Epic

 Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine at the weekend.

The ladybirds were sunning themselves, out from their Winter shelters. We saw Brimstone and Peacock butterflies and I even uncovered a little frog. So, I had to stop digging that last part of the plot. I knew toads hibernated underground but I didn’t realise that frogs do too. There was another rhubarb plant in that spot, but it had rotted away under a mass of nigella. We'll get another one to put in there later in the year.

The robins and wrens were in full song and the kites and buzzards were out in number overhead. It really has been a beautiful 3 days, with sunshine pretty much all the way through - what luck that I’d taken Friday off work.

We got lots of clearing done - the potato patch is ready and waiting, including removal of the mammoth bramble. It had taken over our path, and beyond, a couple of years ago and intertwined with rolls of chicken wire and other netting - ugh. As you can see Jamie took the saw to it, but not until it totally spiked and scratched us. Horrible thing! I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it!!

Jamie dug a runner bean trench and filled it with soil from pre-used tomato and potato bags. Exhausting work in the heat of the February sun!

We stayed until the Sun started to dip on Friday and the temperature soon started to drop. The temperature showed as -3° overnight.

My seeds haven't popped up yet, but the marigolds that Jamie had covered with a plastic bag in the polytunnel have started to germinate. The anemone is continuing to flower in the pots, such a pretty flower but it's fighting with weeds which I can't clear because there are a few bulbs still waiting to emerge.

So for the end of February our plot is looking better than it has done for a few years, but still lots more to do and I think I need more seeds :-) Maybe I'll wait to see what offerings fellow plotholders have to share a bit later in the season...

Talking of which, Ivan gave us a lovely crop of purple sprouting broccoli which we added to a Quorn curry on Friday evening.

What a great weekend - some would say 'epic' or maybe it's just an excuse to use this song title by Faith No More after I saw the video on a Top of the Pops from 1990 last week :-) Hooray! Now it's March!

Eighth Day

I've been on leave for a week, we've been busy with other things but have also had time on the plot and achieved some stuff, though there's still plenty to do. We still have a few potatoes chitting at home - they're going into bags on the plot, at some point...Looks like an alien with his hands up "I come in peace".

We've had sunshine with some rain and the nights have threatened frost and also reached -1° so we've been fleecing and de-fleecing most mornings and evenings.We have plenty of weeds growing but have cleared areas and taken bagfuls home for the green bin.

But flowers are providing lovely bright spots. We have way too many of these Californian poppies, but they're so beautiful!

And the chives are all flowering so the bees are very happy.

We've potted on all the french marigolds and also some supervivum (houseleek) for the plant sale.

We've braved putting them outside under netting but we are fleecing them overnight if a frost is threatened - it's easier to deal with than in the greenhouse though and they need to toughen up...

The strawberries have so many flowers and tiny fruits forming that we don't want to risk them so they're fleeced each night too. So far they've kept their yellow centres so the frost hasn't got these..

But as well as protecting things and weeding we've been planting - broad beans are in...

Salad is planted in the raised bed with the onions.

And today I planted up a smaller raised bed with Boltardy beetroot, Red and White Salad Onions and Purple and Pink Asian radish. I spent some time yesterday digging out the masses of weeds in that part of the plot. I dug out another part of Plot7 on Bank Holiday Monday - here's a timelapse... you can see why it takes me a long time to dig... apart from having to pick roots (from the hedge) from almost every spadeful it does appear that I do quite a lot of chatting :-)

While I was doing that, Jamie was clearing a large area of Plot 3 and dug the runner bean trench.

It's nice that we're beginning to see areas which are free of weeds. And the beans are planted into pots in the greenhouse - Benchmaster and I have some Pickwick dwarf runner beans that another plotholder gave me.

Our rhubarb is growing monstrous and we've not eaten much of it yet, but did give some to a friend at work to make some rhubarb gin...

We had some torrential rain but no thunder. Anyway that sums up our last week and a bit, and so Hazel O'Connor provides the title track (it should be 9 days, but well, you know..!)

Planting Seeds

Just a quick post while I'm eating my lunch at work. I'm pleased to say it's Good Friday tomorrow; a long weekend away from work and the weather forecast is looking good - hooray!

I wanted to record some planting/sowing that we did last weekend. The above photo shows the aquilegia mini-plugs that I transplanted. A selection of 72 tiny flower plants which will (hopefully) be nice healthy bigger plants to sell at our HAHA Plant Sale in June, plus a few beetroot sown to fill the empty cells.

Here's the list of perennials, which are now growing on in Andy's (our Treasurer), conservatory.

Our tomato (Aviditas) and pepper (Thor) plants have also been delivered so Jamie's potted them on and they look much happier (and straighter) now.

Things are progressing in the polytunnel.

The broad beans are up - most of them...

And I've sowed a drainpipe of mangetout.

We've planted out the onion sets (Sturon variety) - about 25 of them. And some spinach and beetroot are at the other end of that raised bed. I'll try again to do some succession growing, but I'm never very good at it!

Two rows of salad onions are sowed at the end of the garlic raised bed - they should grow quickly enough that the garlic rust (which seems to be unavoidable) won't affect them.

And here's a picture of one lot of our begonia plugs - they're mostly growing on quite happily in our windowsill. We may need to pot them on again before the plant sale, as some are getting pretty big and a bit pot-bound.

So, a warm weekend sounds like a good time to do some gardening and maybe our grass seed will grow - at the moment we appear to be growing a mixture of weeds and pigeons...
The song title is provided by Built to Spill...

Sail Away

Friday was a beautiful day and I was off work - hooray - so we spent a few hours on the plot.

I collected two bagfuls of grounds from the coffee lounge at work - we get through a lot of coffee each day! I added some to the compost bins which are still housing rats because I still need to mix them up a bit. Apparently rats don't like coffee, though they like everything else I put in the bins.

Jamie cleared the plot where the potatoes will be planted.

Then he dug in some 6x and the coffee grounds - hopefully a slug deterrent and a bit of acidity to prevent scab...

Voila! A lovely dug plot and a painful Jamie - it's hard on the back/knees/arms/hands for these first few plot visits of the year!

While Jamie did that, I worked on the raised bed. Lots of weeding.

And now it's ready to become a salad bed.

No sign of the broad beans yet, but the marigold and salad seedlings are on their way, in the greenhouse.

Look at the temperature range in there!

On Saturday we arrived on the plot just in time for a little lunchtime soiree with David and Ivan and some of Ivan's home-made wine. The blackberry and apple was delicious with some crisps and olives. We did manage to do a bit of allotmenting afterwards - I planted up 5 tubs with Summer bulbs - hopefully they'll be in full flower for our fete on July 7th. And I also planted the five Chinese Lantern plants by the greenhouse. Hoping all these can survive the chilly nights.

No frogspawn has arrived (I may bring some in from elsewhere), so Alfie provided us with some cheer for our little pond.. unfortunately the little boat didn't float so I had to balance it against the edge :-)

And that is the reason for the song title <ahem - poetic licence>

Changes

The sky has been white instead of blue for the last couple of days but it has meant that we could get some work done at home and then yesterday we managed to clear the other half of Plot 46A - just a little bit more to do. But this post is mostly about the tadpoles.

Or should I say 'froglets' - look at that little one, with another one looking on from the water. They're so tiny - smaller than a little fingernail.

There's still a bit of tail that needs to go.

And there are others at varying stages of their transformation. Here's a little timelapse video of pond action from yesterday - the water snail is a busy little thing!

While we were clearing Plot 46A we found lots of ladybird larvae and cocoons. Any adult ladybirds we found we took to Plot3 to deal with our broad beans' blackfly problem - they seemed happy to help :-)

Plot46A has a serious weed issue. My salad seedlings are taking shape now so I can just about tell the difference between them and the weedlings but I'm going to wait a bit longer before I pull the weeds - I think it going to have to be a manual job, rather than a hoe...

 

The sun's coming out so today (Wednesday) we should be able to have a barbecue on site - hooray, but I still need to work on some more growing/weeding/sowing...
A great title song by David Bowie - a stay-in-your-head-all-day song - enjoy.