Pickings

Isn't it the way, there's always lots to pick just as you're about to go away on holiday!

Tonight's haul also included a big carrier bag of onions, the ones I planted to over winter - but they really weren't very photogenic, very muddy and lots of them have those strange, stalky necks that mean they won't keep very well. J suggested onion soup as a way of using the non-keepers so I might make some tomorrow.

I'm going to make something home-grown to take to the allotment social evening tomorrow evening. Luckily it's being held indoors, at the house of a plotholder on our neighbouring allotments at Redland Green. The forecast's horrible and wet for tomorrow, but we definitely need the rain. It's still very dry up there. So...rain is good. I'll have a night off from watering and the social eveing'll make a nice start to our holiday.

Happy gardening (and picking, of course)

I forgot my blog's birthday!!

It was on Saturday 14th and I was up there that day, watering and pottering about without noticing that I'd been blogging about it for a year! I should have taken some special birthday photos and rushed home to write a bloggiversary post. It's taken me till today to realise.

I still don't remember to take the camera with me half the time. There are so many wonderful photographic opportunities that I haven't taken. I know I'm not a particularly good photographer but having a recorded image, however poor, triggers the memory and the memory provides a multi-sensory experience that I might otherwise forget. It's so good to sit up here in my little office and look at images that take me back to boiling hot summer days perfumed with the smell of honeysuckle, sharp frost with the grass cracking under my feet or hiding in the shed with a thermos of tea while the rain beats down outside.

So...in honour of this belated occasion, I just want to say
Happy Birthday
to my blog.

The apparently aerial photo was taken from the new school on the hill and the little figure in the centre waving their arms about is me. I think J took it last year when there was an open day at the school and he was on the roof, looking down and he spotted me and yelled until I noticed.

Strawberry update

Well, the strawberries are still worrying me. During the week I carefully scraped off all the straw, rolled back the black mulch and eased the plants through the holes to expose the earth to sunlight. I forked around the base of all the plants and added some peat free compost from a bag of bought stuff, watered well and then stood back and looked at them. The ants have largely been killed off thanks to the nasty powder so I think I've done all I can now, short of ritual sacrifice and naked dancing. I just hope they recover.

I've been searching the internet for strawberry maladies and another problem it could be is crown rot. The pictures of affected plants look horribly similar to the strawberries on my plot. However, it's a big coincidence that each limp plant had a big ants nest underneath it, isn't it? I don't think I can do much more at the moment except wait and see what happens next.

What happens next for me is to go and make a start on supper. Just me and the boys tonight, J's away in the camper van having fun at a balloon event so he won't need to know that we're going to sample the really scrummy strawberry ice-cream to make sure it's as good as it looks. No, he won't mind - he'll be enjoying junk food with a bunch of blokes. All the more for us.

So....what can I put in for today's photo. Not another wilting strawberry, I'm choosing something that's doing very well at the moment. This artichoke is so tall I can't actually reach to pick the top ones. We've had quite a few already, more are stacked up waiting in the fridge and I took some with me to a party last night and gave them away. Partychokes.

Happy gardening

Ants in my pants

The Strawberries were doing very well until a few days ago and I was looking forward to a good crop. My plants are all poking out of black breatheable mulch with straw under the berries to hold them away from the damp earth and some time in the spring I took all the mulch off, added lots of manure compost and growmore and I thought they'd be fine. However, the plants at the lower end of the strip seem to be dwindling away - I'd thought it was just because it's been so dry, but today I lifted the black membrane and underneath each of the affected plants is a seething red ants nest.

The photos show the sad strawberry at the top and the "I'm all right mate" strawberry lower down. One plant has even given up entirely - there were loads of ant eggs under that one.

I have always had a lot of red ants on the allotment, indeed, I have often said that my allotment is a red ants nest infested by a few vegetables - but I was joking for goodness sake and I didn't mean it to get as bad as this! Today I puffed ant killer (very non organic) under the membrane and I'm hoping the ants will give up and let me harvest some strawberries. I'm not even sure if we can eat them now I've used the ant killer stuff which would be a pain.

I would really love to eradicate the little red b*****rds because not only do they kill off the plants I'm trying to grow, I am incredibly allergic to their bites and have to carry all sorts of potions in my bag to counteract the toxins.

Still, I picked enough strawberries before I applied the powder so at least we've got some for tonight. Cheesecake or ice-cream? Hmm. It's got to be good in case we don't get any more strawberries.

Happy gardening (ant-free I hope)

Bug nookie and barbecue plans

I've just finished primping and tidying the allotment for my birthday barbecue and I spotted these two damselflies visiting the pond while I was taking a break. Pretty things. There were several pairs of red ones too. There were also seven large frogs sploshing about, all so intent on their own business that they didn't seem to mind at all as I crouched over them to take photos.

Plan A is to spend tomorrow afternoon ferrying camping chairs and tables, fairy lights and bunting etc up to the allotment and spend tomorrow evening having a jolly time eating and drinking as the sun goes down. However, plan A looks like it may have to be superceded by plan B, which involves obsessively looking at the weather forecast every ten minutes and ending up cooking a giant paella in the kitchen at home.

I wonder what plan C is?

Happy gardening (aha - that's plan C)

Hic!

What do you grow on yours?
Me - I'm growing a small forest of beer bottles. As I've said before, I've had my allotment for many years now and although I very rarely drink any beer while I'm there, somebody has, because I never run out of bottles when I want to put one on top of a cane. I blame the mice in the shed. It can't be J, surely?

Bottles on top of canes are a good idea because I am exactly the sort of person who's going to get a cane in her eye whilst bending down to ground level.

I've noticed that the surrounding allotments have an interesting variety of cane tops. Some people have used tennis balls that have lost their bounce, one allotment is a sea of plastic milk bottles and the posh people with the greenhouse have even bought specially designed rubber things to stick on theirs. I prefer the "recycling" approach and try not to buy specially made bits and pieces if I can make them.

Still, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

Happy (careful) gardening

Sunbathing Ramshorn snails?

I don't know why all the ramshorn snails were sitting on top of the water lily leaves but they were, lots of them, looking as though they were basking in the sun. I wouldn't have thought it was something snails do. It wasn't just the ones in the photo - this was a close-up so you could see them clearly. The whole pond was covered in them. Very strange.

They are all the progeny of ten that I paid for in the garden centre years ago, when I bought the plants to stock the pond. Imagine a gardener paying for snails! They've done their job very well though. What with the rampant water lily (triffid) and a few oxygenating weeds, our pond doesn't suffer from that annoying filamental algae or blanket weed that spoils the appearance of so many ponds at this time of year.

We're having a busy week at the allotment. Last night I tucked a bed of straw all round the strawberries to help keep the ripening berries away from slugs and damp earth and then J and I started netting them, but the net has turned into a tangled muddle so we were only able to do a small strip. I need to sort out the netting soon though. We found a big bit and draped it across the jostaberries. I'll shut the fruit cage door soon too. I only close it when the fruit is ripening because the birds do quite a lot of good picking insects off the bushes, so I don't mind them in there most of the year.

There's always such a lot to do in May, planting out, watering, weeding, feeding the growing plants and continuing to sow as much as I can fit in so that we have a succession of harvests. I put in another six runner bean plants today, sown in pots seven weeks after the first batch. the theory is that we have runners over a longer period - however, I've done this before and what actually happens is that they all catch up! A second row of courgettes also went in today. I planted far too many seeds this year and I'm left with more plants than I can use. I'll hang onto them until I'm sure the ones I've planted out are established and then I'll give them away.
Courgettes anyone?

Happy gardening