Too Cold to Hang Around!

A quick visit to the plot this afternoon to pick some leeks for two days dinners. We picked mostly from the ones which had been undercover and a couple from the ones which have been out in the open.

 The covered ones have been generally larger than the uncovered ones. There are only 3 left in the covered section (though they're not covered anymore).

It was bitterly cold - reached 2° with a low of -4° over the last week and there have been dry flakes of sleet falling for the last two days.
No sign of our robin but the female blackbird was staying close and was had puffed up her feathers for warmth.
Had a quick peeop at our over-wintered broad beans which are still looking ok. Some other beans on site have been taken down by the frost - not sure whether that's the variety that was used or because they had grown a bit too tall too early (like ours did last year).

You can see we're not going to be living on broad beans but hopefully we'll get a few early ones...
 

Saturday Snigger

No time or inclination to go to the COLD plot today, so here's a joke - thanks John!

My racing snail wasn't winning any races

I took its shell off to make him more aerodynamic

It didn't work...

If anything, it made him more sluggish

 

 

HAHAHA :-D
(Sorry!)

Two Quarters Dug

I was using up a days leave today and the sun shone! It was about 8° so very pleasantly warm in the sunshine. In fact, it's been so sunny that this dandelion decided it was worth opening its flower - shame it had already been pulled up and was on our spoils heap!

And, amazing, we saw our first butterfly! It flew by a couple of times but was going so fast we couldn't identify it - it looked like tortoiseshell-type colours.
Our rhubarb is looking very feeble! I took the cover off it so it can get a little sunshine. It's only its first year though, so we're not expecting it to produce anything this year - except maybe one stalk for some rhubarb vodka!


That is IT!



For the next couple of hours Jamie spent time re-building the frame for our leeks and shallots and I moved the frame for the peas - this year we're growing mange tout and petit pois.
Then for the rest of the afternoon I was digging over the second quarter - where our potatoes are going this year. The earth was pretty easy to dig (though my back is suffering!) and it didn't need a serious dig as we'll be digging trenches for the spuds as usual anyway.

It looked good when we left though so we're half way there - with Plot 7. Plot 8 will be more taxing...

 

Weeding in the sun

Another dry day and today with sunshine - we really are feeling spoilt!

This was taken at about 5:00

We saw our first ladybird of the year - it appeared to be hibernating on an old brassica stalk. It's a harlequin ladybird.

We had a couple of hours on the plot, just doing some tidying and clearing. So many weeds and so much grass :-( At least it's not too hard pulling them free from the ground as it's been so wet.
Our robin had his nose (beak) put out of joint today by a very cocky female blackbird who was happy to hop very close to pinch worms that 'Robbie' would have had. He was around too but didn't get the first pick of worms :-)

We went home with leeks for tea - still quite a few left in the ground.

Wildlife blog updated with some of today's finds

 

More Days like this, please!

That's more like it! Three days with no rainfall. We've had an inch of rain since our last visit to the plot a week ago -- evidence in the form of our new rain gauge...

It was so good to be digging the plot and having other plotholders to watch and talk to for a change!

The ground is muddy but very diggable (doesn't look like a word, but we know what it means!) and last year's potato quarter looks pretty much ready for this years onions now - we're expecting Thompson & Morgan to deliver our Santero F1 onion sets very soon, joining the garlic which is looking good - 15 bulbs have sprouted.


Garlic shooting up well

While Jamie was doing most of the digging I was clearing away the beets which had grown to mammoth size. Although Boltardy I can't think that they wouldn't be woody so they'll be thrown away but I left them on a spare bit of plot for the mice to enjoy for a bit. As I was pulling them I saw a lot of centipedes, spiders and slugs. Hopefully the birds will deal with clearing the slugs and the slug eggs we found. See the Wildlife blog for more