Someday Soon

Oh, I do love a close-up of a chitting potato at this time of year :-) Here's another for your enjoyment (or at least, for mine) 

Look at those tiny emerging leaves, so cute. Talking of er.. cute... here are some more <ahem> 'babies'.

Lots of teeny tiny snails waiting to emerge from hibernation just in time to breakfast on our seedlings. Pesky things! I hope now they've been revealed that a thrush will find them - over the hedge, where I moved them to!

 

HAHA arranged a manure delivery in the week so lots of people were working on the site at the weekend, even though it was cold. I wheel-barrowed 5 loads to Plot3 - it couldn't be further away from the manure pile, so that was a workout that my lockdown-body isn't used to!

We had a lovely few hours on the plot yesterday. By the time we got there, the sun was just strong enough to burn off the clouds and coats and jumpers were soon removed. Especially as we were digging. I dug a trench where I'm going to try again to grow celeriac.

 

The shredded bills and well-rotted manure will hopefully provide enough water retention to help these thirsty plants to bulb up. We'll see... I know they need A LOT of water. Anyway, first I need to get the seeds to germinate, which I'll do at home as they like to be warm.

 

And Jamie dug the carrot trench. He got the raw deal. There were so many roots in that part of the plot - well, there certainly aren't any roots of stones left in there when he'd finished.

Last week I was eating this really tasty Chestnut and Fennel soup - I topped it with some Seaweed (Kelp) Flavour Boost with either chives or chilli to add a bit of interest.

 

The song title is provided by KT Tunstall. Because, someday soon I'll be making soup with home-grown veg again and sitting on the plot watching things grow... And we'll be out of lockdown (my fingers are crossed).

Epic

 Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine at the weekend.

The ladybirds were sunning themselves, out from their Winter shelters. We saw Brimstone and Peacock butterflies and I even uncovered a little frog. So, I had to stop digging that last part of the plot. I knew toads hibernated underground but I didn’t realise that frogs do too. There was another rhubarb plant in that spot, but it had rotted away under a mass of nigella. We'll get another one to put in there later in the year.

The robins and wrens were in full song and the kites and buzzards were out in number overhead. It really has been a beautiful 3 days, with sunshine pretty much all the way through - what luck that I’d taken Friday off work.

We got lots of clearing done - the potato patch is ready and waiting, including removal of the mammoth bramble. It had taken over our path, and beyond, a couple of years ago and intertwined with rolls of chicken wire and other netting - ugh. As you can see Jamie took the saw to it, but not until it totally spiked and scratched us. Horrible thing! I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it!!

Jamie dug a runner bean trench and filled it with soil from pre-used tomato and potato bags. Exhausting work in the heat of the February sun!

We stayed until the Sun started to dip on Friday and the temperature soon started to drop. The temperature showed as -3° overnight.

My seeds haven't popped up yet, but the marigolds that Jamie had covered with a plastic bag in the polytunnel have started to germinate. The anemone is continuing to flower in the pots, such a pretty flower but it's fighting with weeds which I can't clear because there are a few bulbs still waiting to emerge.

So for the end of February our plot is looking better than it has done for a few years, but still lots more to do and I think I need more seeds :-) Maybe I'll wait to see what offerings fellow plotholders have to share a bit later in the season...

Talking of which, Ivan gave us a lovely crop of purple sprouting broccoli which we added to a Quorn curry on Friday evening.

What a great weekend - some would say 'epic' or maybe it's just an excuse to use this song title by Faith No More after I saw the video on a Top of the Pops from 1990 last week :-) Hooray! Now it's March!

Back to Life

We had a lovely afternoon on the plot - we were so pleased (and surprised) when we got there and found that most of the broad beans had recovered from their frosty battering last week. We were ready to pull them up and re-sow. Instead, Jamie added a sprinkling of lime to encourage growth and alkaline the soil.

I think today was the first dry day we’ve had in weeks and the Sun even tried to make an appearance. We avoided treading on the soil as it’s still really wet, though nowhere near as bad as some parts of the country. The air was warm and positively Spring-like so, although I shared this to the Marsh Lane Allotments Facebook page last week.....

Well, as the saying goes, don’t do as I do, do as I say... I sowed a row of Boltardy beetroot and perpetual spinach into the raised bed with the garlic. I retrieved our old cold frame, which was rather abandoned and harbouring loads of snails, slugs and a mouse nest, to give the seeds a bit of protection, as I’m sure we’ve not seen the last of the cold weather! That section of the raised bed was under cardboard for the last few months so was weed-free and, maybe, a little warmer than uncovered soil.

Jamie sowed some marigold seeds and put them in a bag in the polytunnel. I sowed some Shiraz mangetout into a piece of guttering, they can stay in the polytunnel to germinate and grow a bit. If successful, and the mice don’t find them, they should produce pods early enough to avoid pea moth larvae. 🤞 

Jamie planted 24 Mikor shallots on Plot3. We haven’t netted them, so the birds may disturb some of them, but they normally survive being pushed back into the ground if that happens. The blue tit and robins were singing happily today, another sign of Spring being on its way.

And our wallflowers are full of buds.

Aah, nearly March, not really Spring but time is moving on. I got another letter from the Government advising me to continue shielding until 31st March, but getting a bit of exercise is ok and visiting the allotment is so welcome. It’s good to see a few fellow plotholders, particularly as Ivan gave us some lovely fresh leeks. It seems that there will be some reduction in lockdown rules quite soon, so we may be able to start leasing plots again - our waiting list is looking healthy, which helps our cause for keeping the site.

The song title is, of course, referring to the broad beans and is by Soul II Soul. Nice.

Reviewing the Situation

On Friday night we had our Take-2 of Chinese New Year. So now it really is the Year of the Metal Ox. We added some star croutons and Spring onions to the Miso soup starter and had mushroom chow mein for the main.

 This weekend we had a plan... to get the shallots planted because the freezing weather of last week is moving on. And I thought I’d risk sowing a few seeds under a cloche - mangetout, beetroot and perpetual spinach, because they should be reasonably hardy.

Well, that plan changed when we got to the plot and found the ground still frozen and then we saw our broad beans 🥺

Oh dear! We’ve never seen such a thing. But it has been extremely cold, with an added windchill taking the temperature even lower than the thermometer recorded.

The globe artichoke looks sad too; I’m sure that will recover, though I’m not convinced that the beans will.

Although it was horribly cold, with some rain, we decided to stick it out for a bit so we tidied and moved some weed suppressant to make space for the potatoes.

Moving the Grow Bags was harder than it seems because they were heavy, wet and frozen. We got muddy and frozen ourselves!

We sat and had a coffee, then wandered round the site but it was too cold to think about doing anything else. Our watering cans full of rain water appear to have completely solidified and look how thick the ice was in a bucket!

I sympathise with the workmen who have recently been working on the site’s water system in the icy weather. Looks good doesn’t it? Better than the pallets which were starting to rot after being leaked onto for a few years.

I actually did a bit of HAHA admin this weekend too - long overdue, but I have enough of spreadsheets (much as I love them) during the working week at the moment. We did have a trip out last week though - to get my first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at Newbury racecourse. What a treat 😄

And I drove Jamie to Hungerford Tesco - all the COVID-precautions have passed me by so I was interested to see the traffic light system on the doors!

We have the 2m distancing signs at the allotment, but social distancing has certainly not been a problem on site so far in 2021!

The song is from the musical, Oliver! and is certainly what we’re doing. Reviewing and waiting...for so many things to get better.

This is How it Feels

 Brrr, that’s cold! 

It was tempting not to go out today as the weather forecast extremely chilling winds, but we have our shallots that need to be planted and it was actually dry. The top of the site was really windy but Plot3 is quite protected so we got on with some work and I even needed to take my coat off whilst digging the caged area. It’s the brassica cage, but this is the only plant in there - you can’t really see how small it is, but I’m determined to try and get one serving from it!

It was good to be working and Jamie took time to properly dig and add 6X to the patch where the shallots will go. I just turned the soil with a spade, rather than carefully working it like Jamie did. We’ll probably cover it to stop the weeds re-emerging before the brassica planting will happen.

And he weeded round the rhubarb, which is just showing signs of life.

The sky went very dark and we got some sleet but it stayed dry. We’ve started noticing the daylight lasting a little longer each day and Spring flowers are emerging, which are such a welcome sight.

All the purples so far.

We’ve drawn up the planting plan for Plot7, really itching to get started, but all in good time... Really must try to stop wishing the weeks away!

I went up the road in the week and enjoyed a bit of sunshine while Jamie went shopping. It was just me and the swans. I upset that swan and he hissed at me quite soon after getting that shot - clearly not socially distanced!

We celebrated Chinese New Year on Friday night, but discovered on Saturday that it’s not actually till next Friday 🙄 Oh well, it was a tasty meal of tofu chow mein, which I just about managed to eat with chopsticks 🙂

So, that’s how February has begun and the REALLY GOOD NEWS is that I have my vaccine booked for Tuesday! Hooray! I hope the weather doesn’t scupper that plan, more on that next week, I’m sure. The song by Inspiral Carpets is sad, but for this blogpost the title is referring to the weather - I haven’t warmed through yet. I need a bath to remove the chill from my bones! Brrr.

Winter

It was bright this morning so we decided to visit the plot. By the time we got there it wasn’t very bright but it was very cold ... brrr. I’m only slightly sorry that the snow started about 30minutes after we got home.

The ground is far too wet to dig, but we decided to weed and trowel over the area where the shallots will be planted. Quite a satisfying bit of work. We’ll get the shallots planted as soon as it dries a bit. If it doesn’t dry off soon we’ll have to start them off in pots.

While we were working we noticed a flock of redwings; it was at that point we decided to do the Big Garden Birdwatch 😊 and had quite a good count:

No sign of the robin unusually and I didn’t attempt any photos. The kestrel was hovering over the site and then we saw him land on an aerial so I won’t add it to the official count.

Yesterday I went through all the seeds and have a planting plan, (I know! Haven’t been this organised for a few years!) Of course, it doesn’t include any offerings from fellow plotholders which I find so hard to refuse and there are a few things missing, but we know where they’re going eg spuds, toms, peppers,..

All the trailing squashes, apart from the pumpkin, are going to form my squash tunnel which I’ve been talking about for years! Ooh, it’s a dangerous thing... to make a plan in the middle of a pandemic, but fingers crossed. 

Something I planned for, and did yesterday, was to make some of Shaheen’s Sweet Potato & Cumin soup. I’ve had a taster and am very pleased that it should provide me with 3 or 4 tasty workday lunches. Thanks Shaheen! And a few leftover sweet potatoes to make some roasted wedges for tonight - yum!

The song title is by Tori Amos. The snow has stopped now and turned to cold rain with dripping wet trees. Bye-bye January.