OK Slugs - it's War!

The clocks have gone forward an hour to British Summer Time so we should get a few evenings up the plot quite soon! This weekend was a good start, with warm temperatures and no rain.

We bought our potatoes yesterday: Chopin and Desiree. We may get a few more but had decided to be a bit more selective this year.

Https://www.nematodesdirect.co.uk/6-nemaslug-slug-killer

So, today, Jamie watered in the nematodes which have been waiting in our fridge for three weeks. We had enough to share between our potatoes, onions and the raised bed. That should protect the ground (by killing slugs) for 6 weeks and then a second lot will be delivered and a final delivery will complete the programme. Let's see if that does the trick...

Plenty of nematodes to go round!

There were a lot of butterflies (mostly tortoiseshells) around today and I found a good deal of millipedes whilst I was digging a bit more of the legume quarter - still pulling handfuls of roots; we think it's tree roots!
Here's a pretty pied shield bug that Jamie spotted on the earth - it looks like an adult, but I'm no expert (unlike these people!)

Two weekends for the price of one!

This weekend we were planning to buy our potatoes but that still hasn't happened! We were expecting the weather to be worse than it was, though we had a few very heavy wintry showers. We did manage to visit the plot and replenished the raised bed by adding 125l of multi-purpose compost and a generous sprinkling of vegetable fertiliser - my florence fennel should enjoy that!

The grape hyacinths are providing a welcome splash of colour. So pretty and fragrant, so the bees and butterflies love them too.

Last weekend was perfect as a HAHA Working weekend: Blue sky and sunshine always help the volunteers - as do the refreshments! So now we have a reasonably tidy-looking allotment site and a water supply with no leaks - thanks to our Water Boys!

Partying after the work!

Apart from the work party Jamie and I managed to get more of the plot dug for onions, broad beans and potatoes. Jamie finished working on the potato plot during the sunny days during the week too so we're certainly not feeling so far behind now, though there's plenty more to do. This is Plot 8B ready and waiting for potatoes and onions (and nematodes).

Celeriac a-no-go

The fog cleared, as forecast, as I made my way home for an afternoon at the plot. We got a few hours of warm sunshine to work in. It's so great when the weather people get it right!

I'm still mainly clearing and Jamie's digging. I pulled all the salsify and celeriac. We could have eaten some of the salsify, or kept it in the ground to produce pretty flowers (apparently), but the area is needed for the spuds so it got chopped up and put in the new compost bin on top of all the dry strawberry cuttings from last weekend.

This is the reason I'm not bothering with celeriac this year. A poor show. When I cut into these they were brown but they'd never looked appetising because the root didn't bulb up nicely. 

Jamie's having another try at growing celery this year - in containers so we can keep it good and wet (there's not going to be a drought, is there?!)

The birds are in full song at the moment, including this redwing. More bird visitors on my wildlife blog.

Wall-to-wall Sunshine

Such a beautiful day and 17°! So we had a very lovely few hours on the site joined by fellow plotholders, butterflies and bees! We saw large numbers of tortoiseshells and brimstone butterflies.

Tortoiseshells on Dead Nettle

Jamie finished working through the onion plot so that's ready and waiting for our sets to be delivered. I cleared all the dead growth from the strawberry plants and transplanted a couple of runners which had been pegged out in the autumn.

The raised bed is clear of weeds and moss now so I can start sowing some salad - will have to wait till next weekend, at the earliest, though. It may have felt like Summer but it soon goes chilly when the Sun gets low. No evenings on the plot for us yet!



This moss against the blue sky and sunshine is fiery!

By the way, if you saw my post from yesterday... Summer seems to be the time to propagate herbs from cuttings and the cuttings should be ~10cm, not ~4cm like mine. Caroline (a plotholder) told me that rosemary can be rooted in water - well, I can try that if my potted cuttings fail...
 

Springing into Action

At last! We've started! And the birds know it too - the site was alive with bird-song and plotholders again!
Last week Jamie cleared and raked over the Brussels patch, after adding fertilizer and lime - we're putting the sprouts in there again this year. There aren't any pests and diseases there (that we're aware of) so they'll hopefully be ok.

And today the sun shone and the temperature rose so we had a busy day with two visits to the plot. Jamie cleared and dug the area on Plot 8 where the onions are going. Jamie wants to add a bit of chicken manure (because the onion fertilizer hasn't been delivered) to the ground and we're expecting the Santero onions to be delivered in the next few days. We're giving parts of Plot 7 a bit of a rest this year so spuds and onions are out of the usual rotation plan.

I mixed the compost bins. We've seen mouse action in one of the bins over Winter but I didn't come across any in there today. I managed to combine the contents of both bins into one and add a lot of 'brown' waste, that was the remains of the wildflower patch. There's a good mix of wet, dry, green, brown compostible waste which will stay in the green bin for a year now, but we need to keep stirring it regularly.
The worms have had a good winter in the black bin - lots of lovely shiny new pink worms in there! Yes, I do see that slug in there too!

I started clearing the raised bed. It's full of tiny thyme plants which self-seeded. I planted a few up and also a few cuttings from the rosemary and sage. Not sure if they'll work but we'll see - of course, I should have looked up what to do before I did it, but, well, you know how it is!

So another sunny day tomorrow for more clearing, tidying but no sowing yet...be patient...

 

Been Shopping...

Our Kings Seeds order has arrived through our HAHA Seed Secretary's discount scheme. We haven't collected them yet but the news put us in an allotment mood - so we got out the seed catalogues...

Here are a few of the seeds I was tempted by. And note the heart & star mould set - really looking forward to growing some interesting cucumber shapes with that!
I think some of these will be used on the HAHA Plot - they're certainly quite unusual.   The most interesting seeds are part of the James Wong Homegrown Revolution collection. I hope ours grow as well as some of the pictures I've seen online!

Also really looking forward to seeing star and heart shaped cucumbers!!
These I bought from Suttons Seeds

Of course we'll be growing mos of the basics too, but no shallots this year as we've still got plenty of pickled ones left to eat from last year.
These are from Thompson & Morgan.

Excuses, excuses

Wow! A month since my last post - what a slacker!

Jamie and I have had various ailments over the last few weeks and the stormy weather often scuppered our plans when we did feel inclined to move outdoors! Anyway, excuses over (for now).

The mice have been enjoying our beetroot in the meantime. Cheeky things seem to have a nest under our raised bed. There are mouse-sized holes very close to these tell-tale toothmarks :-)

At least it wasn't completely wasted!

For a very brief visit earlier in the month we walked along the canal to see how flooded it was. Hungerford lock isn't doing its job very well - it's being repaired anyway.

 

 

Jamie spent a bit of time spreading 6x and manure around our two rhubarb plants. One is showing tiny signs of life but the other seems to still be dormant.


Raspberry Red Rhubarb

Still haven't actually achieved much on the plots, but it was lovely to be in the sunshine at the weekend's HAHA work day - though exhausting (I didn't do much, so here's a pic of other plotholders working!).

Aah, look at that Spring-like sky!

One sad bit of news - we found a dead barn owl on the site. I've put a bit more info on the wildlife blog. Shame

Leeks and not much else

Just a quick visit to the plot for me this afternoon. Another sunny day today compared to yesterday's rainy one. There were a few plotholders about, doing a bit of tidying, planning and, great to see, people are still harvesting.

Our leeks are looking ok but we want them to get a bit bigger before pulling any more. There should be a bit of cabbage and more sprouts too but there may be too much wildlife involved for Jamie and me to risk eating! The other vegetable that's still in the ground is my salsify. It looks like it's grown pretty well. Need to give that a try in a week or so...
 

There wasn't much to photograph. All the birds seemed to be in hiding, even though it was warm. Hope they're back for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch next weekend (25/26 Jan).
So, just another cloud photo I'm afraid! Both these pics are taken with my new camera.

Coming out for the sun, leaving with the moon

Blue sky! How lovely to see!

That's the last of the Christmas Quality Street scoffed. 
 
I love that their plastic wrappers are made of corn starch. It means they can be composted and disappear totally. Our compost is surprisingly looking rather dry - all the runner bean stems in the bin probably should have been chopped up a bit before bundling them in.

The cat was making the most of the heat from the stonepile and keeping an eye on the coal tits in the hedgerow.

It was lovely to see other plotholders around too - we emerge from hibernation as soon as the sun shines! It is still too wet to do any work. Good job! as I really just wanted to play with our new Fujifilm X-S1 camera which we got as an Amazon bargain. 

This is my first ever non-compact camera, though not a full-on SLR (apparently) so bear with me as I've no idea what I'm doing if I move away from the Auto options! I'll be keeping my trusty Olympus SZ-31R on hand for a while yet...

Meanwhile, Jamie was checking the measurements of plot 8B, as the potatoes are going there this year to give Plot 7 a rest. We've got lots of planning to do. We're thinking along the lines of nematodes to protect our spuds from slugs. One thing we've decided is that we won't grow as much of everything, which ends up wasted....

... Did I say that last year?!

Ps. We did leave with the moon, but not because we stayed out for hours; the moon was on show all day.

It's Wet; It's January

Looking back over the blog, I see that 2012 started with a drenching and last year wasn't much better, and I'm happy that we're mostly just planning at the moment. However, we had a quick visit to the plot to see if the robin was about - there were two, but, so far, not friendly ones like last year :(

This photo shows two things 1) We've had a lot of rainfall 2) We should have cleaned our pots, tidied and sealed them away like good allotmenteers - groan, what a mess, but it'll wait a while longer!

The River Shalbourne, that we cross on the way to the site, was looking rather full but I was pleased to see the giant puddle under the railway bridge wasn't there, so that saved our feet getting a soaking. The river was at 0.26m, just 4cm above average high and way off the record high of 1.08m.

Marsh Lane has surprisingly good drainage and, although soggy in places, isn't a quagmire or underwater like some other allotment blogs have shown recently - my sympathies are with those plotholders. 

We wish we'd protected the manure from the rain, though I guess it's still acting as a weed suppressant and the blackbirds are having a field day with all the worms escaping the waterlogged piles.

I'm looking forward to having some more leeks and sprouts plus there may be a couple of cabbages that are still edible, but yesterday wasn't a day for hanging around!