Riders on the Storm

After the last three sunny blogposts it's now March - yay! Meteorological Spring has arrived and with it comes Storm Freya...

We had a hot chocolate, using our optimistically Summery mugs, sitting in our leaky polytunnel which was being severely buffetted. I wonder if it will survive the storm, which is peaking later this evening. The cover is already in a sorry state, but we're struggling to find a replacement at the moment, so keeping an eye on Amazon for one that will fit.

We only went to the site today to mend the mechanism on the pedestrian gate and feed the birds, though the little ones were hiding and all we saw were red kites and rooks enjoying the strong winds - you could say riding on them <ahem>...

Yesterday we braved a cold, windy day to erect our new brassica cage and it's still standing today, so far so good... No netting on it yet, so not too much to catch the wind..

Our next lot of bulbs have flowered. I think these dwarf iris are so pretty, I'm sure there are meant to be some yellow ones in there too.

We're still waiting for the frogs to return - no sign of them or any frogspawn yet. I hope the crazy weather hasn't put them off. Oh, here's a photo of my new washing-up brush for no reason except that I love it (Jamie's not so keen as he thinks it's impractical :-))

So many songs to choose from, but this by The Doors has to be the best.

Since Yesterday

We've had a few hours on the allotment this weekend. It wasn't raining or snowing and in fact we saw a little sunshine which was very welcome and decidedly Spring-like.

Jamie cleared an area of weeds on Plot3 during the week - our shallots are desperate to be planted and that's where they'll go. Then yesterday we cleared a bit more..

The grass that self-seeds is really annoying, so it's a hands-and-knees job with a hand trowel initially, which is laborious but worth it. And a friendly robin cleared up the grubs as we uncovered them.

So since yesterday (hence the song title) we've dug through more than half of Plot3 - that was a good start, though we're extremely achey. Actually I was aching so much that I forgot to take the final 'after' photo - you know how it is when you've been working on the plot for the first time in months!

Jamie added some quality home-produced compost, with a sprinkling of 6X, around the small rhubarb plant that didn't achieve much last year. We're hoping this is its year, though it is competing with a lot of tree roots in its current location.

We left as the Sun dipped behind the tree-line - how lovely to still be light(ish) until 5:30 these days. I'm glad February is a short month and it'll soon be March. And in the meantime I hope I buy a new camera as you may have noticed the splodge that's appeared on all my photos :-{

Strawberry Switchblade provided the song.

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...

My Favourite Game

Well, it's Spring now and it was quite a pleasant day but the ground is so wet we didn't do any digging. I tidied up the purple sprouting broccoli plants and picked our first ever harvest of them. I'm hoping there's still time to get a few more sproutings from them - it seems they're late to sprout for many gardeners this year.

I picked a few more leeks for dinner tomorrow night, they were spare plants that I planted in a cluster rather than composting them and they've grown pretty well. A few good-sized ones and some tiddlers. The french garlic is looking happy considering it's been crushed under snow twice this month! It shouldn't get too used to this milder weather as we may have further snow by next weekend...

We had great fun last night at the HAHA Skittles Evening. With 36 people attending it was a perfect amount and there were a few non-plotholders.I was in charge of the scoring but as you can see from the photo below I had a little help from our Chairman :-)

The marigold seeds we brought home during the coldest weather are liking it a bit too much inside - they've nearly all germinated and we don't dare return them to the plot just yet...

And the potatoes are chitting away but we're not going to risk planting them out for a few weeks yet - even if it is traditional to plant them on Good Friday - just a week away.

We threw a couple of seed potatoes away as they had strange white growths on them - though it didn't really look like mould. We hope it hasn't spread to these other ones...
So, the blog title is based on the skittles evening - maybe not my favourite game but for an off-site plot holder gathering it's a great one! And so is this song from The Cardigans...

Daydream in Blue

So close to Spring, but it wasn't feeling like it this weekend. I've been reading blogs from warmer climates - Ki Si in Spain with such amazing blue skies and hot temperatures which mean she's harvesting already and Endah in Indonesia with her interesting fruits and beautiful flowers.

Not that we don't have beautiful flowers and our fruit and veg will grow eventually... it's just so tempting to wish the months away...

But there are many signs now that Spring is on its way and not just in all the UK blogposts.

It's a good job time isn't moving too quickly though we have managed to do more preparation on Plot 7 this weekend, in the cool breeze with grey skies.

Jamie's dug most of the quarter where the onions are going, they're due to be delivered any day now - I wouldn't let him dig up the last of the carrots as I want to use them in cooking during the week.

I cleared out one of the strawberry beds - there were so many snails and spiders hiding in there! That should make the plants happier, along with the plant food we watered them with afterwards.

So there was time for daydreaming, but time for working too. I Monster provide the music..

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!

A Smile over the Allotment

We got up the plot at about 8am to set up the cameras and wait for the eclipse, which was due to start at 8:25 with the maximum coverage (about 87% for us) about an hour later. It was cloudy...and although very pleasant - listening to the birds, drinking coffee and eating hot cross buns - we did actually want to see some celestial activity!

Then, the clouds thinned and there it was! Very exciting! That was at about 9:20.

The clouds continued to get in the way, but were thin enough that we could see the shining crescent and a lot of the time we didn't need our eclipse glasses - this is at maximum coverage.

It definitely went significantly colder and dimmer. The birds went quiet and we saw more sitting in the trees so presumably they were roosting. A great experience!

From then on, the clouds thinned until it turned into a glorious sunny morning. For the next hour we kept our special eclipse viewing glasses on hand to watch the moon's shadow slowly move away from the sun.

We walked home feeling very pleased to have seen such a good show! And found our onion sets have been delivered! Then, later on, our Tenerife potatoes were delivered! What an excellent Spring equinox!