Too Much Too Little Too Late

July has arrived! A lot has happened since my last blogpost but I've been too busy to post. Lunches have got more interesting, with radishes, broad beans and mangetout joining the salad leaves.

We've had lots of visits to the plot, with too much to do, but we have managed to get a lot done and watering each day. Finally we've managed to plant up (most of) the remaining courgettes and squashes and the Double Red and Glass Gem sweetcorn, which germinated within a week of sowing in the hot greenhouse.

We pulled out all the poppies and dug holes, filled with manure, for the squashes - pretty sure that won't be the last we've seen of those poppies!

I planted out the globe artichoke and I've protected that, plus the squashes, from slugs with coffee grounds. Not sure whether they work or whether the dry weather has helped keep the slugs at bay, plus our resident frogs.

Our Kestrel potatoes have their first flower.

We've had some lovely sunshine and very high temperatures - too high to work on a couple of days, but we planted out our HAHA competition sunflowers. They look a bit weedy compared to other people's!

We've watched a robin parent feeding its young and now the baby is feeding itself, but it hasn't got a red breast yet.

Jamie's planted the Lark sweetecorn on Plot3.

These mullein moth caterpillars are enjoying the ragwort on Min's plot - they are stunning to see, especially the big ones.

All the different beans (Yard Long, Gigantes, Speedy, Pickwick) have been planted out and seem quite happy. The Pickwick (dwarf runners) are in flower.

The pak choi and rocket plants went to seed a while ago, so I've filled the gap by sowing more beetroot and salad onions.

The carrots are happily growing under their enviromesh cloche - they've got a while to go before we're going to be able to eat the thinnings.

The strawberries continue to be delicious. Certain areas of the site are full of the scent of them - fabulous!

Our raspberries are on their way - though the birds are happy to eat them before they're red enough for us - we really need to get them under netting.

We have some gorgeous blooms on show.

But our french marigold and snapdragon seedlings are too small to produce a show for the Hungerford in Bloom allotment judging on Saturday! They'll be beautiful in a couple of weeks though - just too late for the judging and the fete :-(

All involved are busy preparing for our fete (have I mentioned the fete? This Sunday?) and I enjoyed a little break from that preparation, work and life-in-general by making a pretty tea light holder, for the allotment, at a craft session as part of the Hungerford Summer Festival - pretty and so easy to do.

The song refers to how my life is feeling at the moment. Luckily I have Friday off and then Saturday to finalise everything for THE FETE! And the sun is going to shine and England Ladies won't be in the final for the Women's Football World Cup, which I'm not pleased about ...but...

First World Problems

We didn't pick strawberries in the week because it was just too wet to want to scrabble around under the bird netting, but we were very pleased that the harvest yesterday was so delicious, with plenty more on the plants - we wish we knew the variety as they are so sweet and produce masses of fruits. We only have 5 plants but will definitely take some runners this year.

We had two visits to the plot yesterday, luckily we went home for lunch and missed a torrential downpour. The plants (and weeds) are enjoying it but it's not great for June, is it?

Today Jamie earthed up the potato bags and added some potato fertiliser to them. I sowed sweetcorn: Double Red and Glass Gem - it may be a bit late for them to produce the cobs so I'm hoping for a long season... Luckily Jamie had already sowed the Lark which are the ones we mostly like to eat, rather than for the Horticultural Show and Food Festival. The Larks have germinated so we'll get them planted out quite soon, but it was really windy today.

Yesterday we were mowing and tidying a communal area on the site as we want it to be clear and tidy for the fete on Sunday 7th June. I hope some of you who read this blog will be able to come along and join us!

The grass we sowed wasn't too successful, but the area is green because of all the weeds! And as long as we keep mowing we hope that we'll beat the marestail into submission...

We also potted up lots of flowers yesterday so that the site looks cheerful for the fete - I'm hoping that 3 weeks is long enough for those plants to fill out the empty spaces.

Jamie's planted out the first Jack Be Little pumpkin plant - protected from wind and slugs at the moment.

And I was tackling the spikiest, nastiest thistle on our Plot46A which hasn't had a look-in yet this year. We intend to plant other squashes on that plot and clear all the rotten wood at some point this Summer. It's a mess.

I was pleased to pick some salad, including radish for my lunch tomorrow.

And even more pleased that we have all these lovely over-Wintered broad beans for dinner this evening. We're having a curry.

And I got a very small bunch of flowers, with a few sweetpeas.

I'm still clearing the poppies and other self-sown flowers from Plot 7, but it's still looking so pretty and the frogs are appreciating the cover.

So, after three visits to the plot in one weekend we have achieved a lot, but there's still so much more to do. Seedlings are growing in the polytunnel but not quite large enough to be planted out yet. We could do with a bit more sunshine and warmer temperatures, but it doesn't look like this week is necessarily going to provide it - hence the song title.... by Ian Brown.

With a Little Help From My Friends

On Saturday morning we held our annual plant sale on the Town Hall Steps (or veranda, as it says on the invoice).

Happy HAHA Helpers: Alison, Marthy, Liz and Andy

Our plotholders did us proud again, with so many quality plants...

Flowers...

Vegetables, cut flowers, grasses, succulents and hanging baskets....

The stall looked lovely along with the volunteers donning our HAHA aprons. The sun shone occasionally and it stayed dry so we had a good number of passers-by who stopped to chat and/or buy. And lots of dogs to stroke too!

And we made £280 for the HAHA coffers! Leftover plants were passed on to a plotholder who is holding a tea afternoon in aid of macular degeneration. The remainder are available for Marsh Lane plotholders for a small 'honesty box' donation and we're planting up flowers in pots to pretty-up the site for our fete next month. I couldn't resist buying a couple of plants myself: a Spaghetti squash and another Globe Artichoke - I know that I need to protect it from the wind (and slugs) this year.

Yesterday (Sunday) Jamie and I cleared the untidy side of the polytunnel and planted up the 3 Aviditas tomato plants in their bags. They look a bit straggly at the moment, but I'm sure they'll recover.

I planted out the Gigantes runner beans and I'm hoping that the Yard Long beans will be available to plant out during the week.

We picked a handful of our strawberries but they were too delicious to make the journey home! I picked salad for my lunch tomorrow but the pak choi and rocket have flowered, so I'll pull them out and sow some other salad in its place - probably another job for next weekend.

We've been baking our rhubarb recently, it's very tasty: sliced, covered in sugar and in the oven for about 30 minutes. It's nicer than how we normally cook it in the microwave.

Look at our big frog sitting on top of the little one!

They seem to be good friends :-) The song title is provided by Joe Cocker.

Strawberry Swing

I've had a few days off work to celebrate Jamie's birthday. We've had a little rain and some sunshine. It's been good gardening weather for the last couple of days.

The Love in the Mist (Nigella) has burst into bloom - such elaborate flowers and they're everywhere. So beautiful.

Unfortunately most of the poppies and Californian poppies have taken over a section of Plot7 where I need to grow veg, so I'm digging them up - it feels so wrong. Most of these will be going into the green bin at home, though I'm sure they'll be back as they self-seed everywhere.

I've attempted to pot on some of them, but I'm not sure they'll work - well, at least they stand some chance...

We've planted out our Benchmaster Runner Beans, it's so windy at the moment that we've protected them with a fleece wall.

The Pickwick Dwarf Runners are also planted out and protected under fleece for tonight (not because we think a frost is coming, but it's their first time out of the polytunnel). I need to put something up so that they don't get snapped by the wind too - we've never grown dwarf runners, but we know that the dwarf french beans are easily snapped.

We've sowed our courgettes into pots to germinate at home along with the Yard Long Beans. So far, 4 of the 9 Gigantes beans have germinated - I hope to get a few more than that to plant up against the canes along with the Yard Longs.

The birds have been pinching our strawberries as soon as they go vaguely pink, so Jamie has netted them up.

But in the meantime Ivan has given us a lovely punnet of strawberries today and they're going home along with our first broad beans - these are from our over-wintered ones, which survived being squashed by snow surprisingly well. Thank goodnesss - we didn't get any broad beans last year and they really are one of our favourite home-grown harvests.

Blackfly are beginning to be a problem, so Jamie has sprayed some of the plants and you can see in some of these photos that slug pellets have also made an appearance - we protect the other wildlife from these by netting any pelleted areas.We don't want any of the robins, magpies, crow, greenfinch or the frogs to eat anything dodgy.

Our shallots are still producing flowers, which get plucked off every time we spot them - annoying. I don't remember having this problem before.

Liz gave me a Lovage plant. It's a herb and apparently it grows huge (over 6-foot) and every part of the plant can be used as a celery substitute - sounds good!

So, things are progressing quite nicely. Just a bit more rain required (night-time only please!) and a couple more days off to hopefully get a bit more clearing done....

The song title by Coldplay is, obviously because of the strawberries - we hope to eat a few of our own quite soon, otherwise well, there's always rhubarb!!