Mostly beasties & phenomenon

Well, we got up to the allotment at 4:15am ready and waiting for the 'supermoon' only to be disappointed because there was thick cloud cover - such a shame, it could have been a goodun!
We fleeced up our potatoes yesterday expecting a frost but due to the clouds there wasn't one though it was pretty chilly - that was an amazing thing too; the temperature was 5.5° at about 5:15am then it dropped suddenly to 2.8° just before the sun rose (though we couldn't see it).

Being at Marsh Lane for the dawn chorus, including a very noisy cuckoo, was fabulous. The birds are going crazy at the moment - we've been watching a robin feed his mate over the last couple of days. She's quite demanding!

This male blackbird was warming itself on the warm stones pile

Anyway, after that early start we did get back up the plot later today to do a bit of faffing and chatting.
Here are some pictures of interesting beasties I snapped yesterday and today.

A queen wasp who got splashed with dirty water, so she was cleaning her antennae

One of the many crane flies around site at the moment

I think this is a 16-spot ladybird - really tiny, ~3mm

I posted the ladybird to the UK Ladybird survey site as I'm not absolutely certain of it's identity.

Mostly talking onions

We had a great day on the allotment - several hours of pottering around and chatting to fellow plot holders. Even had time to burn a lot of old weeds and bamboo canes (we checked very carefully for ladybirds and other good guys first).
We put our bean wigwam up - just 6 x 8ft canes. That's enough runner beans for us; plus plenty to give away at work!
I spent much of the time weeding, particularly around the onion plot. The seedlings are growing happily now.

Oarsman leeks

Silverskin & 'White Lisbon' Spring Onions

Spring onions, silverskin onions and leeks seedlings all look similar with the same bent-over grass blade look - the first year we took on the plot we thought they were grass, until we pulled them out and the smell of onion was really strong even with a tiny seedling - luky otherwise the whole row would have been pulled up!!

The shallots are dividing well - some of the leaves appear to have signs of downy mildew (the curse that we had with onions last year). Not too suprising given the weather but hopefully it won't cause too much damage...

And the onions are looking happy too - though when we got home I noticed this little hole in the onion leaf - well, we know there's always some insect that wants to get at our produce before us!!

Growing, growing and eating

Popped up the plot after work to see how things were looking. The cabbage and sprout seedlings  look healthy. We'll move them out of the cloche but under netting in the next week or so - depending on the weather.

Cabbage seedling

Marigolds & sweet peas

The eating in the title isn't by us yet, sadly! However, we've got so many marigold seedlings we can afford to lose a few to the abundance of slugs!

Evidence!

And we found this evidence of a mouse's work in the cloche! Funny (sorry Neal) thing is that the broad bean seemed to have been taken from our neighbour's plot to be enjoyed in the dry! 

Neal's beans nibbled down to ground level

The turnip seeds have germinated and the whole first row of potatoes (Belana and Chopin) are above the ground now.

Spuds are up!

A walk in the pouring rain naturally took us under the railway bridge, through the lake which is Marsh Lane and on to the allotment.

The torrential rain and wind had blown some netting around the site but our plot was all in one piece - you can see how much it rained overnight and this morning from our rain gauge - amazing!

And we were pleased to see our first potatoes (Belana) have poked their first leaves out of the ground - knew they'd appreciate the rainfall! That's 3 weeks since they went in.

When we got home I sowed 3 Cape Gooseberries in the bedroom cloche - we bought the dwarf variety otherwise they can grow like crazy - especially if we do get the dry hot summer we're expecting!

Nice weather for snails

Soooo wet and chilly! We transplanted all the marigolds into the bigger trays and I sowed some calendula and put them all in the cloche.
We mulched around the raspberries with well rotted horse manure from Andy at work and took the bottle cloches off the broad beans which are big enough to look after themselves now.

That was enough - as it was we spent more than half the time in the container just watching the birds and enjoying watching the rain from under cover! It sure is getting a good soaking!