Slugs, Weeds and a Frog

Jamie found this frog beside our brassica cage! Lovely - I love frogs :-) I popped it in a nearby pond, but hopefully it'll keep visiting our plot - there's certainly plenty for it to eat!

Little froggy!

Slugs have even developed an appetite for potato leaves this year - and look at our poor pepper! That was the one I took the photo of at the end of June :-(

The weeds have had a field day! They aren't very tall but they're everywhere.

Unweeded row (on the right!)

At least you can see where we've been and after taking this pic the other row of celeriac was also cleared. I found this information about celeriac before I bought our plants so surely it should be the perfect year for it!!

"Water it like mad. If you’re flooded, and the fire brigade evacuate you, sneak back during the
night to water your celeriac, even if it is under a foot of water. It will never have too
much water. Then water it again."

The onions are looking good, hopefully the mildew resistance is working as we've seen it elsewhere on site. We watered the spring onions with some epson salts as the leaves are yellowing a bit - they need the extra magnesium. Whereas the shallots are yellowing and dying back so they'll be ready to pull soon and then we need to find somewhere to dry them off prior to pickling..

Silverskins

There is a distinct lack of insect life on the plot, hardly  a butterfly in sight. These are the first black fly we've seen this year - these are being farmed by the ants! Still undecided as to whether the ants are going to help reduce or cause more blackfly to breed. We'll wait and see - slightly ashamed to say that they're not on our beans so not our problem at present :-)

Red Ants and Blackfly

We pulled the sickly potato (it's a kestrel), there were just 3 tiny tubers. It's the only kestrel plant that's in trouble, the others have very healthy haulms.

Sickly Kestrel

Healthy Kestrels

The runner beans have finally reached the top of the canes and there are a few flowers. There were a couple of bees working them today when the rain stayed off for a bit so hopefully we'll get some beans.

Colourful chard

We had a couple of visits to the plot in the last couple of days. The rain stopped so Jamie spent the afternoon digging manure and compost into Plot 8 for the rhubarb. We're going to let the worms work the patch a bit before we plant the rhubarb.

Even the chard has started to cheer up now and the raspberries are reddening up! There are quite a few wasps and bees around the raspberries but there are very few insects around because of the bad weather. There are some more flowers on the runner beans but concern all over site that the rain will knock the flowers off before any bees are able to get out to pollinate :-(

Rainbow chard

We took a little trug of goodies home. Jamie didn't dig for all the potatoes from the belana plant he pulled - just enough for our dinner that evening. There's a bit of salad, another handful of mange tout and our first salad onions too.

Fringe comes to Marsh Lane

As part of the Hungerford and District Community Arts Festival (HADCAF) we had a visit from the Nutshell Theatre (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Winner 2011) performing The Allotment.

The only shed allowed on our allotment site - it's only a prop!

The rain held off, at least for the 3pm performance, which I attended and hopefully it stayed dry-ish for the two later performances. I enjoyed it, though it's not the sort of thing I usually would go along to. It was a fun way to spend a different hour at the allotment!

A sunny day in June 2012!

We had a fab day on the plot today. Took our lunch with us and stayed for 6 hours. We were in the sun for much of the time too, though it was very windy, it was warm!

We moved our store of bags of manure, etc. and there were so many slugs - I counted 25 of the biggest, most horrible ones in that small area - ugh - they went over the hedge, anyone walking along the towpath could have got a shock :-)

Multi-coloured, but not pretty!

We dug an area on the new plot (ok, Jamie reads this - he did most of the digging) for rhubarb, which we were kindly given by another allotment holder, Terry. We sorted out two bags full of our compost which we'll put under the rhubarb, along with some horse manure.

There have been a few sunny and warm days over the last week and many of the plants have really cheered up as a result. Flowers are beginning to show on the beans, at least one of the squashes looks like it's pretty happy and there are a couple of peppers actually growing!

We've got a green pepper!

Butterbush squash

A lovely sunny day today so Jamie was digging for most of the afternoon and I joined him on the plot after work.
Planted the two Butterbush F1 squash plants into the new plot - both on top of farmyard manure within a metre area so they've got a bit of room to spread - though they are meant to be a bush variety.
We pulled our second Belana potato. About 680g from this plant and again delicious!  :-)

Belana