Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
Do you say "White Rabbit! White Rabbit! White Rabbit" on the first of the month? I don't, I say "Pinch, punch 1st of the month" but maybe that's because I was the youngest of 5 children and it's more fun to pinch and punch :-) Anyway, it's May and a bank holiday for May Day is always welcome. The sun even shone for us (some of the time).
The May blossom is just beginning to open up on our hedge and the dark clouds provided us with a huge downpour in the afternoon, so the earth looks a much healthier colour now.
I was mostly washing up old pots today. We (HAHA) have a plant sale on 3rd June so I transplanted the chard seedlings to sell there; there are far too many for our plot. They should look a bit bushier and colourful than this in a month's time.
I also did some sowing: Parsley, 3 Speedy french beans (as a special early sowing) and Early purple sprouting broccoli - this seems to do so well with other plotholders and it'll be nice to have something else to harvest early in the year. Something else other than rhubarb that is...
Our giant rhubarb plant has a flower on it - it has gone to seed like this in other years but doesn't seem to upset the plant particularly. I chopped it off, at ground level, and popped a pot over the cut stem to avoid it filling with rainwater and rotting the plant. Jamie says this is a myth, but it seems reasonable to me.
While I was fiddling about with these various things Jamie was digging the area on Plot3 where the broccoli will go. We won't need many plants as it seems to get pretty huge. That should mean that there are a few spare plants of that to go to the plant sale too - I'm hoping it will have germinated and grown a bit by then.
Those plastic cloches are covering the parsnip seeds
So, I'm sure you can guess the title is courtesy of Jefferson Airplane.
The seedlings all survived their first night outside and even the beetroot had perked up a bit. The brassicas in the greenhouse have germinated. And look at the leeks unbending themselves, with their little spent-seed hats on!
We spent a blustery few hours on the plot this afternoon. Rain threatened but we still only had a few drops and the ground is very dry. Still all we have to eat from the plots is rhubarb, but not long now...
We mixed up some compost for the potato bags - a mix of multi-purpose, coconut coir and John Innes No.2: Orla, Chopin, Kestrel and Bergundy Red. One seed potato per bag, apart from two Chopin.
This post is mostly as a reminder for us and the title song is one I'd not heard before but I like it, it's by High Contrast.
The fanciest thing on Plot 7 is its new number. Kindly made by plotholder, Alfie, sturdily-made from old horseshoes and other scrap metal. I know there will be a few more of these appearing around the site - he only asks for a £15 donation to the Heads Up charity, helping the Churchill Hospital fight head and neck cancer
We've visited the site after work every day last week to check the temperature and earth up any potatoes that peeped out of the ground. The coldest reading was -4.3°, by our thermometer in the greenhouse. That was the morning that the cars, roofs and fields were white with frost. A few flower seedlings got frosted, but it's the strawberries that suffered the biggest setback - look at those black eyes. They won't grow into fruits, but the plants will soon recover.
Every single strawberry flower outside looks like that. The strawberries in a tub in the greenhouse got away with it, so we may get a handful of early fruits.
We did some sowing and planting outside this afternoon! Parsnips Albion are sown on Plot3. The mangetout (Shiraz and Golden Sweet) seedlings are in the ground. The mangetout have some serious protection until they're a bit bigger - the pigeons would eat them all by tomorrow otherwise!
The sweetpeas haven't got so much protection.... I'm hoping they aren't as tasty to pigeons :-{
I planted several chard seedlings out; some pink, red and yellow. Also planted about 30 Boltardy beetroot seedlings in a raised bed where the pak choi have germinated. Transplanted beetroot seedlings are always the saddest looking things, but usually they recover.
So Alfie is our site's 'metal guru' and isn't he lucky? He gets a T-Rex song and a photo on my blog :-)
Happy St. George's Day and another warm and reasonably sunny day.
We
were mostly tidying and weeding. We erected a netted frame for the
mangetout but we're waiting for this week's expected cold spell to pass
before planting or sowing anything outside.
Strawberry
flowers are blooming everywhere, but sadly won't become strawberries if
the frost gets them. This visitor is one of my excuses for not
achieving much. A 9-week old trainee guide dog - adorable!
It's Earth Day - a day to celebrate our amazing planet and encourage people to be more environmentally friendly. Making compost with food scraps and waste paper/card has got to be up there as one of the most satisfying and environmentally friendly things we can all do.
I mixed up the contents of our bins today. Mostly because there was a hole under one and we were worried that there would be a rat nesting in there - I'm pleased there wasn't! Our compost seems a bit wet, but the worms love it and it always turns out good in the end.
There it is, earth in the making!
It was an unexpectedly beautiful day, with pretty much full sunshine all afternoon while we were on the plot. This is our valerian, with its lush greenery - looking tropical in the afternoon sunshine.
The flowers are forming but the stems are hollow so don't seem like they'll be frost tolerant...is there really a snow/frost risk for us next week??
I sowed some more seeds: Red Brussels sprouts, Nelson Brussels sprouts, Minicole cabbages, Victoria Florence fennel - all in modules and under cover in the greenhouse.
The Toledo leeks have germinated but the other year-old leek seeds haven't. I love the way leek and other onion seedlings always start bent double like this.
The Aster seeds haven't germinated as well as the marigold seeds have, but hopefully there will be enough for a nice show of flowers.
The mangetout has grown well and I hope to get the frame up for them tomorrow but will probably wait another week before planting them out.
We're living on rhubarb, it's delicious, but the plants will need splitting later in the year. One of the plants isn't so happy; the stems are short and the leaves look a bit yellow.
I broke open this stone - I was hoping to find some crystals inside.
It was full of chalk - interesting, but I would have preferred crystals!
So, for Earth Day, here's Earth Song by Michael Jackson...
The May blossom is just beginning to open up on our hedge and the dark clouds provided us with a huge downpour in the afternoon, so the earth looks a much healthier colour now.
I was mostly washing up old pots today. We (HAHA) have a plant sale on 3rd June so I transplanted the chard seedlings to sell there; there are far too many for our plot. They should look a bit bushier and colourful than this in a month's time.
I also did some sowing: Parsley, 3 Speedy french beans (as a special early sowing) and Early purple sprouting broccoli - this seems to do so well with other plotholders and it'll be nice to have something else to harvest early in the year. Something else other than rhubarb that is...
Our giant rhubarb plant has a flower on it - it has gone to seed like this in other years but doesn't seem to upset the plant particularly. I chopped it off, at ground level, and popped a pot over the cut stem to avoid it filling with rainwater and rotting the plant. Jamie says this is a myth, but it seems reasonable to me.
While I was fiddling about with these various things Jamie was digging the area on Plot3 where the broccoli will go. We won't need many plants as it seems to get pretty huge. That should mean that there are a few spare plants of that to go to the plant sale too - I'm hoping it will have germinated and grown a bit by then.
