Getting summery on the plot

Welcome to June dear friends! It's a fabulous month for us Gaults ~ it contains our Wedding Anniversary and Andrew's Birthday, so there is much celebrating to be done and a few glasses of bubbles to be toasted 😄.  Hopefully we'll get some nice weather too unlike today which has been dull and heavy with rain.

So let's look back to last Saturday when the heavens smiled upon us and we spent a nice time at the allotment, enjoying the sun, the new seedlings and planting things out. What was especially nice was this beautiful rose opened up by the shed.

Puts a smile of your face seeing that first thing and then turning the corner and seeing our beautiful, healthy potatoes look smashing - darn it, it made us glad to be there.

These are Sharp's Express in four big black pots that a kindly plot neighbour gave to us. We love growing them in pots; it saves room, we can afford them more protection and the best growing medium, it's easy to earth them up with more compost and boy are they ridiculously easy to harvest. We're all about efficiency and ease!

When I was sitting on the bench by them I noticed flowers and the intricate beauty of the humble spud leaf.

So here are the new plants we brought with us to get settled into the ground:

• garlic chives and uchiki kuri winter squashes
• dwarf bean borlotto and climbing french bean cobra

A couple of the squashes went to our black pot friend and then he gave us a Japanese squash in return! Andrew was surprised and pleased - look at his wee face, haha.

I walked about with my camera and here's some pics on 14b, yep, I was still emotionally involved.

We've pretty much taken all we can, even the black weed suppressing membrane and the gravel and wooden edging. Oh it's such a sad sight - look at those little box hedging plants and the rhubarbs etc..

There were a great many plum poppies on display and the orientals have bloomed now too, in the middle of this collage are the first damson fruits. Out of everything the most I want to try and save a bit of, at least, is that purple poppy. But that's it, now I shall focus on 24a.

So back over to our real plot and I have to show you the garlic and broad bean signs Andrew etched onto slate we had lying around the place. I love them and he's promised more 😀...

And thinking of the broad beans - we had a green fly infestation starting which lucky I spotted whilst taking these photos. They were swiftly and brutally attacked with our soapy water in a spray bottle. Ha! Victory shall be ours. Funnily the broad beans planted in situ are much darker, stockier and healthier looking than these ones and aren't that far behind.

die greenfly, die!

Dwarf borlotto beans where planted under the supervision of Toby. Goodness the soil is great this year, so rich, friable and even with a few worms; the whole no dig principle is excellent and we highly recommend it! Check out Charles Dowding if you don't practise it yourself. These beans are off to a good beginning and I learnt that they are planted a trowels width away from each other.

There was more going on but I fear this post is getting too long so I shall leave my story here for now (the sweetcorn, squash and seedlings will wait) . Here's a beautiful honeysuckle for you, from beside the wooden bench, beside the potatoes where Toby also happened to be having a good time.

Hugs,
Carrie

Obadiah, is that you?!

My skin smells of the earth and my body aches a little in that enjoyable 'I've worked hard' way. A great days work was achieved on the allotment today and I am blissfully sleepy now as it is starting to get dark. Maybe I should have a shower and shed the sweat and pollen from my body and hair, but this sofa is so comfy and the blanket is hugging my tired self. I don't think I could make it up those stairs.

There is a soft smile across my face as I think of Andrew, still working there. He's building me a hide away with screening and climbers so I can feel more comfortable over there. It seems to give him endless joy, trying to make me happy and also woodworking outside.

His efforts are so greatly appreciated and the peaceful corner is coming on so well.

I cut away our musty old diseased honeysuckle today. It was a lot of work but yet so rewarding. That poor plant was only a tiny baby when we put it in the ground to grow up the fencing. But it never did well and was too restricted, prone to all diseases and took up much desired room. Yes it was vigorous and had many flower clusters but each one was infested with aphids and had begun to smell. The rose is going too - it's got the worst, most vicious thorns.  But, on to newer and better things!

May I just also point out the Felco secateurs are fantastic, if you don't have a pair you need to make hints for birthday or Christmas!

The weather has confused our little turnips and at home, our rocket, as they have bolted. However everything else seems happy and those things most recently planted have settled in well. Naturally the weeds are continuously happy and procreating like crazy but I have a better handle on it now. Well I keep telling myself that!

Fun facts ~

* I stopped and dropped everything, because I felt the strong urge to do yoga
* My jeans finally ripped, in doing said yoga, haha!

* We meet up with our frog friend Obadiah who had managed to get himself into a little bottle - he got out again. He seems to like the slate garden and compost area a lot.

Love and hugs
Carrie

An Allotment Check-up

We had an allotment 'date' last Friday, as Andrew had taken a much needed day off :) I painted inside the shed and then got very panicky, feeling cooped up alone while he was over on the other half plot working away. So after a wee trip out for a warm drink and and sit down together I felt better, much better and we went back and got to work again together.

Andrew planted 3 blackthorn trees = our very own sloe berries for the traditional lottie sloe gin :) They will also act as a much needed screen up at the top of 14b, by the compost bins. I did take a photo but it's awful and do you really want to see 3 brown twigs in a row in brown soil??

He also cut back and tied in the blackberry, which was something I started a few months back but my double vision was sort of a hazard, hahaha. It looked like I'd  had a fight with a crazy litter of cats; so many big cuts and blood on my gloves. Still, as least I tried. Here's Andrew glorious work though....

the blackberry all tied in for the season ahead

I am so looking forward to more jam but also I found this blackberry frozen yogurt recipe on Pinterest.

I continued with the incredible task of weeding the main flower bed. It is just infested with weeds, yes some would be our own but I swear most are from the 3 plots that surround us - they have been abandoned for about a year now and do nothing but grow weeds and then spread them all over the darn place - usually right slap bang into our plots! Oh if only all vegetables and fruit were so prolific.

I'm very near to being finished (though as you'll know yourself, I probably think I'm finished when I need to start all over again) and it looks good. We have a lot of tulips and daffodils coming through and the first little Narcissus 'Tete-a-tete' was in flower. Look! doesn't it fill you heart with joy?

Happiness is yellow :)

I also loved this daisy, I can't help myself...

I love daisies, I can't help myself :)

Prepare for a little rant now, just my personal view point.....

****

I am annoyed today, very annoyed. A letter arrived from the Council and they have decided to up our rent by a whooping 14%! I wouldn't mind so much if the Council was actually good at helping us and providing us with the basic necessities but they don't...

* The fields have no proper drainage and many plots are flooded, even as I weeded, going half a hand fork in depth the soil, I was encountering pools of water! Our whole allotment has been double dug and has raised beds, plus we have spent so much money on grit and topsoil and getting great manure to improve everything, best we can. It really feels pointless.

*They do not look after the roads. Look at them! never mind that the paths between plots are so slippery (see above) that I am scared to walk around, now there is no way I could go to the Allotment Gardens alone if I wanted to - the roads aren't even safe for me. 

Road between field A and B.

*There is no basic security in place, not a good fence or even the improved hedges (to also act as wind breaks) that were meant to be put in. People can just walk in nilly willy if they want to and it's going to get worse if rumours are true. There is a new community building being built just above the allotment grounds and I have been told by many that access to it from the village is through the centre of the allotment gardens. I hope this isn't true.

*We do not get the Council green waste we were promised over and over; there are no skip days any more to safely dispose of our rubbish and proper management of the plots in terms of so many abandoned ones, is ridiculous whilst there is still a huge waiting list. I am sickened, utterly downhearted.

But I must end on a happy note - 

Look at the rhurbab and the honeysuckle, plus the broad bean seeds have been planted and the garlic looks amazing (but I can't find the photo!)

What are you up too?? Is it starting to feel springy where you are???