot courgette is producing lots of flowers now, but they’re all male so no threat of a courgette glut at this stage. I haven’t sown any climbing squash (yet) and not sure I’ll be able to deal with plot3 to plant them - we’ll see, but there’s not much time.

The sweetcorn plants are still in their protective cloches and are tiny but have started producing their flowers - I’ll be amazed if they manage to produce cobs. They’re not meant to be mini-corn 😖

The salsify put on a good show, but they finally succumbed to the wind. I’ve put lots of the stems in the compost bins, but it may not be the last we’ve seen of those three plants - the seed heads are quite impressive!

Black Sabbath provide the great song to mark all the changes since I last posted. Growing season is upon us - yay! We’re spending quite a lot of time just sitting and watching - it’s very pleasing.

This is the Day

Look at that! A month has passed. It’s been a busy month with lots of sowing, a bit of digging and some planting. The weather has been extremely dry and mostly sunny but a northerly wind has consistently caused irritation. Jamie has been walking a lot with regular allotment and shopping trips

We planted our potatoes in April - Kestrel and Duke of York in the ground, with a couple of Nicola in bags. They’ve been earthed up now, managed to avoid a couple of frosts earlier this month. They’re in front of these salsify plants - the flowers open in the morning, but close by lunchtime.

The hedgerow is full of life and we’re peppered with confetti whenever we sit on the bench as the May blossom is just going over, it’s been a good year for blossom, even with the wind.

We sowed our climbing beans (Scarlet Empire runners, borlotti and Gigantes) on 2nd May but only the Gigantes successfully germinated, so they’ve now been planted in a wigwam. We’ll re-sow the others.

The sweetcorn finally got planted out, I meant to do a block, but planted in two rows instead for ease of protection from frost. Lots of the parsnips germinated and I thinned them out this week. It’s so dry the watering is quite a chore, but essential at this time. We’re expecting some broad beans to be ready for harvesting soon, so keep them well-watered. We’ve sown carrots into a green crate and beets, lettuce and radish are sown. Chard and nasturtium are in the raised bed along with parsley, which was a supermarket-bought plant and divided into four.

The plots aren’t looking very tidy but things are growing and that’s the best we can achieve during this difficult year. The weeds are going to love that bare earth when the rain does arrive 😒 I’m fighting the bindweed in the orchard; the mulched ground makes it easy to spot the bindweed, but it just keeps coming back and our little apple and cherry trees got aphid attacked this year.

As long as we harvest a few crops, grow some pretty flowers and get time to sit in the sunshine amongst it I’ll be happy. Sadly, Jamie’s not really enjoying it at the moment, understandably, as he’s still so worn out and not feeling sociable but I hope that will improve along with his health.

The song title, provided by The The, is to mark my change to part-time working. Hopefully more free-time will help with everything!

Love is in the Air

I had a lovely week off and Sunday was a perfect Summer’s day ending with wine and snacks as the Sun disappeared over the hedge.

Those neat poles are plot-neighbour, Neal’s, in the evening sunshine. House martins were swooping low over them but they were too quick for me and my camera. I'm pleased to say that our plots are looking a bit tidier and active now that seeds have been sown under various protective covers. This area has carrots (Purple Dragon and Autumn King), coriander, Gladiator parsnips and Mammoth salsify.

Jamie’s earthed-up the potatoes (everyone thinks he’s buried someone under there!) and I’ve sown another row of beetroot as the first row didn’t appear or the seedlings were chomped by slugs as soon as they emerged. Yin Yang and Borlotti beans are sown at home and the Scarlet Empire runner beans and Blue Lake french beans will be planted out next weekend.

I wish slugs and snails would concentrate on weeds rather than preferring our plants of choice! This mullein caterpillar is more welcome - looking amazing and choosing to eat a figwort, as no mullein is available. The square stem of the figwort is pretty amazing too isn't it?

The raised bed is weed-free at last and yesterday I sowed rows of lettuce, spicey salad leaves, asparagus pea and nasturtiums - I think they may end up as snail-food, but thought I’d risk it - otherwise we’ll definitely not have anything growing. I've also planted some thyme at the herb end - just need to get a parsley plant to grow in there again as last year's went to seed.

It’s all rather brown at the moment so here’s a spot of colour - beautiful self-seeded snap dragons which have formed a large clump. Bumble bees love going in through the trap door.

And the bees and hoverflies are loving the Nigella and valerian flowers.

These two hoverflies were loving each other(!) in Linda’s shoe(!!) while we were picnicking - the male was flapping his wings as if in flight and there was very loud buzzing. I discovered later that they are Narcissus Bulb hoverflies and the female will go on to lay her eggs in soil so the larva can destroy a flower bulb 🙄 Tut, oh well it was interesting to see..

The hedgerow is full of robins feeding their young at the moment. It’s the first year that we’ve seen males actually sharing rather than fighting for territory/food. We’ve had to add an additional piece of netting after a sparrow hawk (probably) dive-bombed the feeding post in a lightning attack just a couple of metres from where Jamie was sitting. We think the robin managed to avoid being taken - phew!

The whole packet of Musselborough leeks have been sown into 3 short rows on Plot3. We'll transplant them where the broad beans are currently - that'll be in another couple of months.

We've had some broad beans already and are including them in a few meals this week. The beans closer to the ground are falling foul of slugs and I think the pheasants are enjoying a few pecks too... And we've so far only eaten one strawberry as everytime they go red something eats the delicious fruit before we get there... it is most likely the fat little vole we saw bouncing away from that area yesterday 😕 Hmm, it's been a trying year so far!

But, I'll try not to complain too much. We've had a lovely week with some warm sunny weather and earlier in the week we attended the wedding of the new Mr & Mrs Smith (our niece). A lovely and entertaining wedding with this beautiful young family. Such fun. And we're looking forward to another wedding in a couple of weeks too!

So, now I need to start work, rather a lot of emails to catch up on I'm sure! Enjoy the song by John Paul Young (which I was sad to see has been used in a MacDonalds advert).

Celeriac a-no-go

The fog cleared, as forecast, as I made my way home for an afternoon at the plot. We got a few hours of warm sunshine to work in. It's so great when the weather people get it right!

I'm still mainly clearing and Jamie's digging. I pulled all the salsify and celeriac. We could have eaten some of the salsify, or kept it in the ground to produce pretty flowers (apparently), but the area is needed for the spuds so it got chopped up and put in the new compost bin on top of all the dry strawberry cuttings from last weekend.

This is the reason I'm not bothering with celeriac this year. A poor show. When I cut into these they were brown but they'd never looked appetising because the root didn't bulb up nicely. 

Jamie's having another try at growing celery this year - in containers so we can keep it good and wet (there's not going to be a drought, is there?!)

The birds are in full song at the moment, including this redwing. More bird visitors on my wildlife blog.

Leeks and not much else

Just a quick visit to the plot for me this afternoon. Another sunny day today compared to yesterday's rainy one. There were a few plotholders about, doing a bit of tidying, planning and, great to see, people are still harvesting.

Our leeks are looking ok but we want them to get a bit bigger before pulling any more. There should be a bit of cabbage and more sprouts too but there may be too much wildlife involved for Jamie and me to risk eating! The other vegetable that's still in the ground is my salsify. It looks like it's grown pretty well. Need to give that a try in a week or so...
 

There wasn't much to photograph. All the birds seemed to be in hiding, even though it was warm. Hope they're back for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch next weekend (25/26 Jan).
So, just another cloud photo I'm afraid! Both these pics are taken with my new camera.

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!

Seedlings Progress

We had a couple of hours on the plot this afternoon before it started raining. It was quite nice and warm 16°), though cloudy and the ever-present wind was there again.

The lettuce seedlings are good enough to eat but I'm going to let them get bigger and will plant some outside to grow into full-size lettuces - hopefully I'll get to eat them before the slugs!

These are the Moneta beets. They need to get at least a couple more leaves (and get bigger!) before they get transplanted into the raised bed - lots have germinated though.

And this is looking down the cloche at the parsnip seedlings - very tiny at the moment. Only one will be kept so we'll let them grow a bit till we can see which looks the healthiest and then snip the other two off (it's a cruel World!).

Jamie and I were digging Plot 8B, still have the last bit to dig but finding a bucketful of stones with every half metre dug, it's hard work but we'll get there. It's needs to be dug well as that's where the salsify is going - as a long root vegetable it really needs earth, not bricks, under it!
Jamie spread and dug 6x fertiliser into the area where the sweetcorn and Jack-be-Little pumpkins will be going.
Wildlife blog updated with Robbie News :-)

A Busy Weekend

Apart from work I try to avoid having busy days, so having two busy days over a weekend is very unusual for me. My idea of 'busy' on Saturday actually meant spending a few hours at a great family party!

The Garston Gallopers with party-goers

On Sunday it was the Hungerford Food Festival where HAHA had a stall so Jamie and I were there to help Ted and Kerry set up.


Wet weather didn't deter the crowds

Hundreds of people turned up even though the weather was absolutely awful; pouring with rain and chilly. The HAHA stall was placed at the top of some busy stairs so had a lot of passing visitors and it was a fun day. We had plenty of veg and jars of pickles, chutneys and jams from plotholders to show off. We also had out usual paper potters for people to make a pot - previously we've had runner beans to sow but yesterday we had 'pot up a viola'.

Julia, Jamie, my mum, Jen and Steve

During time away from the stall Jamie and I met up with my cousins from Sussex who had been to the party. Jen, Steve (who work the Freshwinds Garden), Paula, Jamie and Julia braved the awful weather and had a tour of the plot. I should have taken a photo but was too cold (hopefully Jen will let me use one our two of hers ~ Jen?!!) They've seen the plot through the blog and I was concerned that my photos make it look more impressive than it is! Luckily it was looking ok though, with quite a few veggies still growing, like the sweetcorn, celeriac, squash, calendula, kohl rabi and even the sweetpeas are still in flower. Our squashes have survived the cold temperatures so far (except the cucumber), though other squashes on site have died back.

After the site tour we returned to the food festival - I won a prize in the raffle! - and then we went home to have salsify (thanks Jerry!). I liked it, it had quite a subtle flavour -we had it with parsley sauce. You have to soak in acidified water after peeling and chopping to stop it going black and slimy. It's back on my planting list for next year  :-)