Post Number 300!

Not a terribly exciting post but still it's a milestone :-)
We visited a very windy plot in the afternoon. It was very busy and we have new neighbours (on the plot where we saw the toad yesterday).
We took our tomatoes up but have protected them with fleece as they aren't used to being outside. A very good job we didn't take them up yesterday - it was 1°. Some people's potatoes and squashes had been burnt by frost, but it looked like our end of the site was protected - possibly because of the canal or the hedge.

Look how cosy our toms look.
The wind didn't make working with fleece very easy! We've round it round one of our bean wigwams for the time-being. We sowed another 11 Scarlet Empire runner beans yesterday as we've only had 3 germinate so far.. and still no sign of any french Speedy beans yet.

We shouldn't get any frost now but the next few days we're expecting rain and more wind - bleah!

I snipped off the excess parsnips, so just one per station now. We did some weeding around the rhubarb and removed some more rogue spuds which are appearing all over the site!

We left with three lovely leeks which will be soup quite soon - they're the leeks Malcolm gave us and have been in the ground since 8th August last year! I left a few in the ground but they'll have to go soon as they're in the way of the squash/brassica plantings.

I wrote a small piece for our local quarterly magazine. Some people on site think I have information about the end of our tenancy - I don't. Along with the 80+ other plotholders I'm waiting/hoping for a decision soon...
 

Sunshine & Buttercups

Another lovely day so another few hours on the plot. I have to admit, most of the time I wasn't actually working; I got some good wildlife pics though. We saw a toad and a couple of ladybirds - we haven't seen many of them this year so far. Pictures will be put on the wildlife blog later.
This buttercup is one of the many on the empty plot next door to ours. They're so beautiful when the sun shines on them. Jamie got fed up with the edge of the path looking so awful so tidied it up and that's where he found the toad.

We're just waiting for the chives to burst into colour. We've seen a few more bees and hoverflies around over the last couple of days so the flowers will keep them happy.

I sowed five more jack-be-little pumpkin seeds. Only one germinated under the light at home and that looks rather leggy. We'd like to have two plants really.
We also transplanted the french marigolds into modules - 96 of them; I think a few of them will be re-homed!

The weather forecast is threatening 2° tonight so we earthed up the potatoes again (just to be on the safe side) and where we couldn't fit any more earth we put grass cuttings on them. The thermometer showed it got down to 3° last night but nothing had been frosted. Maybe the wind helped or it may be that the ground is warm enough now...

 

A Seven Hour Day

Yes! 7 hours on the plot today. Much of that time it was sunny and hot - perfect!

There was a bit of construction going on. Jamie made up the sprout cage; 3m x 1m and 1 metre tall - that's for four Brussels plants with a few summer cabbages too. We're still keeping the potting composts/manure bags on the earth under the cage so that the ground keeps as compacted as possible - just what the sprouts like to stop them 'blowing'.

Then we put up the trellis for the Uchiki Kuri squash - it turned out a bit arty! Hope the nylon rope is strong enough to hold the squashes.

I potted on all the squashes which had germinated. Lots of yellow ball courgettes, should be a few of them to give away soon.

I sowed a row of salsify on plot 8 and put a row of transplanted lettuce alongside; Tom Thumb, Red and Little Gem varieties.

I also sowed a row of wild rocket by the onions and transplanted a couple of little self-seeded coriander plants (not sure how well they transplant though). I sowed some more petit pois as hardly any have grown, but the mangetout are looking good - seems the pigeons haven't spotted them yet!

 

All the while we had Robbie flying around us and eating worms, competing with his nemesis Mrs Blackbird.

We're a bit concerned about our tomato plants, which are still at home in the windowsill. They look healthy at the top....

 

But, at the base the leaves are dying back rather rapidly.

Really want to get them up the plot, but again the weather is threatening to go cold over the next couple of nights..

Three Firsts!

Over the last two days we've been up to the plot in the evening as it's been decent weather - more decent than the grey days have been.
Firstly, Robbie finally agreed to sit on the pot in my hand to eat his worms. He had been for a bath somewhere so looked really raggedy, but so cute!

And, here's our first picking from the rhubarb - barely enough to make our rhubarb vodka but we've made it anyway...

And the first harvest for a small salad lunch... I hasten to add that I did add some other ingredients to my lunch! Including some pickled cucumber that we'd made last year.

We were clearing a quarter of the old-HEAT plot. They aren't having a plot on site this year (shame, they used to provide drinks and cake on Thursday evenings) so HAHA are going to use the plot for some things. Jamie and I are going to grow 'unusual veg' on our quarter - purple carrots, purple kohl rabi, asparagus pea and patty pan squash is the plan at the moment.

Plot 8 takes on another tool - and wins

We had such a lovely day on the allotment today. It was warm (16°) and sunny with no wind - yay! And, look! We finished digging Plot 8! Unfortunately whilst excavating one of five huge chunks of concrete the spade broke :}

Here are the squashes, no sign of the Cornells Bush Delicata yet, but the courgettes look happy and the winter squash (Uchiki Kuri) is getting there,,,

Unfortunately the celeriac hasn't germinated yet, but hopefully it will get going soon. The florence fennel, silverskin and salad onions have all started to germinate as have the mangetout.


Mangetout

We did a bit of clearing up - this potato was a rogue spud from last year. Really don't want a potato plant amongst our shallots!

I've updated the wildlife blog. Obviously with a couple of pictures of Robbie (still refusing to feed from my hand), a moth and a knotted worm!