Showing posts with label timelapse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label timelapse. Show all posts

Tuesday 1 September 2020

Get Up, Stand Up

 Not a sunny bank holiday Monday, but perfect weather for actually getting some work done.

Our new poly tunnel has been waiting to go up since last year, so yesterday was the day to finally do it.
So from this abandoned-looking plot...
To this, aah, that’s more like the Plot7 we know and love. The old polytunnel is going to be used for a squash climbing frame (plans for next year).
We’ve spent quite a few hours on the plot during the extended long weekend. We even cleared some of Plot3, what a mess!
So, it looks better, but what can’t be seen is the million tiny seedlings just waiting for a bit of rain!
It’s a shame to be clearing really, as there’s so much wildlife finding a Winter resting place. I even found another elephant hawk moth caterpillar today! My macro camera has been working quite well. Jamie found this amazing caterpillar. The id has now been confirmed as a Pale Tussock moth caterpillar. More photos on my wildlife blog, which I keep separate for each new creature I spot.
And we saw a couple of Angle Shades moths. Pretty.
And loads of white butterflies,
...along with far too many slugs and snails..!
So, lots of grub for froggy to clear up (but surely they don’t eat snails!?)
We found these rather interesting Hare’s foot inkcap mushrooms in our compost bins last week, which I think are worth a mention. They’re helping to break down all the garden waste we’re putting in the bins, along with plenty of cardboard as ‘brown waste’.
And the song title, with the rather weak link to the blogpost is of course provided by the great Bob Marley.


Sunday 12 May 2019

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..!)

Sunday 22 July 2018

Feel Good inc.

On Friday night we had some rain! It seemed like a lot when it was pouring down and we had to go out and revel in it, but by Saturday it wasn't clear that there had been any at all on the allotment.
So, there we were lugging watering can after watering can across the site to our plots - this was today (Sunday).
Jamie watered on Saturday while I showed a new plotholder around the site. Mari was lucky, what timing! As on Saturday we had another tapas and wine afternoon. Lots of fun and thank goodness for the sun umbrella for when the sun peeped through the clouds. Hours later we walked home through the warm streets - I love this weather, especially now that I have a week off work - yippee!
The usual suspects: Jamie, Kerry, Jane, Neal, David and Ivan
Today we had several hours on the site, with lots of sitting down in between the watering as it was even hotter today than yesterday. I had two leftover cucumber plants so I've planted them against the strings and canes to replace the mangetout. During last week I pulled up the mangetout plants which were no longer producing; the purple ones (Shiraz) had a bad year. For some reason the pigeons took a real liking to them, but didn't touch the golden pods. I don't actually know what the cucumbers are that I've planted - I think they're long ones. We have our favoured Rocky mini cucumbers growing on Plot46A - one of them is growing much stronger than the other.
My squash framework is definitely more grotty than grotto - but the plants are beginning to go crazy so hopefully my woeful structure won't be seen under all the growth!!
 The Borlotti beans look good - I'm going to leave them on the plant for a bit longer and eat them fresh (out of the pods), I probably won't dry them - I don't think there will be enough to try more than two or three meals with them, but they do look great.
These are the edamame (soya) bean flowers - not like normal bean flowers are they? I saw a bee pollinating them today so I hope some beans will follow fairly soon... All the other runners and dwarf beans are beginning to set now.
And here come the courgettes... these Goldmine produced a huge yield last year and it looks like this year may be the same!
There we go - the first trug shot of the season!
Mostly full of lettuce, which I've made into soup. It's tasty, not lettuce-y at all, apart from the colour. I added a bit (too much) of the garlic salt I made the other day.
And I'm currently cooking the courgettes topped with mixed nuts, shallot and cheese - mmm it smells good. I'm trying to fry the aubergine to blacken the skin - you'd think I'd be good at that, but I don't want them to go too far...


And the song title is provided by The Gorillaz - great song.