Raining Again

This was such an amazing rainbow! It was so bright and huge, much more impressive than this photo shows but it’s the best I could get. So beautiful, I stood and stared for a while.

Sunshine and showers definitely sums up the weather over the last couple of weeks/months. I’ve got a few days off for Easter, but the hoped-for plot-days haven’t worked out yet…

We’ve had plot visits and have even done a bit of weeding but it’s hard work having to do it by hand because the ground is too wet to walk on let alone to dig.

Well, that’s the leeks patch cleared to make way for root crops. It’ll need better digging than that to grow some straight carrots!

The leeks were good this year. It’s worth planting them nice and deep to get plenty of white stalk.

The blackthorn has flowered in the hedge but the lovely flowers didn’t last long. The wind, rain, hail didn’t help, but hopefully they were pollinated.

We’ve seen bees enjoying the dandelions, dead nettle and grape hyacinths as well as the other Spring bulbs that are popping up here and there.

I was pleased to see some tadpoles in our little pond although I haven’t seen them since. I have seen a couple of frogs recently though and there’s some frogspawn appeared in the pond on the HAHA wildlife plot.

The teasels on the wildlife plot in a rainstorm yesterday (Good Friday). The sky went black but no thunder like we had on Thursday when the hail was apocalyptic.

Here’s Jamie fighting against the wind and rain while we were trying to secure a honeysuckle trellis which had collapsed on the wildlife plot.

We have achieved some tasks in the last couple of weeks. I’ve managed to weed and feed the garlic bed and Jamie’s cleared the bean tunnel.

And we’ve collected some of the manure for future use - it’s in a compost bin for now. £1.50 a barrow-load from HAHA - what a bargain 😊

Talking of HAHA. We have a fully tenanted site again - it’s great to see the newcomers joining us old-timers 👨‍🌾 And on the sunny breaks it has been a lovely busy site with lots of chat and catching up with plot-buddies. Aah, we do love our allotment and we really should get out there while the Sun is shining because it looks like today may be dry…. with just a small threat of showers… Moby provides the song title.

Bridge over Troubled Water

It can be difficult getting into the swing of things after Christmas and 2024 started with such rotten weather that it hasn’t been very motivating.

The rain, brought by Storm Henk, was so torrential that there has been serious flooding in nearby towns and Hungerford’s rivers and canal have all overflowed with some houses needing to be pumped out - not us I’m pleased to say. What a truly horrible way to start the new year 😞

Here's the River Dun by the war memorial, at least 1 metre higher than it should be, with water gushing through from flooded areas upstream. Thank goodness for the marshland around Hungerford to capture most of that excess water. Nearby Marlborough didn’t fair so well…

We’ve had a few visits to the plot, mostly just to plod around thinking how nasty it looks, but our leeks have survived the drenching and continue to grow. This photo shows that there has been some very welcome sunshine this year - makes a nice change to see it on a weekend!

And the broad beans have grown quite tall under their protection as the weather has been mostly mild so far this Winter. We’ll leave them protected for now as the weather has turned frosty and snow is threatening over the next week…

The spindly garlic is the only other sign of good things to come on the allotment.

At home I’m so pleased to see that our hellebore is coming back to life. It’s such a pretty and long-lived flower - perfect for these dull months.

Apart from soggy plot visits, I have regular morning walks up the High Street, just to move a bit! I really like to visit the fruit and veg stall at our market - when we don’t have our home-grown this is the next best thing I reckon.

I’ve bought a few seeds which look interesting including some flowers (Zinnia, penstemon (from one of my mum’s flower lists) and echinacea) and veg (purple dragon carrots, piccolo courgette and biquinho red pepper). We haven’t really started our planting plan yet, but will do soon. 

I haven’t done any interesting cooking yet this year, but after Christmas I made this lovely chestnut & sprout puff pastry ‘thing’ and a delicious parsnip and chestnut soup. I probably should pull another parsnip for soup this weekend actually. I shouldn’t waste them as they’ve grown so well for a change!

Look at that horrible brown water which is usually calm, clean and has trout in. Aah well, it’ll soon be Spring 🫣 But it gave me an excuse to use this beautiful song, of course, provided by the great Simon & Garfunkel. Sit back, relax and sing along. Beautiful.

Home

I'm on my final lunchbreak of 2023 - breaking up for Christmas in a couple of hours! 

It's not like it used to be - no driving home for Christmas (no, not that song) because I'm already home.

I just need to pack away my laptop and sit back down. With 3 days to go I must admit that I'm not feeling very Christmassy. Maybe it's the weather - it's been a very damp December so far and it's rather warm and windy today.

We've had a few December visits to the allotment - it's not very inviting, but we've pulled some great parsnips and we bought 3 tiny fruit trees - here's the Thompson & Morgan photo.

And here's the real thing 😆 I'm sure they'll be fine in a few months! They have buds already but they're waiting in the polytunnel.

The broad beans and garlic have sprouted which are welcome signs for next year. Yesterday marked the Winter Solstice so we're on our way to Spring now 😏

At each plot visit recently we've seen flocks of (probably) redwings - a regular Winter migrant. They don't stay still for long and have proved tricky to photograph.

Anyway, back to work (I think everyone else has already gone!). Have a Happy Christmas!

This jolly song is brought to you by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros!

Morning Glory

Yes, it’s filtered, I had to because it was a bit blurry and then Photoshop offered me this and how could I refuse?! It was quite a nice photo with a distant hot air balloon.

Anyway, that was Saturday as the Sun was just slipping down behind the treeline. Jamie and I enjoyed a barbecue on site and had a couple of games of pétanque in the warm weather. The Sun is setting at 6:30 now and is rising at about 7:30 - this was the lovely sunrise sky on Saturday morning (no filter required).

They may only be short days now that we’re in October but what a lovely sunny Sunday we had. The flowers are still making the most of it on the plot. Our morning glory took a long time to flower, but look how beautiful they are now.

And my one dahlia has finally developed a flower, after the amazing dahlia year everyone else seems to have had! Oh well, it’s still pretty.

And finally a melon Mangomel had matured enough for us to eat for breakfast - it was tiny, barely a mouthful but super-sweet.

The bees, hoverflies and butterflies are really making the most of the fine weather and on Saturday we were so pleased to see a Hummingbird Hawkmoth enjoying the verbena bonariensis. The antirrhinum have got to be one of the best self-seeded flowers. So many different colours; they’ve been flowering for months and the bumblebees love them.

I planted 2 garlic bulbs, which provided 20 cloves, (Caulk White) on Friday and I’ve now planted up all the flower bulbs I ordered. I’ve put some in pots and some in the ground: various alliums, daffodils and anemones. I hope they don’t get wiped out by mice like they did last year… we’ll see what appears next Spring. A few have gone into the flower bed where I’ve cleared masses of Nigella seedlings, but never fear… they’ll be back!.

And here’s a before-and-after weeding photo at the front of Plot8. I’ve put some bulbs in front of the irises and amongst the grape hyacinths. As you can see, the irises have been trimmed back to 15cm for over-Wintering.

HAHA has a seed swap container in our communal shed, so I’ve packed up a few of our collected seeds this weekend too. Lots of beans and flowers - if plotholders don’t want them we’ll find somewhere else to share them.

Yesterday I had a meal of Yin Yang beans, curly kale (thanks to Nia), tomatoes and onion flavoured with a bit of garlic, oregano, soy, tomato puree with a little finely grated cheese on top - delish and so easy to make!

 And, just one last thing - look at this potato! Is it the veggie version of ham-fisted? 😊

The song title is provided by Oasis. What a song, haven't heard that in a while but can't believe it was released 28years ago!

Changing

The verbena bonariensis is so pretty and I do love the mix of colours with the nicotiana. They’re usually buzzing with life but I didn’t see many bees yesterday, even though it was pretty warm for October (October already!?) and wasn’t breezy.

We had a busy day on the plot and my aching body isn’t used to it! In the morning I weeded and dug this area where the garlic is to be planted. We’ve had a delivery of very well rotted manure to the site so I dug some of that in - a barrowful for £1.50 - bargain. Jamie spent the time clearing, digging and chalking an area where the potatoes had been - for our broad beans to over-Winter.

In the afternoon I spent time clearing the weeds from the leeks bed. The weather has been warm with a bit of rain - the weeds have loved it… the bindweed had started strangling the leeks and the grass and bittercress has also enjoyed a fresh burst of growth. I tried hard to pull out unbroken bindweed roots, but it’ll be back 😩 I’ve cut back the parsnip leaves which had become a slugfest and there's a row of leeks there which have been chomped. Hopefully they'll recover now they can see the light of day again.

Now that the foliage is dying back we can see all the mini Jack-be-Little pumpkins. Those two plants have been happy it seems! We need to get some shelves up in the polytunnel so those little fruits can go in there to cure. Jamie was making some room in the polytunnel today by removing a couple of the pepper plants. I'll use the soil for planting up some bulb pots. So, as well as sweetcorn, we had peppers for our meal last night. They were meant to go orange, but they taste good green too.

We had halloumi and roasted veg - I've started just adding the halloumi to the roasting pan towards the end of cooking rather than cooking separately on the hob - it gives it a slightly different texture but still delicious and squeaky. That plateful has home-grown peppers, sweetcorn, garlic, basil and a few tomatoes (but mostly shop-bought). Perhaps we'll try growing our own onions again next year ...

We've had the last of the green beans, although I'm contemplating whether to save some of the runners for drying...

The beans in the polytunnel roof completely dried and they’re now in jars - I have a few left over for sharing. I know borlotti are delicious but the Yin Yang (aka Orca or Calypso bean) are so fabulous looking; I hope they taste good too!

We think we may have had the last of the courgettes, although there are a couple of new ones appearing - we've been eating them since June! The song is provided by Sigma with Paloma Faith.

What’s Going On?

I’m a bit out of date, I haven’t posted in nearly 3 weeks. Well, it’s been a busy time and I have a rotten cough/throat infection which is hanging round too long. But, apart from that whinge, it’s a great time of year - look, fresh veg for lunches and dinners!

We enjoyed quite a few strawberries, but not as many as we'd hoped. One of the peat-free compost bags was clearly a bit dodgy as the plants were not at all happy.

We’ve been living on broad beans for a while now, so many different ways to enjoy them but they’re just about finished as we’ll be moving on to courgettes. The leeks will go in the ground once the broad bean stalks go to the compost bin.

We had our Open Day on one of the hottest days of the year, it was a great success with plenty of visitors and lots of chit-chat. So exhausting organising and setting up on a sweltering day but there were plenty of volunteers and it’s always fun running the tombola.

Photo courtesy of Forbes

And the after-party was good fun too, with Ivan’s wine followed by a game of horseshoes - definitely need more practice!

The Open Day was the day after the Hungerford in Bloom allotment judging, so the plots were looking their best. Plot7 was included so we had a LOT of weeding to do beforehand. It did look tidier than ever and I even cleared and weeded behind the polytunnel. 

We got 3rd place in our class 😊 mostly I think because there are quite a variety of different items growing on that plot. The plot looks better now after a couple more weeks with some heavy showers between sunshine but still much more growing to do to cover all that bare earth - otherwise a weed will find it! I’ve been filling gaps with lettuce seedlings.

The Incredible sweetcorn that Nia gave us is growing at a pace. I had to stomp the earth around them as they’ve had some really strong winds to contend with. The four tiny plants are the Lark variety that we managed to germinate - they shouldn’t be affected by cross-pollination apparently.

A few more flowers are appearing but our plots are definitely looking mostly green at the moment. The larkspur and nasturtium are the brightest spots for the many hoverflies and bees that have arrived with the warmth. 

And I’m pleased to have noticed a lot of ladybirds over the last week. The HAHA Wildlife plot has plenty of colour for the butterflies that have turned up too.

So, as new veg is emerging, the earlier planted items are giving way. The radish are all eaten, but the radish rats tails provide a spicy addition to salads, along with the delicious peppery nasturtium, which caterpillars haven’t found yet. We ate the scapes from our garlic a couple of weeks ago. They were a very tasty mild-garlic addition to a halloumi meal.

And, I gave the garlic a couple more weeks in the ground but not long enough for the bulbs to properly form into cloves because the foliage was looking so dead and rust- covered. As a result we’ll have to eat it as ‘wet garlic’ and it won’t store for long which is a shame.

Oh, I finished my Best Foot Forward challenge for the National Kidney Federation - Thankyou if you sponsored me! I managed over 176,000 steps in June - a lot of watering was involved in those steps! So much watering!

Alfie very kindly gave us a Bokashi Composting kit. It literally ferments the green waste, rather than composting, and as it ferments we can use the ‘tea’ as a plant food. Seems interesting and all our broad bean waste has been going in there over the last few weeks - the Bokashi bran needs adding for the process to work.

Apart from the lovely plot visits I’ve been working (obviously) and prepping some documents for the BIG HAHA SUMMER SHOW. It’s our first year of running the show ourselves and it’s going to be in the Town Hall, so we really hope there’s a big turnout. I’m not involved in the organisation, but you know me, I do enjoy doing the posters, etc ☺️

Full schedule is available on the website if you’re local. 

So, that’s me caught up. We’re hoping for a thunderstorm this morning then we can go to the plot this afternoon. Song title and sadly relevant question,  provided by Marvin Gaye.