Springtime Catch-up!

This time of the year all plants on the allotment, in the garden and in nature whizz along.  I just love the vibrant zingy greens of tree leaf, and new grass and perennials; the new salad leaves; and the sharp splashes of bright pinks, purples, and yellows from budding roses, alliums, and the later tulips. Not to mention my favourite clematises (is that the correct plural?) - that's the ones that haven't been pinched off the plot that is...another story!

New lettuce and turnips zooming along in the greenhouse

 I love alliums!

The bursting buds are just as good as the open flowers

 

And the first roses are unfurling

Plenty of fruit to come too: redcurrants

The veggies are also coming on. Last year's chard and spinach is still producing well and we've had our first really good picking of mustardy salad leaves.


Mustardy salad leaves, with carrots, radishes and more parsley to come: growing in the old water tank, away from slug and snail

The sweet peas and peas got a trifle nibbled (aka eaten to the ground) by slugs and snails. I have now trialled wool pellets alongside the existing plastic bottle cuffs with jagged tops and copper bands to keep the voracious molluscs off. The wool seems to be proving that final bit of protection in a slug and snail-full year so far. Both types of peas are re-sprouting now.

I've also been busy sowing. I stagger this over the season, little and often, cos with ME you get overwhelmingly knackered and ill from doing too much. I'm feeling more under par than usual at the moment so the pattern is to totter off my bed of knackeredness, fill up a pot or two with soil (all kept handy by the back door) bung in a few seeds, put 'em on the windowsill and hey presto!  ....Even more seedlings to anticipate potting up- with help of
course!!



  Oh and by the way we've had more new life on the plot: four of the dearest robin fledglings from a neat nest in the wiggly hazel- they kept that very quiet til the babies were up and flying!

Happy Spring!

Budding Promise

Things are a-stir on the plot, things are a-stir everywhere! On the plot today I ignored the fact that there seem to be loads more slugs than last year already, and just concentrated on the shoots and buds that are appearing, and some lovely flowers out in the afternoon sun- nothing fancy just pretty spring blossoms!

Can you tell what this is yet?

It's the first gooseberry!

 

I wonder what colour this tulip will be? I love the green bud

 

This is a shoot of one of 5 clematis I've added to the plot- like my Dad before me I love them! Mind you so do the aphids by the look of it!

I think this is the cherry, but it could be the pear. The apple blossom is pink

A Spanish bluebell. Would be nice to have the native ones. Something for the future

The wiggly hazel is such a bonus on the plot. I've planted a blue-ish clematis to go through it during summer

Grape Hyacinths are nothing special, but they look lovely close to

Just showing that there are veggies on the allotment too -honest!

My favourite tulip- I think it's called Strawberries and Cream. If it isn't it should be
 

Weather great for gardening- lots to do!

At last most of the UK seems to have had reasonable weather for the time of year. Down in the South East we haven't had a decent frost which may mean diseases haven't been killed off, but we'll just have to see.  The sun and warmth really makes me want to get out and grow! 

Still being a newcomer to the allotment (this is our second season) we have a lot to learn, and I already feel a bit behind in sowing seeds. So far I have:

Set potatoes to chit   (oops, left most of them in the box they came in for too long: hence long weedy sprouts!  Knocked some off and hope more come!)

Far too long and pale!



Will do better with these!

 

Sowed broad beans   (patchy germination, maybe the rough compost I sowed them in hasn't helped)



Sowed sweet peas  (I need to sow a second lot, they were great last year, and I am greedy for more!)
 Planted out some banana shallots, some garlic I'd started in the greenhouse, and some random spare leek seedlings from last year

 

 

 

Nice strong garlic

More garlic, and leeks

And we have:

Prepared the potato and broad bean beds
Cut back the raspberries and top dressed them
Pruned the apple, pear and cherries
Pruned the gooseberries   (the giant one we have inherited, and I also made cordons of some spares- Monty Don reckons it cuts out pest and disease problems)
Sorted out the greenhouses
Painted fencing
Reset the brick edges of paths and beds


Fiddled and diddled about with other stuff!

Oh and we have enjoyed:

Purple Sprouting Brocolli: how delicious it is compared to the shops!

Cavolo Nero: now this has gone to flower we are just cutting off the whole of the top and eating it flowers and all- yum yum

I love this time of year!

Weather terrible- gardening continues

What awful weather we've had  lately in the UK. Well saying that doesn't do it justice. I have nothing but sympathy for everyone affected- and contrary to those who may think that down South it's only "posh" houses by the Thames affected I can assure you it isn't.

 Last week I saw hundreds of extremely ordinary terraced houses in the London Borough of Croydon with filthy water lapping against them (it must have been in the houses as well), sunken cars, water gushing from manholes, a couple of forlorn fire engines piping water around, desolate minor roads, and elsewhere traffic hold-ups where major road underpasses were deliberately flooded as temporary reservoirs. And it has been going on for weeks. All credit to the emergency services and others which has stopped what looks like a disaster zone from actually being one.   Elsewhere of course there has been all sorts of damage, including the many hundreds of acres of crops destroyed by the constant flooding, and the massive problems for farmers.

The River Misbourne in Bucks is normally a small stream. In Amersham it has flooded cellars and back gardens. The picture was taken yeasterday after the water had receded quite a bit.

Any concerns we might have about the sogginess of allotments seem irrelevant.  However it has made me think about issues of food security. I think it is pretty much accepted now that the current situation is likely to be repeated- the relatively rapid global climate change is at last generally considered to be caused by humans- and we will see more dramatic weather events.  I hope we are intelligent enough to be able to globally co-operate in addressing issues and planning for the future, and it starts by getting our own house in order, and supporting one another.   But on the micro-scale of our allotments I have two thoughts- one (self-centerdly!) I'm glad we have an allotment if in the short term veg and fruit prices are likely to rise; and two- are we going to have to adapt our styles of gardening?

Here in East London we are lucky to be protected from our River Lea by a special flood relief channel- without it the allotment would undoubtedly be flooded, and the house not long after.  So we continue to work on the plot- with some good sunshine at the weekend and not at all sodden soil.

Oh, and in the back garden, the tender nasturtiums thrive... climate change?

 

We've moved the strawberries back to the edges of a front bed, to be used soon for potatoes.

We are getting to grips with the back section, which hasn't had too much attention in the first year of our plot
 

 

In the back garden the cyclamen look almost exotic

 

And the primroses in my £1 from the charity shop cage look cheerful in the sun!

But perhaps nicest of all are the snowdrops- here they are en-masse at the Chilterns Crematorium, Amersham- which has lovely wooded, natural grounds

 

Nearly Wordless Wednesday- Micro Flora and Micro Fauna

New animals spotted at the allotment

 

Dino wants a piece of the action

Dino gets carried away, as do the Cow Twins

And the miniature attractions of the winter allotment are revealed on a rare sunny day: Fennel

Moss/ fodder

Feverfew

Rose

Beautiful Sun for Once

It was a beautiful day on the allotment- at least 10 other plotholders were out and we completed our raspberry/ gooseberry swap.  The gooseberry bush which we were very kindly offered is enormous, and very vigorous. Our fellow plotholders worked hard but unfortunately broke a spade and a fork moving it!   Our tools, luckily enough, held up better, and now we have a bit of a biggun (and potentially very fruitful) in our midst!

We'd inherited one gooseberry on the plot, which bore nothing last year, so we laid into it and made 5 smaller plants to see what happens.  I turned 4 into cordons to grow up our scaffolding fence (also inherited!) and gave one away. We separated 2 bushes from the monster plant, and gave one to our next-door neighbour, then replanted the biggun. We couldn't face trying to break it up anymore, that'll be a job for another day. Apparently the biggun has been very prolific, so fingers crossed for the crop. When we have some wood ash we'll top dress, as apparently they love potash. The plotholders we gave raspberries to were pleased, so hopefully all will work out.



One of my cordoned gooseberries

We also did some digging over as the ground wasn't too sodden (our plot borders a stream, but the local flood relief channel protects us, and all the neighbouring area). And a bit of weeding and chatting with our neighbours, who gave us a big handful of a peppery salad leaf which has been taking over their greenhouse (could be mizuna?). This was lovely with pasta and walnut bits for a simple (and very late!) lunch.

A good day!

a lovely early iris

Catkins like a reaching hand
 

wiggly hazel looks like a little head

Whilst this basically looks like a bare space, a bucket and the back of someone else's polytunnel it actually represents a day's work! The gap is where L dug out a massive boring municipal type shrub (leaving the buddleia for the insects!)- and on the left in the background is the monster gooseberry. Things are shaping up in this area as we straighten up the raspberries and weed thoroughly.

more bright primroses: more bright days please! 

Back to Blog

Just before Christmas and just after Christmas I was catching up with things after finishing my studies, and getting overcome with ME, but since that little hurdle seems to have been hopped over it's time to blog again!   I have been reading other allotment/ garden blogs but not commenting, and we've still been active at the plot and this weekend caught up work in the back garden as well as the allotment.

At the plot today we cleared out the greenhouses and did a bit of raspberry pruning. In the mild conditions the autumn raspberries had plenty of leaf buds and even a few flower buds, but we cut most back to base, and some back to a third of the length. We did this last year and seemed to get a good long fruiting season. We agreed to swap some of our raspberry plants for another plot's gooseberries.



The beginnings of this years onion crop

We cropped some cavalo nero, and some lettuce leaves from the greenhouse. Can't wait for the purple sprouting broccoli to develop heads. Talking to other plot holders it is clear we aren't cropping anything like the quantities of things they are, but since this is our second year it'll still be a bit experimental, and it's quite nice getting a little bit of different things.

Hunt the Purple Sprouting Broccoli Head

In an exciting new development for this part of Walthamstow a new café has just opened at the end of our road, selling lovely salads, fresh bread, toasted sourbread sarnies etc. Within hours it was packed to the tinted windows with "hipsters" who are flocking to the area, having been forced out of their traditionally trendy habitats of Stoke Newington and Shoreditch by spiralling house prices.  They must have been attracted by the smell of fresh ethically sourced coffee and the plentiful use of the word "organic". Like many others I am very pleased to the see the café and the clientele alike, and hope to save my pennies up so I can occasionally go in- it's very welcoming and rather lovely.  I am wondering if they would be into swapping some fresh herbs or sweet peas for the table for a free tea and cake now and again? 

 

 

The mildness of winter around here is bringing out  both the primroses and the hipsters