A Little Time

There's always something watching; normally it's magpies ..This time it's a VOLE.

I know! Enemy of the broad bean grower, but really! How cute is that? Rustling around in the neighbour's strawberry bed while Jamie was digging. I think he did well to get this photo before the little chap scurried off (the vole, not Jamie).

As long as he stays on the neighbour's plot and doesn't find my mangetout growing in the greenhouse I don't mind :-)

It's Easter holidays, so Jamie planted some of our potatoes on Thursday (13th April). We have two short rows with 4 spuds in each: 1 x Burgundy Red, 1 x Orla, 2 x Kestrel and the other row is 4 x Desiree. Our other potatoes are going into bags, which we'll try to do in the next week or so.

Sowing the chard in modules means that I can be selective for which colours I plant out on the plot. Plenty to choose from there. We're having a plant sale in June so none of these will be wasted - I only need about 3 plants but like to have one of each colour.

Music provided by The Beautiful South,  as I have a little more time before going back to work.

Sunny

Wow! What a beautiful weekend that was. It's now Monday and the temperature has dropped, but I don't mind as I'm at work (on lunch break I hasten to add!).

It was a bit too hot for digging, but I did some and Jamie finished off the patch where a compost bin was and where we are growing some sweetcorn this year on Plot 3. The plants on the left are the valerian, which has grown like crazy - it should have some nice white flowers that smell of vanilla.

I found the new packet of leek seeds that I had lost, so we now have another potful sowed - they are called Toledo. Raspberry plants are looking fresh with the buds looking promising - I never did get round to tidying up the bed as intended.

My Tigerella tomato seedlings at work are looking less than happy - our office is just too hot for them, I think. There should be at least a couple which can be transplanted in a week or so, but their stems are so weak they may not survive the move. Luckily our grafted tomato plants should be delivered soon.

We left the site last night after a lovely few hours, with armfuls of rhubarb from plotholder, Lesley - ours isn't quite ready for picking yet.
Today's song is 'Sunny' sung by Marvin Gaye, but now it's back-to-work time...

Go!

The shelves in the greenhouse are filling up. Today I sowed Duchess mixed aster and French Honeycomb marigolds in seed trays. And a pot of Oarsman leeks are there too, along with a drainpipe sown with mangetout - I found the drainpipe on a vacant plot - it's meant to make it easier to transplant the seedlings without damaging the roots.

The beetroot, salad and chard are all germinating, so the temperature must be just right for them - it was just right for me too today - hot sunshine and blue skies - delightful!

The broad beans have left the greenhouse and are now in Plot 3 - one  row looks very healthy, the other row is not so good so I've added cloches to help them through their early days... They may need replacing with a new bean popped into the ground in a couple of weeks time, we'll see...

The onions are beginning to sprout so we're keeping them watered while they develop. Today I sowed some salad onions (Apache and White Lisbon) and some Pompei silverskin-type onions into a small raised bed.

It's been very dry over the last week although there have been some frosty mornings and this morning we had a thick fog before the sun burned it off.

Aah, it felt like a Summer's day. It was nice doing lots of smaller jobs with very little digging, that may be easier if we get some rain in the week - but not when I'm on leave I hope!

Moby provides the title track...

How to Save a Life

Another year has passed. Nine years of real, enjoyable life as a result of another family's kindness. This is my annual post when my transplanted kidney is at the forefront of my mind.

A few of my daily dose

Kidney transplantation is a cheaper treatment for kidney failure than dialysis. Although most people have one more kidney than they need there are never enough kidneys for the people on the waiting list. France has recently introduced the opt-out donor system which means there is 'presumed consent' to donate. In the UK we still opt-in, by signing the register and carrying a donor card. In both systems family-members can over-ride the wishes of the deceased when the time comes. I'm not religious; I think that people should donate their body parts after death, but appreciate that the death-bed is a hard time to be making such a decision and I'm not entirely convinced that the Government should make the decision on behalf of the dead.

Make sure your family know your wishes

Please sign the organ donation register TODAY

I'm grateful to the NHS and the fact that it still (just) has enough funding to cover the dialysis costs for everyone who needs it, unlike some other countries. Of course, our poor NHS needs assistance from charity more and more as less 'real time' money is put into the system that we're so proud of. I hope my donated kidney lasts longer than the rest of my body so that I won't need to return to dialysis in the future. Having said that, the improvements to dialysis systems are huge and hopefully they'll make it to the UK from the US - wearable dialysis machines? Really!

Thank you to all of you who have already chosen to save at least one life after you've moved on...

Here are The Fray singing along to this post:

Mr Blue Sky

Aah, blue skies, warm sunshine, lots of plotholders and digging - what a lovely Sunday afternoon. That calls for a timelapse...

It's a mirror image of the actual site

Jamie was finishing off preparation of the potato plot and the little raised bed for our silverskin pickling onions - we've trying Pompei this year, hope the slugs don't demolish them like last year...

Meanwhile I was digging the plot for flowers, courgette and mangetout. I didn't get to the end of my patch - too much hard work with all the weeds and grass, but another couple of hours should get it sorted... Oh, ok, I did stop for a few chats too I guess you spotted those in the video - it was HAHA committee talk - honest :-)

I also did a bit of clearing where our herbs grow and found where some of the snails have been hiding.

We're pleased to see that all the snails seem to have increased our thrush population though and they were standing by waiting for us to leave in the evening.

A bit of ELO to provide the music for our enjoyable, tiring afternoon. You'll be humming it all day now, whether you like it or not :-)