Another beautiful day!

And it really was, so we spent hours on the plot again along with many other allotment holders. I was intending to sow some salad seeds but instead we spent the time moving the carrot trench along to reduce wasted space in that quarter. It seemed like it wouldn't be too much of a chore, but phew! it was hot work. It'll be worth it though - we'll get a few more broad beans in there now. We mixed in John Innes seed compost to give it good drainage.

We had a few visitors to the plot today. There were quite a few butterflies around and we uncovered several  Angle Shades moth caterpillars, chafer grubs and lots of worms.
I also found this bumblebee, it was cleaning itself and I noticed it had mites on it - if only I'd known (and had a child's paintbrush handy!!) I could have helped her by wiping them off - see this article.

Oh and the little cat came to see us for the first time this year!

He's welcome on our plot and hasn't proved to be a problem to us - may have helped with the mouse problems in the past, but I was happier to see a bit of distance between our plot and this male pheasant!


A beautiful looking enemy!

The last of the carrots I pulled didn't look too great, so I composted them - so no more soup for a few months - I was too tired to make it when I got home anyway!

What a lovely weekend :-)

Faffing on the plot

We did some work on our plot in the afternoon. Jamie has dug half of the potato quarter - it's hard work with lots of roots, but it looks pretty good now.
I cleared the cabbage frame and did a bit of digging but mainly faffed about as I was too tired after the stone-work in the morning - what a wimp :-)

Pyromaniac

I did enjoy burning weeds and anything else I could find in the communal incinerator on our plot - it's the first stuff we've burned rather than composting or taking home for the bin. We spread the ashes on the potato plot, but there weren't many.
I cleared the chard (and burned it of course!).Previous years we've seen chard survive the winter, even when it was really snowy, but the -11° took it's toll this year so I'll sow afresh.

Also have decided to try growing salsify this year. We've had good and bad reports on it but may as well give it a try and it seems we'll have space.
The weather was lovely, warm and sunny and so nice to see lots of other busy allotmenteers. We (Jamie would say I!) spent a lot of time chatting and looking at the birds. We saw buzzards and kites overhead and also a kestrel plus our usual visitors. It really was a beautiful day.

I know it's not a very good pic, but it's a buzzard

Chain Gang - or should I say working party!

We had a lovely day at the allotment. We were there from about 10:30 and didn't leave till after 4pm. It was such a beautiful day and the first weekend this year when the carpark was really quite busy!

For the first 2 hours we were part of a small work party to clear stones away from the rabbit fencing. It seemed a good idea when HAHA (Hungerford Allotment Holders Association) came up with it, as somewhere to put the piles of stones that we dug up from our plots - but more than a year on and the stones were pushing against the fence and likely to cause damage. Not too sure what the final plan is, but by the end of our work there was a clear space between the stones and the fence.

AND Sue provided us with drinks and lovely flapjacks so it was a very pleasant way to spend the morning!

Brrr so cold

It's been really rainy/sleety and even snowy today so we weren't intending to visit the allotment but had to go and save our raspberries which would have been drowning if they stayed where we left them!

So, we ventured out in the cold, cold rain. One other person had braved the weather to pick some produce.
The raspberries are bagged up in earth now rather than being flooded in our wheelbarrow.
Of course, quite soon after we'd finished doing this the sun came out and the site looked beautiful but we were quite cold enough and went home!

Last of the sprouts

It's March already and it was a lovely sunny morning, luckily we avoided the heavy rain showers.

I picked the last reasonable-looking sprouts before pulling the stalks and adding what I could to the compost bin - the stalks are really too thick to compost, if they're not shredded, so they usually end up in our green bin for the Council to deal with.

The onions and shallots haven't started sprouting yet (well, it's only been a week), but the raspberry plants look happy and buds are still growing on the transplanted ones.

Jamie was digging more of the potato quarter and I cleared the netting so we can completely work that quarter ready for our spuds in April - time seems to be slipping away rather ...

Found this Ruby Tiger Moth caterpillar sheltering in the thyme - they hibernate so it's probably been there all winter.

Insects and Invertebrates

Allotment holders weren't the only things out and about enjoying the sunshine! The birds were singing happily, we could hear a woodpecker in the trees nearby and we found various insects and invertebrates, especially when we were digging up the raspberry plants.

Ladybird sitting in the sage

It's a bit early for ladybirds to come out of hibernation but probably good for them to take advantage of the sun's warmth while it can.

Chafer Grub

Leather jacket - crane fly larva

These two larvae generally are only a real problem for lawns, so aren't too much of a pest to our veggies. We have grass paths throughout the allotment site so these are likely to be quite happy nibbling grass roots rather than our produce - that said, if we find them they still get winged into the hedge :-)

Transplanting Raspberries & Strawberries

When we took over Plot 8A in 2010 we inherited some raspberry plants which have been steadily spreading, including into the next door plot. Last year I marked some plants which I knew were Autumn-fruiting and had produced some delicious fruits.

Before

So, today was the day to actually move them to where we want them and finally clear the weeds and couch grass from the end of 8A - the only bit of our plots which has never been dug (by us).

After

They took a lot of digging and we're pretty sure there will be raspberries in that corner for ever more!

But, I got the 5 canes I wanted and they're now in the opposite corner. I planted them in a trench full of compost from our bin. There was some debate with fellow plotholders so I left them tall and will cut them back when they've settled into their new home in a couple of weeks.

Plenty of canes for fellow plotholders - Jane and Malcolm had first pick for their plots but we'll let other people know if there are any remaining plants.



Jane let me take some of her brother-in-law's strawberries so I potted three plants up in the wooden planter. I put stones over the earth to attempt to help moisture retention - not sure if strawbs will be happy with that but we'll see....

We only want enough to have some to nibble while we're at the plot in the summer.

Onions and Shallots

What a beautiful warm and sunny day! The minimum temp since last weekend was -5° but it really felt like Spring today and the number of allotment holders on site reflected this!

We hoed the alliums quarter and then planted

16 Golden Gourmet shallots and
34 Santero onions - which are meant to be downy mildew resistant.
They're all spaced about 15cm apart - onions in 2 rows; shallots in 3 rows, with a bit of space under the cage for our leek seedlings (which we haven't sown yet)

In an attempt stop the pesky onion/leek moth we've covered both patches with enviromesh coverings - though the cloche looks like it may be a bit ineffective as the sides aren't flush to the ground.

Jamie dug over some of the potato quarter but it was hard work - so many roots, as it hasn't been dug that well over the last couple of years - slightly concerned that the tree is going to fall down with the amount of roots we're pulling :-)





5 weeks of Chitting

It was lovely and warm today but sadly not able to get to the allotment.
We've got the onions/shallots ready for planting at the weekend and checked on our potatoes which have been chitting in a cold bedroom since 15th Jan - they all appear to be doing well...

Chits aren't too long and all the spuds still look healthy. Some have gone more wrinkly than others, but that shouldn't be a problem. They have about another 5 weeks before we intend to plant them.

Plot 8A gets a tidy

We got to the allotment early as we knew rain was due today. It was quite chilly, mostly due to the really strong winds, but we had to get our compost bins sorted - they've been waiting to be put back in place since we made the path on Plot 8A a couple of weeks ago.

We combined the contents of the open wooden compost bin with the green plastic one and a big bag of cut up brown cardboard. Then divided it all between the two plastic bins - they're both nearly half-full now but a lost of that will compost down fairly quickly. Oh yes, the broad beans went in there too :-(

Because of the path we had to shift our bench and other 'furniture', so we re-layed the weed suppressant under the decking and put the stones all round the compost bins - this is to provide a bit of cover for insects - we found quite a few centipedes, beetles, spiders, larvae and slugs. The slugs and larvae went over the hedge towards the canal but the others can stay as they tend to eat other nasties rather than our produce!


There, that looks better!

We're intending to put strawberries in the wooden planter - the basil didn't do well in it last year - but I may move the herbs (in buried pots) up to the corner. I'm getting rid of the mint and sage (didn't use any last year) but will grow some par-cel (like parsley but tastes like celery) and coriander instead - these along with the usual rosemary, thyme (both so pretty and bees love them), parsley and chives.

We left just as it was raining - http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Hungerford-UKXX1507 is so often accurate to the hour for us!

After the snow

Well the snow did arrive, but wasn't very deep. We only got a couple of centimetres but it was VERY cold....
-9° minimum on the plot over the last week.

It was cold while we were dropping some compost off at the plot, but the sun shining on the snow is so beautiful and it was very pleasant wandering around. There was about 10cm of ice on the water troughs. We broke it up so that the birds could get a bit of water. I attempted to photograph a robin who was watching me - got a lovely shot ... of a stick :-}

Aquadulce Broad beans don't like -9°

Now we're really convinced that our broad beans aren't going to make it. There are so few left in such a sad state that we've decided to remove them and sow new ones when the weather is a little happier. As usual we'll protect them with their little plastic bottle cloches.

Lots of bird-life around the site at the moment - mostly robins and blackbirds but we've also seen a thrush, wren, rooks, moorhens and pigeons (of course!).
There's evidence of moorhens all over the place when snow's on the ground, but no rabbit tracks inside the fence so that's good.

Moorhen footprint

Snow's a-coming

Frozen canal through the hedge

The Kennet & Avon canal is frozen and we're expecting (and I'm hoping there will be) snow later this afternoon. Blackbirds and robins were eating everything in sight - including a tennis ball by the look of this robin!!

Just went to the plot for a walk round - we knew we wouldn't be doing anything up there today. Far too cold! The minimum temperature recorded was -9° but it was about 0° while we were at the plot.

Finished path

Managed to get the path finished off though we didn't get to the plot till gone 3pm and there wasn't much sun left so it was a bit chilly.
We used up one of the bags of bark chips which was left over from last year. It had turned into a snail farm with loads of different sizes hibernating huddled together - we put them all over the hedge.

It's fairly level and reasonably straight apart from the one really obvious bulge - well, the plank was warped, not our fault :-)

The path doesn't actually go to the end of plot 8A - that is intentional. We're going to plant some Leonaris flowers (orange) in the corner.

I need to start moving the raspberries to the other corner so we can finally dig out the area where we move them from. We inherited the raspberries so that section of 8A has never been dug by us and there are quite a few docks and other weeds that pop up each year.

Mostly Compost

We decided to make the path between our Plot 8A and next door's 8B a bit more permanent; our bark on weed suppressant didn't do very well in that location and basically got scattered all over the place by birds and us. It was a lovely sunny day, not too cold (7° in the sun) and not too wet.
The little vole didn't know what to do with himself; running backwards and forwards, as we were working in his area!

We're adding wood surrounds along the path this year and also extending it so we have access from the grass path - that meant that the first job today was to move the compost bins.

The first bin which has been full for about a year turned out to be lovely compost - nice and crumbly and lots of happy worms. We started riddling it and filled one big compost bag with that. The rest, which we weren't going to have time to riddle, we piled on this year's sweetcorn patch - we'll sort that out when we have a bit more time.

The second bin which we're still filling has got clear layers - though we have been trying to mix it (you wouldn't think so!) but looks interesting! At least with having to do this move it'll get a really good mix.

The third bin (the wooden open one) will probably be put into the first one when they're back in place and to mix it up a bit we'll divide the fresher contents and mix that in too.

By the time we'd finished the wooden edging of the (rather wonky) path it had started to rain and really felt like January- brrr - so we went home. Will have to do more sorting tomorrow and hopefully get the path finished, though the temperature is meant to be dropping...

Another warm January day

A warm day (11°) with wind, drizzle and dazzling sunshine meant we got quite a lot done today. We were clearing the area where the sweetcorn was last year. It was soon apparent that it hadn't ever been dug very well - there were masses of roots (not sure what sort, felt like the tree!) and some very big stones.
Also composted all the remains of the celery and weed clearance on Plot 8a


Sunny/Windy/Rainy

Having read that sprout tops are delicious I took one home and had it with tea. Not all that impressive, not as strong flavoured or sprouty as I would have expected.

We took a photo of this little caterpillar on the sprout top (haven't been able to identify it yet) and when we got the photo home we could see a whitefly was piggy-backing on it! There are masses of whitefly in our compost bin - apparently coffee grounds can help reduce this, but it's not helped us so far, I may see if I can get some from the coffee lounge at work.

Whitefly

Old Beetroot

The beetroot which had been in the ground for months wasn't too woody but it did fall apart a bit whilst cooking. I had it in a salad - it didn't have a huge amount of flavour.

So, as if we didn't know, it's better to eat it when it's not been in the ground for more than half a year!

A drizzly day

I had the day off work today - not a great day for working on the plot, but at least it was only drizzling for part of the day (unfortunately that was the part while we were there!).

We made up an enviromesh cage for our onions - we're hoping this will keep them clear of leek moth which was all over the site last year :-(
We did say last year that we're going to cover the whole site with enviromesh, but we'll stick with just covering individual beds for this year :-)


Yellow is this year's colour for enviromesh

We cleared the beets which have been in the ground for about 10 months  - this ugly giant and most of the others have gone into the compost but we took a couple more reasonable-sized ones home; Boltardy aren't meant to go woody even when they're old - we'll see...
The vole/mice hadn't even ventured into this big one, but some of the others had severe slug/snail damage.

Me, with the ugly giant

We hoed and levelled the potato quarter where the onions and other alliums will be going. We're making sure that the chicken manure pellets are well worked into the ground before we get the onions and shallots planted.
We also cleared the cabbage patch and there are only a few sprouts left and then that quarter will be ready for the potato trench preparation.

Chitting Our Potatoes

Not quite so cold today - only about 0° and very sunny. Unfortunately no time to go to the plot though.

We took our seed potatoes to my mum's cold spare bedroom to chit for a few weeks (months actually as we don't intend to plant till end of March/early April). Along with the Orla, Belana and Kestrels I couldn't resist buying 3 Duke of York Reds at the garden centre yesterday. The Orla we intend to keep in the ground for a bit longer as they were tasty last year and kept very well.

One of the Belana was damaged (by a spade it looked like) so we only have 4 of those, but hopefully we'll get plenty of small new potatoes from each plant.

 

Brrrr! Very frosty

We intended to work on the plot this morning but it was too frosty with hard ground and it was still foggy. A low of -5.5° last night.


The sun trying to get through the fog

We were shocked to see how badly affected the broad beans were. Perhaps they'll recover as they're meant to be Winter ones... (Aqua Dulce Claudia)

Sad-looking broad beans!

We measured up for our shallots and onions which were delivered from T&M this week, along with our spuds which we'll chit round my mum's as we have done previous years. They've arrived a bit earlier than we expected, so we've got to start working the ground - but not today!

Our ever-present friend!

Sprouts and Wind

Today was our first visit to the plot since the really windy weather last Wednesday and Thursday. First thing I noticed was that our sprout cage was missing, then Jamie pointed it out in the hedge!!

Wind damage

We had secured it in the ground with bamboo legs but they'd snapped off and all the bricks holding down the mesh hadn't done their job. It was a bit tricksy getting the mesh off the hawthorn hedge but it's not badly damaged, so now it's back in place protecting our sprouts from the pigeons!

We bought 3 bags of organic farmyard manure from the garden centre and have piled that on the area which is for the sprouts next year - after Jamie dug it over. The ground needs to be firm to prevent getting blown sprouts (where the sprout is leafy rather than solid) so a bit of weight on the area for the next few weeks should hopefully do the trick.

Firming the sprout bed

I turned the compost and added more cardboard and veggie cuttings. We chatted with other allotment holders who were taking advantage of the amazing weather for January - 11° in the sun today and 0° minimum over the last week.
And, of course, we picked some more sprouts and a carrot!

Angle Shades Moth

Jamie found this big Angle Shades moth on the kitchen window. It very likely was hidden amongst the cabbage we brought home the other day - we've found quite a few of its bright green caterpillars on the plot.
The moth doesn't cause damage but the larvae are damaging to foliage and flower buds.

Angle Shades Moth

Great looking moth!

Rainbows and Carrots

We took some compost up the plot - including the cellophane wrappers from our Quality Street (it says on the tin they're compostable - made of corn starch apparently) Interesting to see whether they do actually dissolve; we've found the biodegradable plastic bin bags take longer than 18months to dissolve so we don't use them anymore.

We cleared the original carrot trench - which we sowed in April! Most of the remaining Rainbow Mix carrots had split wide open, so they went in the compost bin, but the Early Nantes looked so good we had to take them home.
Also picked some spring onions, which have been in the raised bed for months, parsley and one of the green cabbages - we were hoping to have some lovely coleslaw. However, apart from the slugs which were tucked well into the cabbage there was mould on the edge of the leaves throughout. So, that went into the compost bin and I made carrot and parsley soup instead! The carrots were really tasty even though they'd been in the ground so long.

Now, when we walked to the plot it was reasonably sunny. While we were up there there was a torrential rainstorm and we got soaked. Walking back we did get to see a lovely rainbow though!