First Proper Harvest of the Year

Jamie dug through the patch where the carrots will go this year - with a hand trowel - the ants nest was in the corner of the plot... This is what it looks like when you disturb a red ants' nest!

Panicking to clear their eggs away

It was a fine but windy weekend so I enjoyed being in the greenhouse (I'm calling it that now) to get out of the rather chilly breeze. We need to open the vents each day because it gets so hot in there, but it doesn't make much difference to nighttime temperatures which have been down to minus figures (so, I don't think we'll be sleeping in there anytime soon!)

Nice window view

I got a lot of seeds sown over the two days:

• Cornell's Bush Delicata squash
• Defender Courgette
• Russian Giant sunflowers
• Rainbow Chard
• Purple-podded peas (mangetout)
• Asparagus Pea

The majority are sown into modules or pots with just the lettuce seeds and fennel sown into a tray at the moment. I've sown more than we want as hopefully there will be plenty for sharing and providing for events, etc. but have seeds left over in case they get frosted or slug-nibbled. (Say it quietly: the slugs haven't discovered the greenhouse yet)
Most of the seeds I sowed a couple of weeks ago have sprouted... no sign of celery yet though.

Florence Fennel - Rondo

Boltardy Beetroot

Lettuce - Tom Thumb and Little Gem

And, we harvested our first rhubarb of the year! This variety is Raspberry Red and it was delish, with plenty of sugar and custard - yum.

Welcome In!

Yesterday was officially a scorcher! And I booked it off as leave - perfect! So we spent several hours on the plot putting our giant cloche up - 3 metres by 2 metres looks bigger than it sounds.

Jamie has secured the corners with stakes so hopefully it will stay put! Here's a little timelapse of part of the setup (I really must remember to film in landscape mode). We had quite a few breaks because the temperature was above 25° and I even used our sun umbrella - look at that lovely blue sky.

We're not too sure what we're going to grow in the tunnel once the seedlings are planted out. Certainly gerkhins and maybe some peppers. Of course it'll also be a handy spot for a couple of chairs on a rainy day!

Look at the temperature in there - phew, we couldn't stay in there too long today.

It seems to attract bees and flies at the moment, maybe it smells funny because it's new. We zipped the door down overnight but left the vents open, so will see what we've captured when we go up after work. I think it could be a good spot for a moth hunt later in the year.

Exciting to have something new to think about. And we can really start sowing now!

Potatoes R In!

The light evenings and lovely weather over the last week have meant we could visit the plot a couple of times after work. We've taken broad beans with us to fill the gaps left by the sneaky mice. And now we've protected all round so that the pheasants don't clear up what the mice leave behind (like they did last year). So, it's a bit Fort Knox but broad beans are one of our allotment favourites so needs must!

The evening sun looked lovely as we were leaving the site on Thursday so I had to get a photo - wish I'd had my better camera with me.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning was raining so a perfect time for shredding all our old bills and other paperwork to use as water retention under the potatoes. 

On top of the paper we put a layer of grass clippings and then some rotted farmyard manure before the final layer of dirt and then the seed potato. The Kestrels also had a layer of Christmas tree needles - all this acidity should prevent scab... And the nematodes should prevent slug damage...

We haven't gone mad with potatoes this year, just 7 Kestrels and 6 Rosabelles across two short rows. Previous years we have found there are just too many so hopefully this will be plenty (along with our Tenerife potatoes, which aren't going in for a couple of weeks)

Oh, and we re-barked our paths on Plot 7 - someone had left a load of wood chippings at the main gate for general use. The plot is looking loved again!

Easter Monday - A Lovely Sunshine Day

What an unexpectedly beautiful Easter Monday! We spent several hours out in the ~20° sunshine. The site was possibly the busiest I've ever seen it, with plotholders enjoying the lovely weather.

Jamie worked really hard clearing and digging the remainder of the plot where our brassicas are going this year. The last of the manure was Dug in along with some chicken manure pellets.

I was pleased to get the compost bins sorted and moved to their final position. I mixed all the compost together and managed to completely fill one bin, which can sit doing its thing for the next few months and we'll just put new waste into the black one for a while.

Comma

When we got to the plot there were butterflies all over the grape hyacinths: Commas, tortoiseshells, brimstones (the lovely yellow ones) and peacocks. So, I rushed home to get the wildlife camera and set it to do a timelapse video. As a result, we got 278 photos of this!

Not one visitor for the next hour - except me and Jamie sitting on the bench occasionally!
So, I moved the camera to another position on the plot and that provided over 1700 versions of this image!

I thought the clouds against the blue sky would have made for a nice timelapse, but the camera didn't pick them up - all rather unsuccessful!

Garlic also enjoying the heat

When we first got to the plot I counted 11 broad beans which had sprouted; when we left there were 16! I should have pointed the camera at them, or at the rhubarb!

I'm happy to have now sowed some seeds into trays and modules - protected under a netted cloche until the poly-cloche is up:

• Beetroot (cylindrical type)
• Florence Fennel
• Little Gem lettuce
• Cos lettuce
• Celery

Life on a Bench and Beyond

It may be traditional for Good Friday, but still too early, this year, to plant spuds (in our opinion) so I was mainly fiddling about, turning the compost and taking photos during the couple of hours spent on the plot this afternoon. The weather was drizzly but not cold (13°).
This is our trusty bench, which is likely to be replaced this year as its falling apart, but it's supporting a lot of life and the tiny lichen and moss patches are very pretty in macro-mode!

I was going to look up the types of lichen, but it's a lot more complex than I expected! It'll take a bit longer than I currently have, but here's a good place to start!

We know the wasps like to skim the top layer of wood for their nests; we've watched them do it over the last couple of years - fascinating.

Our rhubarb has sprung into life and appears well on its way to being a monster again this year (fingers crossed!).

Look at those intricate leaves starting to unfurl.

Forming from what looks like an egg (Or maybe I've got Easter eggs on my mind!)

Some of the raspberry canes are at last showing that they're still alive and the strawberry plants are producing fresh new shoots.

The photo below was taken after the winds last Wednesday/Thursday. The protective acrylic over my salad seedlings was snapped in half by that flying netted cage, so I've attempted to cover them - otherwise they look just too tempting for passing pheasants!

The netted cage from the other end of our plot! Wish I'd been filming

Our bottle cloches also blew away (twice). We managed to recover most of them, but the broad beans which were left unprotected are at their tastiest right now (because they're just sprouting) and a mouse has enjoyed at least one of them... We'll fill the gaps with Express seeds when we get some more cloches made up.

It was the first day of the Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race so canoeists were going past on the canal (beyond the hedge). Only another 100 miles to go!

And Hungerford had the flags out as it's one of the checkpoints, at about 25 miles from the start.

Hmmm, 400th Post...

 

It's a milestone, so allow me a little time to reminisce...
Our lovely Marsh Lane site opened in April 2009 and I wanted to record our allotment progress. I much prefer electronic records for ease of searching so posted updates on our personal website - but after 2-and-a-bit years I found it too annoying to update and needed an alternative and discovered blogging!

Day 1 of the site

I opted for Blogger, can't remember why, but it's free and offered Picasa for photo storage so suits my needs. My first post was on 12th June 2011 - what a dull post that was...Not even one photo!
Moving swiftly on...

Blogger offers stats, I'm not sure how accurate they are because of robots but I find it quite interesting. These are apparently my top 3 posts ...

1. Fungus Gnats! Well, I'm assuming the title is an oft-searched phrase (523 hits!), not all that catchy or interesting though to be honest.
2. Salad, Garlic and Compost. That wasn't a recipe suggestion! It has a nice photo, so maybe that's why it got 184 hits.
3. French Bean Chutney. Well, that is a recipe and a lovely one so I can see the appeal there for 158 visits.

Well, that's enough of that, back to today...
It was a very windy day, with quite a lot of rain. It wasn't a day for spending much time at the allotment but we did what we intended to do, we got this year's nematodes on the go.

Now, as you know, we don't like killing things, but these slugs are taking liberties! So, nemaslugs strike again - in our potato plot, our carrot plot and in the raised bed where my fennel and salad are going.

(as long as you don't consider slugs as wildlife...)

They needed to be well watered in and they got that! The ground temperature needs to stay above 5° otherwise the nematodes will die so hopefully this is timed right  - not that they'd keep in the fridge any longer anyway.

And now it's British Summer Time! 
Hooray, lighter evenings so we can go to the plot after work!

Onions R Us!

Today we planted our onion sets. We don't want many, as we don't usually store them. However, by the time we'd lined up the four rows, with about 8 inches between the rows and 6 inches between the onions we found we'd planted 44! That's quite a lot of onions to get through. I think there will be a lot of soup-making this year!!

Hopefully we'll be able to do a bit of storing this year, in the big cloche. The onions are meant to be mildew resistant F1 Hylander, from Thompson & Morgan. We covered the rows with the netting, just to stop the birds from pulling the sets out of the ground before they root. The birds think the brown onion skin tops are worms and always scatter them about.

The spring onions have sprouted now, along with the other salad crops I sowed. No sign of the broad beans yet. But another row of garlic has appeared - that makes 5 rows!! Hmmm, where's that onion and garlic soup recipe?!

Here are all our potatoes chitting - look at the little Canarian black ones in the middle. Not very black, but they're very small! We chopped one in half and it has lovely yellowy flesh. Hope we get a good warm spring/summer so that these survive and re-produce!

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!

Wanting Some Rain

We want rain for our broad beans and a few salad seeds that we sowed two weeks ago. No sign of the broad beans yet, but the radish and salad leaf are coming up. Hopefully the perspex will protect them from nibbles - until they're ready for me!

Here's the garlic - growing nicely under the netting as something (probably a pheasant) had nibbled a couple of the shoots last week.

The funny thing is that there are four rows of garlic now.... Obviously the T&M garlic was just rather slow compared to the Wilko garlic. We're going to have a LOT of garlic this year!!

This is the rhubarb - both plants are showing signs of what's to come - yum yum!

And this is our spuds, chitting under the grow lamp in the hallway. We were obviously a bit late, many of the spuds were sold out last weekend, so we didn't manage to get Anya which we wanted. So, we bought Kestrel (of course) and Rosabelle.

We also have some Tenerife black potatoes on order. Not sure how they're going to manage in our climate, but we'll see...

Gotta Love Fire

What a fabulous afternoon yesterday! 15° and blue sky all the way - really Spring-like.

And, what fun, we had a fire to get rid of all the rotten wood, bamboo canes and clippings that we don't want to put in the compost bin. Who needs an excuse for a fire?!

We used the HAHA shared incinerator to keep it under control as the wind blew up a few times. The sage and rosemary clippings meant the smoke smelled lovely though!

We also spent some time making up a raised bed for our silverskin onions and, probably beetroots. We mixed some manure with the compost from last year's sunflower pots, so maybe we'll have sunflowers in that raised bed too...!

I filmed a timelapse on my phone, unfortunately the wire I used to attach it to the pole managed to cut right across the lens - tut! But I still quite like the video of us riddling, sieving, mixing and having tea breaks :-)

I showed a newcomer round the site and she's now a tenant of one of the larger plots; on such a beautiful day, I'm not surprised she was so taken with the site and wants to start growing straightaway!
The site was the busiest it's been in months, with cars even having to park on the grass - this is the start of the fun times...

It's a grey day out of the window this morning, so we're off to Charlton Park Garden Centre to buy some spuds...