Raining Again

This was such an amazing rainbow! It was so bright and huge, much more impressive than this photo shows but it’s the best I could get. So beautiful, I stood and stared for a while.

Sunshine and showers definitely sums up the weather over the last couple of weeks/months. I’ve got a few days off for Easter, but the hoped-for plot-days haven’t worked out yet…

We’ve had plot visits and have even done a bit of weeding but it’s hard work having to do it by hand because the ground is too wet to walk on let alone to dig.

Well, that’s the leeks patch cleared to make way for root crops. It’ll need better digging than that to grow some straight carrots!

The leeks were good this year. It’s worth planting them nice and deep to get plenty of white stalk.

The blackthorn has flowered in the hedge but the lovely flowers didn’t last long. The wind, rain, hail didn’t help, but hopefully they were pollinated.

We’ve seen bees enjoying the dandelions, dead nettle and grape hyacinths as well as the other Spring bulbs that are popping up here and there.

I was pleased to see some tadpoles in our little pond although I haven’t seen them since. I have seen a couple of frogs recently though and there’s some frogspawn appeared in the pond on the HAHA wildlife plot.

The teasels on the wildlife plot in a rainstorm yesterday (Good Friday). The sky went black but no thunder like we had on Thursday when the hail was apocalyptic.

Here’s Jamie fighting against the wind and rain while we were trying to secure a honeysuckle trellis which had collapsed on the wildlife plot.

We have achieved some tasks in the last couple of weeks. I’ve managed to weed and feed the garlic bed and Jamie’s cleared the bean tunnel.

And we’ve collected some of the manure for future use - it’s in a compost bin for now. £1.50 a barrow-load from HAHA - what a bargain 😊

Talking of HAHA. We have a fully tenanted site again - it’s great to see the newcomers joining us old-timers 👨‍🌾 And on the sunny breaks it has been a lovely busy site with lots of chat and catching up with plot-buddies. Aah, we do love our allotment and we really should get out there while the Sun is shining because it looks like today may be dry…. with just a small threat of showers… Moby provides the song title.

In the Cold, Cold Night

Frosted Geum

Coo, that’s chilly! I’ve never seen such spiky frost. Apparently it’s called Rime Ice and the freezing fog will have helped cause it, along with the arctic blast. It’s rather stunning, I hope you agree as here are a few more examples.

Frosted (not barbed) wire

All the wire on site was significantly thicker than usual.

And netting looked hairy.

The teasels were extra spiny.

Especially the stems!

The coreopsis flower was still just about recognisable.

And the chard… well!

Even the brassicas didn’t seem too happy, it may have been a bit too icy - even though they’re meant to taste even better after a frost (hmm, I wonder if the whitefly survived).

Cavolo Nero (top) & purple sprouting broccoli 

We enjoyed a few bubbles whilst on site.

You can see the bubble just beginning to freeze in this photo. Looks like craqueleur.

This beautiful one stayed stuck to the pot for ages.

Meanwhile Robbie enjoyed a few mealworms. Aww, poor little chap had to puff up his feathers to keep warm.

Anyway, that was quite enough playing in the cold - look at the thickness of the ice!

We’ve had a long day. We got up extra early to enjoy the Hungerford Christmas lights in a proper frosty, foggy Winter Wonderland at 4:30 this morning (4:30!). Only to find they switch the lights off at some point in the night - doh! But the super-frosted spiders webs everywhere were amazing, so it wasn’t too disappointing.

And a few lights were left on for us to enjoy.

So that was today, as the temperatures slip down again overnight….bbrrr. No snow so far, but maybe in the coming week. The White Stripes provide this perfect song title.