Ugh - Leased land is rubbish!

Oh no, here we go again....

De-ja-vu of 2009

We've been told by the developer/landowner won't extend the lease on Marsh Lane because it could put a block on future development of the site :-( Basically we can't use the site as an allotment even though there's no planning application in sight yet. So frustrating!! So much time and effort put in to make the Marsh Lane site such a brilliant commodity for Hungerford.

There's the likelihood of an alternative site but at present that would also be on a short lease - not a great position - can just imagine re-posting this in another 4 years....
We'll have to see what happens at the HAHA AGM on Monday evening.

On a plus note, in the last week we've eaten our first handful of strawberries - bad luck Jamie for getting the one that the red ants had got into <bleah>
Jamie also planted out six more Scarlet Empire runner beans and two jack-be-little squashes.
My fennel is still being eaten. I tried spraying with various things - the detergent seems to have got rid of the greenfly but I think slugs were joining in the fun. 7 plants left now....
 

Weather, Bacteria and Bugs

We've had over 5mm of rain since my last entry a week ago. Most of that fell yesterday while I was at the West Woodhay Garden Show with my mum - what a shame, though on the whole I did enjoy the day. The trouble was, it wasn't just rainy; it was a bit chilly and extremely windy - actually, that sums up the weather last week. We haven't taken the wraps off our runner beans yet as we're concerned the bean stems will snap.

We planted up our sweetcorn on Plot 8B last Monday evening - we protected with bottle cloches on them as they were rather small but Monday was likely to be the best day for planting. Unfortunately the wind did cause our protective cloche to chop one of the little seedlings off! But we popped another corn in the hole so maybe we'll get 16 plants after all...

Plot 8B

I planted up the Cornells Bush Delicata over the hole filled with manure and Jamie's Jack-be-little pumpkins will be planted near the sweetcorn as we want them to trail through the sweetcorn stems.

Orla potato is showing our first flower

Flowers are appearing on our potatoes - the Orla was the first to actually bloom. They're so pretty. On a less positive note Jamie had to pull one Kestrel potato which had rotted in the ground due to blackleg. Someone else on site had also mentioned that one of their plants had it. If spotted (and it's not hard to spot) you need to get rid of all trace of the rotten plant to avoid it spreading.

Carrots looking happy under enviromesh

I sowed some more mangetout and have protected the growing stems with mesh - it looks like the pigeons have been having a bit of a nibble. Talking of nibbling, over the last couple of weeks I've noticed that my florence fennel appears to be disappearing. I thought it may be slugs but today I took a leaf off one of the little plants which had gone all curly. On closer inspection it has greenfly on it - of course, I've now read that greenfly love fennel! We need more ladybirds! I've hardly seen any this year :-(

Lastly, we dug some more of the HAHA plot and filled two holes with manure so I can plant a couple of squashes (a Floridor yellow and Uchiki Kuri).

Unusual Veg Plot

This trendy photo was taken by Ethan - he found a setting I'd forgotten existed on my camera :-)

That's me, still clearing the HAHA plot. Nearly done... Nigel gave us some mooli radish seeds and some salsola Liscari Sativa. I'd never heard of that before but looks like it could be interesting - if it germinates. It needs to be reasonably cold for successful germination so I'll sow in a tray at home on the doorstep, which is always in the shade.

I sowed some more mangetout on our plot and also a test sowing of Asparagus pea, to see how long they'll take to produce once they're on the HAHA plot.

I also sowed some more radish on top of the row of wild rocket, which was a no-show. Oh yes, and our sweetcorn has germinated at home - 15 out of 20 so far. We'll take them up the plot soon...
 

Come on Strawbs!

Well, we got some rain! Quite a lot of it this morning (2.5mm) so we didn't get to Marsh Lane until after lunch; by then you'd hardly notice that it had rained.
We fed Robbie who is very busy feeding his chicks but still not ready for them to be photographed and Mrs Blackbird is squeezing as much as possible into her beak to take off to a nest somewhere.

I'm keeping a close eye on the strawberries - it can't be too much longer to wait now, surely...!
I transplanted some chard seedlings. I tried to be a bit selective so the multi-coloured stems show at their best. I like chard in salads but Jamie's not keen, so I don't grow much and I grow a new crop each year rather than leaving it in the ground.

We spent most of the time, yesterday and today, working on the new HAHA plot. We've nearly cleared all the weeds. We're going to grow unusual veg - the types of things you won't find in the supermarket. We hope to have enough for the HAHA stand at the Hungerford Food Festival at the end of September - that's the plan.
Look at these pretty weeds - not on our plot or the HAHA one I hasten to add!

 

More sunshine and sitting

Here's a photo of the plots from the other angle. I love these overheads shots - taken by putting the camera on timer and attaching it to the end of an 8-ft bamboo cane! It's a bit hit&miss, sometimes the photos line up, but there are also a lot at very jaunty angles :-) I'm taking a few around the site and adding to our Facebook page to show off all the hard work of the plotholders.

It was another scorcher today. Jamie mowed the grass around our plots while I mixed up the remainder of the manure which we collected and it's now bagged up for when we need it.
We spent most of our time on the site today working on the new HAHA plot. We've moved it to a1-pole plot near the communal area. We cleared a lot of the weeds but have a long way to go yet....

We also spent a lot of time chatting - lucky our actual plots aren't by a communal seat otherwise we'd never get anything done!