Has Spring Sprung?

It certainly felt like it today! And, luckily, the lovely weather was predicted so I'd booked the afternoon off! It was about 13° in the shade with a low of -2° overnight.
Before leaving work I went to a photography talk, so I attempted to put some of the tips ("how to turn a snap into a photograph") into practise... Bear with me :-)

Attempting to use the Rule of Thirds - missing the mark I think

We prepared the area where the tomatoes are going this year. We cleared all the weeds and stones from an area on Plot 8B that hadn't been dug very well and then tramped it down and covered it in weed suppressant. We're having 3 Lizzano tomato plants in pots - the same as we had last year, as they proved to be so blight resistant, but with plenty more space this year.
I was chatting so forgot to take an "after" photo. We made a wood chipping path between that area and the strawberry bed and it looked very tidy(!) however, we think Mrs Blackbird will have a field day flicking the wood chippings all over the place! The chippings are dropped off by a local tree surgeon and someone always finds a use for them.

Pleased to see (most of) the raspberries are budding well. Yes, this is another photo trial. This was using Portrait mode on the camera rather than using auto - not too convinced it makes a whole lot of difference on this particular photo, so need to practise that a bit more.
Now, this I was very pleased with. Zoomed in and using portrait mode of the robin did make for a lovely photo.. And they are so photogenic.

Robbie eating sunflower hearts we took to the plot for him

By 5pm the sun had disappeared behind clouds (cirrocumulus I think) and it was beginning to get a bit chilly so we headed home. Just time for one Landscape photo...

Digging, clearing and some planting!

We had a brilliant few hours on the plot this afternoon. We got our shallots into the ground - fifteen Golden Gourmet should provide enough shallots for some pickles and cooking with.
We stapled (LOVE our staple gun!) netting onto the frame Jamie made the other week and put that over the top. The shallots don't really need that much protection but it keeps the birds (and mice) from pulling the shallots out of the ground and later will provide some protection against the leek moth.

The rest of the afternoon I spent digging the area behind the raised bed. The raspberries are sending shoots and roots out so that seems like a good sign that they're spreading happily. This area will be used for our little greenhouse for germinating seeds and then, once the greenhouse is packed away, we'll be putting some pretty wildflowers and night stocks in.

Jamie cleared a layer of moss and compost from the raised bed - we're going to give it a top up before sowing our beets and radishes this year. Then Jamie cleared all the annoying grass and weeds from near our strawberries and rhubarb. The birds keep burying our rhubarb whilst flicking around for worms and grubs.

Talking of birds, I've put an entry and video on the Wildlife on Our Allotment blog regarding the robins today. Our new regular, the female blackbird, was also on the scene - very pleased to eat giant worms we uncovered during our digging and clearing.

We took some small leeks home - enough to go in the creamy mushroom and leek pie that I'm looking forward to tonight!

Planning (Part Two) and Potatoes

Another very cold day, no rain though! We didn't get a chance to go to the plot but went to collect our shallots from my Mum's for planting tomorrow.

 

We spent some time looking through our seeds and doing some more planning. I've updated the plan for Plot 7 - it's changed a bit since the plan in February.

We've also worked out a rough plan for Plot 8B, which is the plot we took over last year and didn't fully use. This year it will hopefully look very full, as we plan to put quite a few sweetcorn on there, with jack-o-lantern pumpkins growing around - well, fingers crossed!

We're not too sure that big empty space will be there, as I haven't measured the areas we need for the various crops but that's a rough plan...

 

While at my Mum's we checked on our spuds - chitting nicely in the cold, light room... There's been quite a lot of growth in the last three weeks. A couple of the Orla at the front were upside down, with white chits pointing the wrong way, so we flipped them - that should help :-}

Too Cold to Hang Around!

A quick visit to the plot this afternoon to pick some leeks for two days dinners. We picked mostly from the ones which had been undercover and a couple from the ones which have been out in the open.

 The covered ones have been generally larger than the uncovered ones. There are only 3 left in the covered section (though they're not covered anymore).

It was bitterly cold - reached 2° with a low of -4° over the last week and there have been dry flakes of sleet falling for the last two days.
No sign of our robin but the female blackbird was staying close and was had puffed up her feathers for warmth.
Had a quick peeop at our over-wintered broad beans which are still looking ok. Some other beans on site have been taken down by the frost - not sure whether that's the variety that was used or because they had grown a bit too tall too early (like ours did last year).

You can see we're not going to be living on broad beans but hopefully we'll get a few early ones...
 

Saturday Snigger

No time or inclination to go to the COLD plot today, so here's a joke - thanks John!

My racing snail wasn't winning any races

I took its shell off to make him more aerodynamic

It didn't work...

If anything, it made him more sluggish

 

 

HAHAHA :-D
(Sorry!)