Tuesday 30 April 2013

Rotten Start to the Day

Of course, it was only rotten because it was an all-too-quick visit to the allotment before going to work! And what a beautiful morning it was; the birds were singing and there was no-one else around.
Look at that lovely blue sky!
I only nipped up to do a couple of things:
  1. Open the greenhouse: The temperature gets up to nearly 40° in the sunshine - just a bit too hot for our little seeds! Overnight the temperature was 2° outside and 3.4° in the greenhouse, so it doesn't make that much different but may prevent some damage if there is a bad frost maybe...
  2. Water the grass path that we sowed at the weekend.
  3. Give Robbie a few mealworms - he was there waiting for me on his usual fence post.
The radish seedlings are up - I just sowed a little row in front of our broad beans, which have quite a few flowers now. There are loads of bees and other flying insects around so hopefully we'll get some beans fairly soon.
And that was it, time for work :-(
Then a quick visit after work to seal the greenhouse from another cold night ahead...

Sunday 28 April 2013

More Seed Sowing

We had a good afternoon on the plot even though the cold wind was horrible. The sun didn't shine but at least it stayed dry and there were loads of plotholders on site.

Jamie and I put up our little green house for germinating seeds. We've piled bricks all round it as it was trying to take off in the wind already. We've put perspex under the seed trays to help warm the ground underneath as that's where we'll be planting some flowers once the greenhouse is moved on. We're hoping the perspex will encourage weed growth so we can pull them before we put wildflowers in - otherwise we won't know what's what!
We sowed the grass path between the two newly aligned plots - hope somebody wants to lease them soon so they don't stay unloved too long!
I did the meet and greet of a new couple (welcome to Andrew & Gill). They arrived armed with tools and had planted a row of donated potatoes within a couple of hours of setting foot on site!

We left after we had sowed some beetroot (Moneta - monogerm variety), calendula (Daisy Mix) and french marigolds (Oranges and Lemons). They're all in the greenhouse.
  
 

Saturday 27 April 2013

Well, it is still April, what did we expect?!

We may have been thinking that it's been a slow year, but April is proving to be just as we'd expect - full of April showers.
Time to go!
Jamie was digging plot 8B yesterday and got caught in hail and snow showers and today we didn't do any better! In between there was some lovely sunshine but it felt chilly (8°) and the nights are still cold, 0° last night.
Our plants are enjoying the weather though. The onions have green shoots and the salad seeds sown last week have germinated.
We're really pleased with the rhubarb, this is the original Victoria which we were concerned about in February - it's certainly made up for it over the last couple of weeks; it seems to grow before our eyes!
Today we were doing HAHA work; changing a couple of empty plots and making a path between them. We'll seed the path tomorrow and then we can get back to our plots. We need to get our little greenhouse up so we can get some more seeds sown.
 

Tuesday 23 April 2013

The Other Side of the Hedge

It was such a lovely day that we walked up to the allotment after work - just to check that our new plantings/sowings weren't drying out too much. Well, they were rather, so we gave things a water and then walked back via the canal which was looking especially beautiful as the hedgerows are beginning to spring into life.
I took the above photo from the Kennet and Avon Canal side of the Marsh Lane Allotments' hedge. It's directly under 'our' Ash tree. We could hear our little robin but couldn't see him from this side of the hedge - he was probably still eating the worms we had taken up for him :-)
We forgot to put the St George's flag on our bean pole this year, so here's a photo of the flag flying on Hungerford's St Lawrence church.
Look at that lovely blue sky!
 

Monday 22 April 2013

Blasted Wind!

A short opportunity to get to the plot today meant that we got a few more seeds sown - but the wind was howling so it wasn't lovely and warm like at the weekend. I think I managed to keep hold of the parsnip seed so they were sown where we wanted them rather than broadcast across the whole plot though :-)
'Tender and True' Parsnips

We've sown 3 seeds to each cloche, which is providing a little protection from wind and the additional warmth will hopefully aid germination. We only want one parsnip to grow from each 'station' so if more germinate we'll have to snip them off - which always seems a shame, but they'd be too close to grow properly if we left them.
We prefer to sow seeds this way, rather than sowing a whole row and then having to thin them out. Parsnips don't really appreciate being transplanted hence sowing direct into the ground (on a little seed compost).
Look how dry the earth looks! It really doesn't take long to dry out, but there is still moisture when you go a couple of centimetres down and it's looking like it may rain later on.

We also sowed our Oarsman leeks - two trays which we've protected from leek moth in their own little enviromesh cloche. The leek moth is rife on our allotment site so we're careful to protect these. The mesh is sealed all the way round as the caterpillars can crawl in under open sides - sneaky!