Something Achieved

At last! I made the chive vinegar that I've been thinking about since last August when I saw it made on The Horticultural Channel.

The first jar I made up with white wine vinegar, using the chives which I picked last week and whose buds had opened in water at home. The colour had already started seeping into the water at this point and the flowers weren't so vibrant as the freshly picked ones.

Later, after a visit to the plot, I made another jar using some lovely fresh, and more richly coloured, chives and normal distilled white vinegar.

We also had some delicious stewed rhubarb, plucked from the plot today.

Lovely colourful ingredients to work with!

Try to ignore the doughnuts!!

Two Weeks Later...

My niece's wedding was a fabulous affair - such a beautiful location in the Berkshire downs, in the sunshine with delightful company. Always lovely to catch up with the cousins and more distant family members.

Recovery on Sunday included a few hours of weeding and more tidying. Jamie chopped and manual-mowed the path (not a nice neat path) between the hedge and our plots - {nearly killed him, on the hottest day of the year so far 25°!}

This is a photo from 5th May:

Two weeks away from the plot is a long time - look at how the hedge has grown!

I was very pleasantly surprised to see my seeds had germinated and not dried out or been nibbled - lucky some things can take a bit of abuse!

And the spuds have obviously been up for  a few days.

And, I picked some chive flowers for my vinegar. I picked a lot of buds and hope they'll open at home before being popped in the jar (will it ever get made?!)

Then we left as the helicopters were circling the site!

Still catching up

We finally managed to get some time on the plot today. We joined the many other plotholders who were taking advantage of a lovely warm (18°) Bank Holiday. 

As with most visits, it starts with a quick plot inspection. The rhubarb is attempting to take over Plot 8 and I'm pleased to say that some of the broad beans and onions have sprouted. The grass paths really do look good at Marsh Lane, but certainly add to the workload; the edges had nearly grown a foot! Look at those lovely strawberry flowers - I really hope they don't get hit by a frost this week!

Finally I got to clearing the brassicas from last year. They grew really well, as you can see among the weeds. But we just didn't get round to picking them - isn't that dreadful? Such a waste, but they do get composted - by the Council, not in our compost bins; compost doesn't like too much brassica waste added in one go.

Jamie dug over the quarter with the manure pile, which we'll use for brassicas this year. 

So, we got a lot of tidying done, we took 6 bagfuls of green waste away with us!

And, we got our little greenhouse up, so I sowed a couple of seed trays - just Boltardy beets and half trays of lettuce Red Fire and Tom Thumb - at last it feels like a real start.

Oh, and +SueatGLAllotments, no flowers on my chives yet ...

But so close ...

so I haven't missed the boat with making my chive vinegar yet...

ChainMail Article June 2014

It's April showers all the way today so I don't know if we'll get to the plot. Shame really, I want to make some chive flower vinegar.

I'm in the process of writing my next Chainmail article - Hungerford's quarterly magazine. This will be for the June-September edition. Unbelievable! I'm still trying to work out what happened to February and March this year!

Here's a link to my article in the previous edition. Inspired by some of the lovely wildlife visitors on Marsh Lane and who I'd like to see more of!

Potatoes and Beans

We had a successful afternoon on the plot today. It was reasonably warm, though if the chill wind blew while the sun wasn't shining I needed to grab my jacket. The temperature fell to zero over the last couple of nights.

One of our rhubarb plants had sent up this flower head. When the bud starts growing it looks like any other stem, but now the flower has developed it's obvious and easy to remove - to stop the whole plant going to seed.

After cutting the stem off there's a gaping hollow stem.

To avoid it filling with water and rotting I put a cover over the top. The flowers are really pretty, but I'll enjoy them on other people's plots rather than on our's :-)

We achieved today's prime objective and got our spuds in! We've only planted 20 this year: 10 x Chopin and 10 x Desiree. Spread across three rows. The Chopin are on grass clippings and manure while the Desiree also have shredded paper in their trenches. All have a bit of added 6x and of course the nematodes should be doing their thing to keep the slugs at bay.



Rain threatened, but stayed away

Here's Jamie adding Christmas tree sprinkles as a further slug deterrent! (I rather like the shadow in this photo).

Christmas Tree needles

We also sowed some broad beans: 15 x Suttons and 10 x Express - we're hoping these varieties will result in their own succession harvesting...

As usual we protect them immediately with bottle cloches. There's debate at Marsh Lane as to whether the pheasants or mice are the biggest broad beanshoot chompers; they're both unwelcome, but frequent, visitors.

The cat is enjoying all the activity, human, gnome, rodent and feathered!

Gnome Toppling Time

The strawberry flowers make it look like it could be a bumper year, if the frost stays off. I thought it funny that this photo shows flowers on the same plant with 5 and 6-petals - 6 is apparently more common, will have to pay more attention next time I'm on the site

A Hand Bag?!

Here are our leeks we picked today - some real whoppers! Looking forward to having them in a cheesy sauce, with Quorn, topped with lovely mash - yum!

Oh, yes, and it's a gratuitous shot of my iridescent handbag, which I love :)

Time to Get On

We had a great weekend, particularly today - 5 hours on the site in the lovely warm sunshine. 

As soon as we arrived on site Tanya offered us a box of red onion sets. We were resigned to not growing any this year because Thompson & Morgan couldn't deliver our Santero sets. So that was much appreciated - I popped 14 in Plot 8 and the rest of the box went up to the allotment spares table in the communal area on site. Finally, some planting!

Plot 8 is looking loved again, with newly barked paths and dug beds and a weed-suppressed area for the seed house.

The raspberries are covered in fresh green leaves and buds. 

Jamie cleared last year's rotten potato patch and tidied the edges and I mixed some lime and a bit of fertiliser into the bed for the broad beans next week. So, we actually feel like we're getting somewhere now!

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.