Cheat

No, it’s not cress. That, believe it or not, is a celeriac seedling.

There are 3 or 4 like that. I'm not convinced they'll survive to planting stage but will keep them going, even though we nipped to a garden centre and they had these. Now they look a bit healthier and will be planted rather earlier than our home-germinated plants. Don't they look lovely and healthy?

Talking of healthy, our site is now 100% leased, with most plots looking prepped and ready for the year ahead - a bit different from this time in 2010, when the land developer had withdrawn the idea for allotments on Marsh Lane after 1 year of being set up. Thank goodness the Council were able to negotiate a 4-year lease for us - and that was 11 years ago :-)

We were on the site at the weekend. In between snow showers the sun would come out and it was really hot - as my boss pointed out, the sun is as high now as it is at the end of August! We sowed some teasel seeds on the wildflower plot and I'm pleased to say that our bog plants from Bakker are on their way so it'll be good to get them planted out. I moved the drainpipe of mangetout seedlings outside to a cold frame as I'll (hopefully) plant them out next weekend. The weather is still far more wintry than we want in April - look what we woke up to yesterday - snowy rooftops!

I thought it was going to feel like a soup week, so I soaked some of my home-grown dried beans - I added celery seeds to the water which smelled lovely.

To the stock, I added the few leaves of Cavolo Nero, that we'd grown, plus a few carrots and tomato puree, as per Shaheen's recent soup recipe. I have to admit that my soup doesn't look very pretty, but it tastes good. I wish I had mushed up some of the gigantes beans separately rather than blitzing the whole soup, though there are some whole beans at the bottom of the cup.

Remember our broad beans that got severely hit by the frost in February? They unexpectedly revitalised and now look! I hope the frosts we're having at the moment don't take them out at this stage in the game...

I have to start work now, but just one last thing... You must watch the BBC4 programme: A Year in an English Garden: Flicker & Pulse. It's so beautiful, with time-lapse and other fancy effects and just a little bit of talking - I really enjoyed it, in fact I may have to watch it again (and copy some of their ideas).

The song title is provided by The Clash and is because of buying seedlings from a shop. But, as I said to Forbes on site, "It's not cheating. It's common sense" ;-) 

No Roots

A 4-day weekend, I need more of these! Especially with weather like we had yesterday - sun and lovely warmth. Aah, that blue sky makes me so happy!

Jamie and I finished clearing the wildlife plot. Ready to sow the wildflower seeds in a couple of weeks and hopefully the bog plants won’t be held up by stupid BREXIT for too long; they’re coming from Holland and I’ve seen some bad reports online, but Ivan said his irises weren’t delayed. 

Anyway the temperature is dropping over the next couple of weeks, with snow tomorrow - really?! So planting can wait a bit longer...

The reason this plot isn’t leased is because it suffers from Horsetail, apart from the fact that it’s good to have an area on site where people aren’t trying to remove anything that wriggles or flies 🙄. We hope that the wildflowers will help reduce the spread of the horsetail, which creeps onto the site from the canal towpath. Grassing other areas has helped and the white coverings probably worked too, but look so ugly! We’ve also put some mini-plots on a horsetail plot because those plots tend to get more intensive cultivation which curtails the horsetail. Here’s some of the weed we found yesterday - it’s just sprouting, but so hard to spot when it’s dormant.

So, back to our plots. The crazy rhubarb missed out on being divided again last year - it’s trying to take over! We really must split it this year...

The beetroot and rainbow chard have germinated in the polytunnel. I’m hoping to be able to see the difference once they’ve grown a bit (I know! Why didn’t I label them?!)

I’ve got a new watering can for the greenhouse. The mangetout can go outside soon, they won’t mind the frost, but I need to prepare their plot.

The marigolds have germinated poorly this year. Only 4 or 5 from each batch at home and in the polytunnel.

We’re seeing a lot of different butterflies and bees on the site now that flowers are appearing, it’s such a positive time of year (especially when the sun shines).  This is ground ivy, pretty ground cover, with a nice minty smell. The bees love it.

We’ve also seen a lot more bee flies this year, they’re predators of solitary bees so not that welcome but interesting to see. They’re so bee-like, including a buzz.

So, that’s been our weekend so far. Today is Bank Holiday Monday and snow showers are now threatening today. It doesn’t look very welcoming but we’ll probably enjoy it when we finally get outside. The song title is provided by Alice Merton. I’d like to think there are no horsetail roots left in the wildlife plot, but I know that won’t be the case! Ooh, the sun has just come out!

Thankyou

This weekend marks the thirteenth year of my kidney transplant. This was me at one of my earliest dialysis sessions - you can see the dialysis machine is connected through Tesio lines through my chest - before the fistula was created in my arm.

I was connected to that machine for 4hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for nearly 4 years cleaning my blood as my kidneys weren’t able to. Fluid restriction (~1litre per day), tiredness and no appetite were the hardest part of kidney failure for me but I made some good friends whilst on dialysis and continued working throughout (albeit not very efficiently). I couldn’t have been more happy when my 3rd call for a transplant was confirmed as a match and it continues to serve me very well at about 30% efficiency.

Thankyou seems too small a word for such a generous gesture as an organ donation. The system is now opt-out in England, which I’m not a supporter of; I prefer to think of it as a generous gift, rather than Government-led. However, with more than 4000 people currently waiting for a transplant please make sure your family knows your wish, should the worst happen.