In the Morning

Early morning visits are the norm now. We have a pleasant hour on sunny mornings, enjoying the wildlife, removing covers in the polytunnel, watering all the seedlings then back home to log in to work. The temperatures have been in low single digits in the early hours but warm up quickly during the day and the polytunnel gets really hot, so we go back in the evening to cover the seedlings up for the night.

Hawthorn - before and after pollination

The hawthorn in the hedgerow has bloomed over the last week and the scent is quite over-whelming. So beautiful especially with the blue sky and sunshine we had this weekend. It was windy so we were being continually showered with confetti.

Jamie mowed the paths while I stared at the tadpoles; there's at least one frog in the pond too, but it's laying low at the moment except for the occasional splosh. Jamie's sown our Lark sweetcorn and we're pleased that the Jack Be Little pumpkins germinated in the week - the plan is for them to trail around/over the sweetcorn plants. The Baby cucumbers, Bush Delicata squash and Mangomel melon are also in that tray. They need to grow at least another pair of leaves before we plant them outside.

I’ve transplanted the Radish Rats Tails and some of the larger of the Asparagus Pea seedlings. The six biggest plants I’ve actually planted out, but I’ve given them some cloche protection as they’re tiny and looked too vulnerable out in the big wide world!

Talking of the big wide World, we went to Newbury for the Vegan Food Market on Sunday. It made a nice change to be out for something other than the allotment or an appointment!

What a treat, people-watching in the lovely warm sunshine. And look at the plant-based hot dog I had - the Colorado Mountain - so delicious, makes me wish I was growing gherkins again as it was stocked up with them and other amazing fillings with a plant-based sausage in there somewhere!

The rest of the weekend was allotment-based and we got a lot of tidying done. Trying to keep our edges neat so the snails have fewer places to hide. I found about 20 giant snails in my 3 chive plants during the week!! I flung them over the hedge (the snails, that is) and they haven’t returned…yet.

The chive flowers are so pretty. I usually start making chive flower vinegar at this time but I’ll let the bees enjoy them for a while because there aren’t many other flowers available on our plot at the moment. (Note the neat edging).

 

We do have a few flowers but these aquilegia are by the polytunnel so aren't very noticeable - it's another area that could do with a tidy and improved edging.

 

All the potatoes have burst through - the ones in the bags have the same amount of growth as these in the ground. We did top them with a bit of soil the other night because we thought there may be a frost, but it was ok. The temperature at Marsh Lane is about 3° lower than in the town so we're keeping a close eye on the forecasts.

I sowed all our beans into root trainers yesterday. Eight of each variety: Yin Yang dwarf beans (home-saved), Scarlet Empire Runner Beans, Blue Lake Climbing French Beans and Firetongue Climbing Borlotti Beans. Hopefully they’ll germinate in the polytunnel and then the climbers will be planted to grow up the old polytunnel frame (previously the squash tunnel).

That was a most enjoyable weekend but now it's time for work. Have a good week all and happy growing! Here are The Coral.

This Garden

Mmm, I made a floral focaccia again. And this time it was actually like focaccia rather than a big flat biscuit!

Reading back on when I made it before, I think it didn't have the right texture because I didn’t bake it in a high-sided tin so it just spread out - it was definitely more like a pizza base… This time, contrary to the instructions on the Tesco Focaccia mix, I proved it a second time after spreading it out in the tin. Here’s the pre-baked garden.

You can see that there is plenty of olive oil! Only chives and parsley from the plot. We had a little picnic on the plot in the Sun yesterday and had some red wine with this lovely snack. Mmm, the focaccia is so tasty dipped in that balsamic dressing. Perfecto!

I could have done with a lie down afterwards but we kept on with our weeding and tidying. The recent wet/dry weather has been ideal for the weeds. Ivan taught me how to use a hoe for the edging rather than a spade - aah so that’s how to do it.

Plot3 is looking much better now the PSB has been removed, chopped and composted. The Spring onions and lettuce (Dark Roden) seeds have germinated after 1 week -  the cage is having a year off from brassica this year - and the lettuces will be planted out when they’re big enough. It looks like most of the pre-germinated parsnip seeds have sprouted; the other row hasn’t yet.

We're having a bit of trouble germinating our courgettes but we'll give them another week. Other seedlings continue to appear in the inner polytunnel, including florence fennel, but none are large enough to transplant yet. Some of the annual flowers will eventually be part of the flower patch in front of our bench which has expanded a bit on last year.

The flower patch has more perennials this year, including Geum, Jacobs Ladder, Leucanthemum and Scabiosa plus a few verbascum which Ivan gave us today and this lovely delphinium that Aimee gave us last year when she gave up her plot.

The HAHA Wildlife plot is fit to bursting with so much growth but is still mostly green at the moment, apart from some pretty Red Campion. I pulled some of the plantain and dandelions to make way for less invasive plants and whilst rummaging found lots of shield bugs and other insects.

We feel a bit in limbo with the waiting, waiting … but cold nights are threatened this week so it’s definitely worth waiting a bit longer - or at least having the fleece on standby… The Levellers provide this excellent song title.

Vote for Me

The clock is ticking on my holiday. Final day today 😩 What a shame, I have enjoyed our allotment days and some have been very warm and sunny; others have been wet - great growing weather. The dandelions have done very well and have timed their seed dispersal with wet days perfectly! The swifts have joined the swallows, sweeping low across the site and over the marsh we’ve now heard the cuckoo.

We finished weeding and digging Plot7 and tidied up the edges, where there are masses of ants nests - red and black ants. There are also loads of snails. We’ve been throwing them into the hedge whenever we find them, but they know the way back. There is evidence of something eating them - probably thrushes, magpies and mice. Also, three big snails have fallen into the pond and our tadpoles have been tucking in, so they’re carnivorous now and will soon grow their back legs.

To be honest, we don’t help ourselves where slugs and snails are concerned. We have too many cosy spots for them to hide during the day and emerge under cover of night to nibble our seedlings. These pots amongst the self-seeded Nigella are a perfect hiding place that really needs tidying up. I’ve sown some pot marigolds in that swathe in the hope of having a colourful blue and orange area. Unfortunately there’s also a lot of bindweed growing there…

Here’s another snail haven behind the polytunnel, but I’ve done some tidying there this week and removed a lot of couch grass. I’ve planted the horseradish in the corner which may take over so I’ll need to keep it under control, but surely it’s better than couch… Some of those pots have Spring bulbs in them, but others are just weeds. That’s another job for the list!

I’ve planted out the mangetout and sowed a row the other side of the wire to achieve a longer harvest period. I put the twigs as protection but decided that it was worth using netting to protect the fresh growth from pigeons who can’t resist pea shoots.

I’m hoping the plants follow the plan and attach to the wire mesh rather than the black netting, otherwise picking can be tricksy. 

We’ve got plenty more sowing done. Chinese Dragon radish in the raised bed. Autumn King and Chantenay carrots in their environmesh tunnel next to the parsnips, with coriander sowed in between.

I’ve sown Florence fennel, nasturtium and various lettuce in trays/pots in the polytunnel, where I’m pleased to see that germination is pretty good for most of the seeds we sowed last week. We’re removing their lids and opening the polytunnel each day to prevent them over-heating and keeping them moist with a mist sprayer. Night time temperatures have stayed above 5° over the last week.

The lobelia have germinated - look how ridiculously small they are! It appears that I didn’t sow them very evenly across the modules 🙄

Some seeds have been less successful, including the direct-sowed beetroot so I cheated and bought a tray of beet seedlings - cheaper than buying a new packet of seeds at this point. You never know, perhaps my seeds will emerge later. We also bought a courgette plant which we’re growing in a pot in the polytunnel initially, to hopefully get some early harvests.

Aiming to grow our own reasonable leeks this year, we’ve copied plot neighbour Neal’s method of sowing his leeks. They’re direct-sown quite thickly in two rows and we’ll just plant on what we want later in the year. Our variety this year is Blue Green Autumn Neptune.

We’ve got some of Neal’s for dinner tonight as part of this pasta and Quorn lardons meal - this is before the cheese sauce was added, yummm.

The purple sprouting broccoli has provided its last meal of the year and now provides a bunch of flowers - I didn’t take them home though 😁

It’s rainy today so we didn’t stay long on the plot. We’ve potted on the pepper plants and re-sowed a Zucchini courgette, Jack-be-Little pumpkin and patty pan squash which haven’t germinated after a couple of weeks at home. Second time lucky 🤞

We weren’t involved in any of the coronation shenanigans but did enjoy the local election results last Thursday. Sadly Hungerford didn’t vote in the Green candidate who is a plotholder, but we do have two Liberal Democrats to replace two tories so that’s good. The Specials provide the song title. Aah, so sorry to have lost Terry Hall this year.

The Time is Now

OK, so it may not be Summer, but this is the kind of weather I like to see when I have more than a week off work! It was so beautiful yesterday after a grey start, so I’m hoping today will be the same.

The site has been very active over the long May Day weekend. People arriving with egg boxes full of spuds with the same plan as us. We haven’t gone over the top with potatoes this year. We have 2x2 Nicola in bags and these in the ground. Sarpo Mira is a maincrop with good blight resistance; Desiree is a maincrop which makes amazing mash and Nicola is a second early which is a tasty salad potato and good for mashing.

The beetroot seedlings are struggling to arrive but some of the seeds that we sowed a week ago in the polytunnel have started to appear so morning visits will be needed for opening the doors and watering if it’s going to be warm. The temperature quickly rises to over 30° in there if the Sun appears.

A few more seeds sown at home this weekend are: Radish Rat’s Tails, Bush Delicata squash, Sunburst patty pan, All Green courgette, Tall Timbers sunflowers and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins. Also, lobelia which made me think that I shouldn’t have complained about the size of the Nicotiana seeds last week! And these are the parsnip seeds that I germinated on paper towel in a plastic lidded container.

They’re sown into the ground which has been under black weed suppressant for a couple of weeks. I sowed two rows: the row on the left in this photo was pre-germinated, so will see what difference it makes, if any. I’ve put a cover over them more for protection from birds than any good reason.

A few more seeds sown were radish and perpetual spinach in the raised bed. The Egyptian walking onions are growing very slowly and look very similar to the grass and weeds that I had to clear but now the weather is cheering up a bit they may get moving (not walking yet 🤭). 

And lastly, two rows of Spring onions, some red, some white have been sowed on Plot 3 where Jamie also spent a lot of time yesterday digging the hole for the melon to grow.

The purple sprouting broccoli on that plot is beginning to flower. I’m hoping to get at least one more harvest. I included some in this Katsu curry with Cluck the other evening - delicious.

I appreciate these photos are mainly of dirt, but well, it’s that time of year.  To make up for all the brown in this blogpost, here’s a beautiful little phlox flower that’s growing on the fringes of the HAHA Wildlife plot bog garden.

And here’s a ladybird, they’re just beginning to emerge and will be looking out for mates now. I hope the larvae arrive before the blackfly this year!

The birds have mostly paired up now - we’ve seen pairs of goldcrest, blue tits and great tits in the hedge. The robins are feeding their females and are very demanding of us with their tuneful song. The jackdaws and magpies are squabbling even more than usual and are most upset by the carrion crow that has a nest nearby. And there is a flock of starlings that swoop down from the power cables when the site isn’t too busy.

As you can see, it’s all happening so the song title provided by Moloko is very apt. Enjoy 😊 

Time for Action

What a lovely long day we had on the allotment yesterday. It was warm and the Sun even appeared from between the cloud at times.

We’ve taken the net cloches off the broad beans so that the bees and other insects can do their pollination duty to provide us with some tasty broad beans quite soon. The photo above is one of the plants sown at the end of October- they survived the extreme frost; some of their gang didn’t which is why we have a bit of succession planting.

Yesterday we were mostly sowing (and chatting and listening to the birds) during our several hours on the plot. In the inner polytunnel tunnel we have: Flowers: Verbena bonariensis, Nicotiana Whisper, Ipomoea Iobata (Spanish flag), Calendula Officinalis ‘Canteloupe’, Marigold ‘Legion of Honour’, Sunflower ‘Tall Timber’ and veg: Rainbow chard, Asparagus pea and an All Green courgette is an early sowing at home.
The nicotiana (Tobacco plant) has the tiniest possible seeds - there they are a tiny smudge in the bottom of that miniature phial. And only 20 seeds! But I know they're a pretty flower so I hope they work.

 

Most of these flowers are destined for the flower plot this year, around the bench. It's great to see the perennials re-appearing now the ground is warming up and the daffodils finally came out.

I'm trying to keep on top of the weeds which are appearing and also pulling up some of the masses of Nigella. Having said that, Ivan gave us this plant, which looks a bit like Nigella - but we're not too sure what it is at this point. It's probably a weed as it was growing amongst his irises. I do like the foliage and I'm sure the flowers will provide an identification quite soon and we can decide then whether it's a keeper.

I was going to sow some veg outside but the ground was too wet. I have a week off soon so hopefully the weather will be a bit drier then. If we get the spuds planted out next week we'll have some space under the grow lamp at home. I've started parsnips by germinating them at home on a paper towel - they are notoriously awkward germinators so this way I'll only plant viable seed to get the best chance of a few parsnips this year.

At the weekend we spotted our first swallow of the season and then yesterday it was joined by a pair of house martens so it's really beginning to feel Spring-like, although night-time temperatures are still dipping close to zero (centigrade) and frosty rooftops are still regular morning sights. The birds were in full song at the weekend though and Ted pointed out at least two song thrushes, by their songs. That would help to explain all the broken snail shells but there are plenty of living snails left!

I spent a lot of time scrambling around by the pond trying to get a 'from the bottom of the pond' style photo. I had my camera on remote control using my phone and had some tadpoles in a transparent pot. It was quite awkward and of the 20-ish photos this was the best but isn't quite what I was aiming for ... oh well, perhaps I'll try again another day.

But I thought this gelatenous outline was quite interesting on this shot.

Anyway, enough about tadpoles! Here's an arty photo of purple sprouting brocolli and chive flower buds which formed part of my meal the other night. 

I used one of the frozen bean burgers that I made a few weeks ago. I squashed it flat like a pancake; it still fell apart, but I really like the flavour of borlotti beans.

At 3pm yesterday everyone (almost) reached for their phones as we received our first ever Government 'Emergency Alert' - great, what a hopeful new advance for the 21st Century...😕

Oh well, it gave me an excuse to use this song by Secret Affair. Let's hope we never have to hear the alert alarm again.