A Little Bit of This... A Little Bit of That

Hooray! It's May! And it's been a bright, warm(-ish) day on the allotment with lots of other plotholders on the site. Jamie spent the whole time digging Plot3 but I couldn't face that, so I did lots of different jobs...mostly involving the compost. Not a very interesting picture...

But look at the animated version! The bins are alive with woodlice and worms - both very welcome in the compost to help breakdown the plant material. You have to be quick to see them though, they scatter as soon as the lid is opened.

I pulled up and composted last year's Brussels Sprouts plants. They've been re-growing so I chopped the new growth up but the stalks were too thick so they'll go in the green bin at home. I added some dried out weeds, a wheelbarrow of manure and a pile of shredded household bills - that's the best place for them, if not in the potato trench!

I potted on the petunias. They'll appreciate the extra-growing power from that multi-purpose compost. Their next move will be into tubs and baskets.

I even managed to sow a row of radish into our protected little raised bed on Plot3. (Hungerford Town and Manor have taken away lots of the stones to shore-up the river. Hopefully lots of slugs were taken away too!)

And finally I helped Jamie with a bit of digging, but I did an easy bit with no horrible grass and roots.

Aah, I like May Day.

All about the Colours

The last day of April and I wonder if it'll be the last day of this crazy weather. Sun, snow, hail, thunder and everything else in between - it's been rather exciting!

Jamie re-potted the grafted bell pepper plants. They're looking good at the moment. Britney, the red one, is in the lead. Orange, Milena, is next with the yellow, Chelsea, not far behind.

The greenhouse is getting interesting. That's the Victorio florence fennel. The mangetout I sowed a couple of weeks ago are just emerging - the yellow-podded are Golden Sweet and the purple-podded are Shiraz. But this is the Boltardy beetroot.

Jamie has sowed the Durango Bee marigolds. They're in the hallway under a grow-light. They'll go to the greenhouse once they've developed. We didn't make it to the plot today (hence the over-dramatised post) because the weather stopped us, but we bought some multi-purpose compost and seed trays so I think a bit more shelf-space will be needed in the greenhouse by the end of the long weekend!

Looking (Straight) Ahead

I've said it before, I don't do straight! These two rows of  'Masterpiece Green Longpod' broad beans (plus 3 spares) weren't meant to be parallel or equally spaced. They'll look fine when the plants bush out a bit.

They were going to be about 20cm apart and some of them are...

They had outgrown their modules and had strong roots. A few leaves had been nibbled by slugs but now they're planted out (on a pile of organic matter - this was dug in after it rotted away over the Winter) and have slug pellet protection and the bed is surrounded by netting to stop birds (and children) eating the plants or pellets.

October 2015

We've had some news about alternative allotment sites which the Council (and allotment association) is looking into. An area of the Triangle Field - a Council-owned piece of land, which is currently used by local clubs including rugby, football and theatre. The second possibility is of a new permanent site being created as part of the new housing development plan at the top of town (actually the South). Both these options sound hopeful as they aren't rented from private landlords, with housing development interest...

Not sure where the £100 figure came from - we have at least 50 unallocated poles currently

Well, decisions need to be made and I'm sure this is going to run on for a good while yet :-( You can see from the map that there are very few green spaces around Hungerford!!

Marsh Lane is marked by the peg at top left of map

St Georges Day Digging

It's our (English) patron saint day - we don't celebrate it. I don't think anyone does - apart from putting the England flag up. At least this year some of us got the day off work (well, it is Saturday!)

We spent the afternoon digging. Plot 3 really is hard work. So much grass and roots to dig through. Most of the time it's a hands-and-knees job, rather than just being able to get a fork into the ground :-(

At least it's looking a bit better now. Our pot raspberry is in position, but it's also going to be caged in, to protect the precious fruit from the birds.

Seedlings are popping up in most of the modules in the greenhouse, but too small to be transplanting them yet. I sowed some purple and some yellow mangetout last weekend - no sign of them yet though.

That's the inside of one of the tulips, so pretty (super-macro unfortunately didn't quite get the stigma in focus). They close up at night and I think they'll be quite short-lived.
And here's a bee tucking into the rosemary nectar. A couple more photos (but no id) on the Wildlife blog - http://plot7wildlife.blogspot.com/2016/04/busy-bee.html

A Meal with Leeks and Lardons

Two huge leeks from a fellow-plotholder (Thanks Neal!) meant a change of plan for dinner, using ingredients we had available.

So I was cooking - I don't cook very often (hence the blogpost!) and I don't like anything with too much timing/accuracy involved as I always forget to keep track of time (Jamie would say, that it doesn't help when I'm taking a photo every few minutes, but there you go!)

Chopped leeks, with black pepper, were fried until soft-ish and then added to the fried Quorn lardons (vegetarian bacon-style bits) to keep warm while the gnocchi was cooked.

The gnocchi was boiled for ~5 minutes, then drained and fried until golden brown in the leek pan, adding a little flavour.

Tomatoes were added for effect and voila! That's what we had for tea last night - yum!