Sunday Rain

This weekend we spent about 8 hours on the allotment. As we drove up the High Street yesterday we were following a trailer full of manure - we had a feeling we knew where that was going :-)

Look at that lot! It has apparently been standing for 2 years so it's very well rotted. HAHA buys it and plotholders can take what they want for £1 per barrowload - what a bargain.

And look what we found when we opened the greenhouse - 14 little broad bean seedlings have popped up over the week - so we may get twice as many as we thought. I dug the area on Plot3 yesterday where those broad bean plants will go in a couple of weeks. And while I dug that, Jamie dug where the potatoes will be planted.

Yesterday felt decidedly Spring-like with warmth and even a little spot of sunshine. But today it was drizzly and then rainy for the whole afternoon. Initially it was quite good weather for pulling weeds - and I had a lot to pull...

That's where the carrots and french beans are meant to be going. Most of the weeds aren't too bad to pull out but the grass (couch) is the worst. I didn't finish all of it as it got too wet but at least there are signs of bare earth ready and waiting now.

Rhubarb should be the first thing that we'll be harvesting - it's on its way... slowly but surely. Meanwhile I'm still on carrot and leek soup, but, really, that's nearly the last of them....!

 Here are the Foo Fighters for the title track. No video again, but it's a good (apt) song...

Always Something There to Remind Me

10 years ago this week I had my kidney transplant - I try not to go on about it too much, but I figure 10 years of a much-improved life is worth a highlight. My pills keep my kidney and the rest of my body working and working together.

There are a lot of pills, but they're just part of the daily routine so no problem - and if it keeps me away from dialysis for a few more years I'll be very happy to keep on taking them. To mark my 10th anniversary I'm saving up all my 10 pence pieces to give to the Six Counties Kidney Patients Association in a years time. And, since mentioning it on Facebook, I've had so many generous offers from friends and family that I think I'll need a bigger collection pot!

As a kidney patient under the Oxford Churchill Hospital I am extremely well looked after. I have a blood test every 3 months (more if I feel that I need something checked out) and can look up my own results within a couple of days using PatientView - it's brilliant. Then the following week I see my consultant to discuss my results, how I'm feeling, any issues and whether my pills need altering. It's a very smooth system, for me.

Thank goodness for our NHS! Where would we (I) be without it? Well I can guess, and it's not a happy place and I wouldn't have a lovely allotment to play about on!

Please support the NHS and sign up for organ donation if you can - thanks for reading.

Song title courtesy of various people but I couldn't find a good video, so here's a Sandie Shaw version...

Yesterday

Today we visited the plot where Jamie sowed some more broad beans (3rd time lucky?) and all I did was made some coffee :-D The ground was too wet to do anything after the 15mm  of rainfall we had overnight.

 

But yesterday was the 1st of April - it wasn't raining and look! That's the Sun up there...

What? Can't you see it? There it is...

Yesterday, we managed to do some digging during our 3 hour stint on the allotment. Aah, it's good to be back at it.

We were mostly digging out tiny Valerian seedlings which are EVERYWHERE after we decided it was a good idea to grow some last year - it was pretty, but be warned... do not grow it on an allotment!
This is the type of new growth we want to see... our shallots have nearly all emerged.

At least on a rainy Easter weekend I managed to get lots of HAHA administration done - I even updated the website which I've been meaning to do for months (or perhaps a bit longer...).

 And I made myself some soup... that's the last parsnip of the year and nearly the last of the leeks, still a few more carrots to go.

 

I'm including this photo because I like the colour progression.

And today's blog title is Yesterday by The Beatles... Because yesterday we managed some proper allotmenting for a happy change.

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...

Black and White Town

The freezing weather returned! And we have even more snow than we had at the beginning of March.

Modified photo of icicles from the roof of our composting toilet

On Friday evening we retrieved our recently-sown marigold seeds and wrapped fleece round the shelving where our broad beans are trying to germinate. The fleece and four litre bottles of water are keeping the temperature at about 1° higher than the non-protected thermometer, but will it be enough? Perhaps we'll have to sow a third lot of beans this year...

Look at our pots...

And our chives...

And the site!

There were lots of tracks in the snow - nothing very interesting but we rather liked this meandering trail - bird or mouse?

We saved a panicking thrush from a brassica cage and then checked ours. We cleared the snow to stop it ripping the netting and, hooray, our purple sprouting broccoli is doing something at last, but it was too cold to stay and harvest anything today.

You may have noticed that my camera decided to use macro for the photo above and focused on the netting - now, if I was trying to do that you know it wouldn't work! I tried photographing some of the freshly fallen snowflakes on Friday and nearly caught them, but I need a bit more practise.

It was a very chilly walk back home. The thermometer in the greenhouse showed 3.3° but when the wind blew and whooshed snow about - BRRR! And we may be due more snow tonight - we're not used to this in Berkshire!!

The Doves provide the title track. The pure white snow and black roads made me choose this song.

Also, if you're in the area on Saturday....

History Repeating

It's the time of year... there's not that much happening on the plot and all I seem to be writing about is SOUP! So, as I'm sitting here drinking my latest spicy parsnip I used my webcam to create this fractal effect. 

I decided on parsnip as I thought they had all died/rotted away in the ground but, because the tops are growing back, I can see where they are again. And what a whopper - it's the same length as the hob on our cooker! With hardly any canker. I didn't use all the core, which may be a bit tough because of the re-growth.

I was going to flavour it using curry powder but decided to put individual spices in instead and it's very tasty.

There are still some more leeks to be pulled, but they are quite thin now.

I love the smell of them frying in the spices before I add the stock and parsnips.

Our visit to the plot yesterday was interrupted by thunder, lightning and a huge downpour of rain. The roads were flooded and the drains were popping up as we drove home.

Here's a little video looking out from the toolshed, which has a metal roof.

I did manage to get some bulbs planted into pots (Ixia and Dutch Iris) and Jamie sowed some marigold seeds (Durango Bee and Honeycomb). The broad beans had germinated but then got struck by the freezing weather so we're having to re-plant them.

So this song by The Propellerheads & Shirley Bassey fits the bill, but I think there will be a few more soup-based posts before Spring...

White Winter Hymnal

I think this year we'll have to follow the astronomical calendar, rather than the meteorological one; 1st March definitely did not feel like the first day of Spring!

We've had very fine snow falling for much of the last two days and we're not used to snow, so we still love it!

We walked through quiet, snowy Hungerford and of course arrived at the allotment site.

All the plots are looking quite similar under the white blanket! Even the empty covered plots look nice.

I hope our garlic and shallots are ok under there. I'm particularly concerned about the french garlic, but at least there's time to buy more if necessary. Our broad beans in the greenhouse are a no-show, so we'll need to re-sow them. Well, -9° is just too low for germination I expect.

The snow is meant to continue till tomorrow and then turn to icy rain - bleah, that's much worse!

So that was a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon off work. And tonight we're having a curry which will include some fragrant fresh bay leaves courtesy of Vishal at work. I'm also freezing some, as they're more flavoursome than dried leaves. I look forward to adding them to carrot soup in the next few days.

This was a meal we had the other evening with Quorn mince, carrots and leeks - basically a cottage pie topped with filo pastry rather than potato because I think it looks so nice.

So, it's still Winter and this pretty title song is provided by the Fleet Foxes.