Infinite Sun

That's the only frog who's visited our pond this year - he's from Jamie's dad, so nice to have him on our plot.

What an amazing Easter weekend - yesterday we saw some of the canoeists in the Devizes to Westminster race and Hungerford was nicely crowded. But today was a plot day. We were on a mission to clear Plot46A...

Eurgh, what a mess of chickweed, deadnettle, fumitory and various leftover veg from last year.

With a lot of this...

We managed to convert it to this...

Aah, that's better. And now it's covered in weed suppressant fabric, so we're good neighbours again!

Meanwhile, our poor marigolds in the polytunnel couldn't survive the 39.9° temperature - I really hope they recover!

When we arrived at the site someone had left some seedlings in the polytunnel for us. Thinking they were Antirrhinum (Snap dragon) from Ivan I dutifully plotted them on into individual pots. Only later did I discover that they were in fact a mix of Rocket and Pak Choi from Malcolm - duh, I'm blaming the heat!

We were pleased to see that the weather has encouraged the grassed communal area to grow. Hopefully the grass will overcome the weeds which are also very happy.

Kula Shaker provide the great song and we're expecting another amazing sunny day tomorrow - hooray!

Planting Seeds

Just a quick post while I'm eating my lunch at work. I'm pleased to say it's Good Friday tomorrow; a long weekend away from work and the weather forecast is looking good - hooray!

I wanted to record some planting/sowing that we did last weekend. The above photo shows the aquilegia mini-plugs that I transplanted. A selection of 72 tiny flower plants which will (hopefully) be nice healthy bigger plants to sell at our HAHA Plant Sale in June, plus a few beetroot sown to fill the empty cells.

Here's the list of perennials, which are now growing on in Andy's (our Treasurer), conservatory.

Our tomato (Aviditas) and pepper (Thor) plants have also been delivered so Jamie's potted them on and they look much happier (and straighter) now.

Things are progressing in the polytunnel.

The broad beans are up - most of them...

And I've sowed a drainpipe of mangetout.

We've planted out the onion sets (Sturon variety) - about 25 of them. And some spinach and beetroot are at the other end of that raised bed. I'll try again to do some succession growing, but I'm never very good at it!

Two rows of salad onions are sowed at the end of the garlic raised bed - they should grow quickly enough that the garlic rust (which seems to be unavoidable) won't affect them.

And here's a picture of one lot of our begonia plugs - they're mostly growing on quite happily in our windowsill. We may need to pot them on again before the plant sale, as some are getting pretty big and a bit pot-bound.

So, a warm weekend sounds like a good time to do some gardening and maybe our grass seed will grow - at the moment we appear to be growing a mixture of weeds and pigeons...
The song title is provided by Built to Spill...

Follow You, Follow Me

I hope fellow bloggers will follow me with this idea - it's our journey to the allotment, taking in a few local sights on the way. What's your journey like? We walked up yesterday morning when Hungerford was reasonably bright, though rather chilly.

Across the road by The Bear Hotel. There used to be stuffed bear, with its cub, in the entrance hall :-( I'm so glad times have changed!

Past the war memorial which the River Dun passes by on either side.

A little further towards the High Street and over the Kennet & Avon Canal, with the Rose of Hungerford moored and waiting to take visitors on a trip to Kintbury.

On up the High Street, with the Corn Exchange clock beyond the railway bridge.

Then we take an alleyway to the Croft, with the 'drunken posts' which were erected in 1863.

The Croft is a nice spot with the avenue of trees past the tennis club, bowls club and the Hungerford Club.

Onwards past the Croft Hall, Doctors Surgery and nursery school...

Past St Lawrence's Church, which was built in 1816.

Looking through the churchyard, to the canal boats in the distance.

A little incline under the railway bridge and yesterday there happened to be some sort of parade of about eight tractors - not sure what that was about, but it caused some amusement as each one trundled past.

Under the clematis which is making its way across the road via the telephone wires!

I love the name of this road and the frontage is pretty...

...with bluebells and primroses at the moment.

Further along we reach the Shalbourne Brook, locally known as the Shalbourne Leak. It's a lovely babbling brook which leaks into the canal.

And here we are at the allotment site!

I hope you liked that little walk. Our alternate route is across Freeman's Marsh, which is a lovely area for cattle and wildlife, but takes a bit longer. I chose Genesis for the song title - now over to you!

Sad

We had a plan for yesterday - to sow the grass seed we bought a couple of weeks ago. The area was cleared by the Work Party last month so we only had to clear the bigger stones initially and rake the path a bit flatter - it was a long path...

We've had a lot of rain over the last week, most of it in one day, but yesterday was dry and not too cold.

And then we went back the other way, flattening it down a bit and then a quick rake to make the soil a bit better for taking the seed.

Raking is hard work on the back and shoulders.

I sowed the seeds and Jamie followed behind with a watering can to stop them from blowing away.

Taa-daa - finished! And that was when we decided to do the ~4-pole area around the toilet. It's got Horsetail so we hope that regular mowing of grass will keep it contained. Roger and his family have the plot next to the path and they're going to put flowers in the sunken wooden troughs all round the edge - won't that look lovely!

Now we just need some warm sunny days and wet nights so that the seed germinates and can take a hold before the weeds do!

The blog title is a small memorial for Jamie's Dad, who sadly died last week. Very sad. Here he is with Jamie, a long time ago.

The song is by Maroon 5.

Sail Away

Friday was a beautiful day and I was off work - hooray - so we spent a few hours on the plot.

I collected two bagfuls of grounds from the coffee lounge at work - we get through a lot of coffee each day! I added some to the compost bins which are still housing rats because I still need to mix them up a bit. Apparently rats don't like coffee, though they like everything else I put in the bins.

Jamie cleared the plot where the potatoes will be planted.

Then he dug in some 6x and the coffee grounds - hopefully a slug deterrent and a bit of acidity to prevent scab...

Voila! A lovely dug plot and a painful Jamie - it's hard on the back/knees/arms/hands for these first few plot visits of the year!

While Jamie did that, I worked on the raised bed. Lots of weeding.

And now it's ready to become a salad bed.

No sign of the broad beans yet, but the marigold and salad seedlings are on their way, in the greenhouse.

Look at the temperature range in there!

On Saturday we arrived on the plot just in time for a little lunchtime soiree with David and Ivan and some of Ivan's home-made wine. The blackberry and apple was delicious with some crisps and olives. We did manage to do a bit of allotmenting afterwards - I planted up 5 tubs with Summer bulbs - hopefully they'll be in full flower for our fete on July 7th. And I also planted the five Chinese Lantern plants by the greenhouse. Hoping all these can survive the chilly nights.

No frogspawn has arrived (I may bring some in from elsewhere), so Alfie provided us with some cheer for our little pond.. unfortunately the little boat didn't float so I had to balance it against the edge :-)

And that is the reason for the song title <ahem - poetic licence>