Digging, Stoning, Composting

The last week has been dry and today was too, even though it's a Saturday in February 2016!

Jamie wasn't IN the compost bin!

We were digging up the raspberries on Plot3. They are a real mess. It seems like the ground wasn't dug before they were planted, probably about 6 years ago. It was tough digging through the couch grass, raspberry roots and mares tail which is pretty bad on that plot. 

And we gathered a bucketful of big stones. But among the stones we found this one...

We're sure this has been shaped by man rather than by nature. Would love to know if anyone has any advice on this type of thing. This is the other side.

And this one...

This stone has a hole, it doesn't go all the way through, but I love the look of it in close-up and I'm thinking that little bit of grit may be what caused the hole in the first place... Maybe(?)

I replenished one if the compost bins, mostly with tea and coffee bags and other kitchen waste. Then topped it off with a load of dried-out calendula. There are lots of worms and other critters that will enjoy tucking in to that lot.

And lastly, the garlic has sprouted - yay!

I've also updated the wildlife blog.

Flowers Before Food

It's been a warm week with a few millimetres of rain mid-week so everything is growing happily and, with any luck, lots of flowers will soon mean lots to harvest. I've been lunching on fresh salad and beetroot this week, with plenty of strawberries for desserts.
These are our tumbling Lizzano tomatoes which we grow outside - they don't have their side shoots nipped and generally produce an abundance of tomatoes so fingers crossed for this year.

Lizzano Tomato flowers

The tomatoes in the greenhouse (Sungold) don't have any flowers yet, but the sweet pepper has several flowers and one tiny pepper already..

The mangetout (purple-podded) is looking really pretty - people keep thinking its sweetpea, but it's better than that! There are some tiny peapods just beginning to form.

These flowers are on our Tenerife papas...

Looking rather similar to the kestrels...

Not long to wait now for our broad beans. I sprayed them with soapy water a few weeks ago, to kill off the blackfly. I think I put too much Fairy Liquid in the solution and that's why the leaves have gone black. The pods look good and healthy though, just need to fatten up the beans inside a bit more...

For the same meal we'll see if we have any Rosabelle early potatoes under all that foliage!

We've already had some home-grown new potatoes - from Chris, a fellow plotholder. They were Foremost and really were delicious!

We had the AGM on Monday night. Not a massive turnout (it never is) but enough people were there, along with the committee, to make for some interesting debate. A couple of the councillors came along (the mayor, who's a plotholder) and a councillor from Newbury who used to have a plot at Marsh Lane. We're still waiting for decisions regarding the future of Marsh Lane - we won't know until at least September what lease we will have when ours runs out in April 2016 :-(

And lastly, here's our collection of round stones we've found on the site - good aren't they!

April Showers Stopped Play

Jamie braved some very heavy showers this afternoon to dig some more of Plot 8B.
It's definitely feeling Spring-like today and so I thought a pic of Alison's daffodils was appropriate for this post. They're the first flowers growing on-site each year and are a very welcome sight as you enter the gate.

Here is an example of some of the nightmare stones we uncover on Marsh Lane! I think this is the one that made Jamie realise it was hometime! Well, I did say we hadn't dug plot 8 very well last year!!

I only popped up to meet Jamie after work. There had just been a really heavy shower and the birds were singing their little hearts out! (Turn your volume up, but sorry for the sound of Friday night traffic on the A4 in the background!)

Plot 8 - the backbreaker!

How lucky we've been with the weather so far during this week off work! It was blowing a bitterly cold North-Easterly wind but again there was some nice warming sunshine (7° while we were working).

We were digging Plot 8 - such hard work compared to Plot 7, which has now been dug and dug again for three years. Plot 8 hasn't had quite such loving care and attention!

Look at all those stones and a bucketful of weeds from just a small area. And that took us about two hours #groan

Peeped under the netting at the Aqua Dulce broad beans which were sowed at the end of October. They're looking pretty good and looking at this photo is that a sign of a flower bud in the background?? I don't think they're meant to be dwarf variety!

Various forms of life

Well, one week after sowing and the marigolds are already up! If only everything was so quick to germinate - all round site you can see people peering into pots and cloches! One cabbage has showed itself and maybe a carrot but nothing else has appeared yet...

Marigold seedlings

I sowed a few rainbow chard directly into the ground, Jamie doesn't like it and I don't eat it much so really no need to plant more than a few plants - I put the cloches on to protect them from weather and birds for a while. I've added some protection to my row of beets - I thought I saw a seedling there yesterday but it's not there today :-( This bit of perspex may put pigeons off and may help a little with germination.

Much of the afternoon was spent clearing our compost - we did it in January but one bin in particular was rather wet. We took most of the compost out of both bins and mixed it all with some grass cuttings, a bit of manure and lots of broken up corrugated cardboard - that should aerate it and help the worms and many other creatures to help break down the compost.

Took this photo to see how quickly it rots down

It was amazing seeing all the life in there - worms, beetles, slugs, tiny mites and millipedes.

Mini millipede

I also found this nice looking butterfly. He (I think it's a male) was resting on the stone pile around the edge of the site. This one's larvae should steer clear of our plot and eat more hedgerow-type plants - including couch grass!
We've seen very few butterflies but lots of bees and ladybirds so far this year.

Speckled Wood Butterfly

Chain Gang - or should I say working party!

We had a lovely day at the allotment. We were there from about 10:30 and didn't leave till after 4pm. It was such a beautiful day and the first weekend this year when the carpark was really quite busy!

For the first 2 hours we were part of a small work party to clear stones away from the rabbit fencing. It seemed a good idea when HAHA (Hungerford Allotment Holders Association) came up with it, as somewhere to put the piles of stones that we dug up from our plots - but more than a year on and the stones were pushing against the fence and likely to cause damage. Not too sure what the final plan is, but by the end of our work there was a clear space between the stones and the fence.

AND Sue provided us with drinks and lovely flapjacks so it was a very pleasant way to spend the morning!