Coltsfoot and daffodils

Things are starting to grow down at the allotment, but it’s not vegetables it’s flowers.  We planted daffodils in the autumn under the holly bush on plot 10b and along the front of the polytunnel.  The soil was awful, it was wet, sticky, yellow clay and I wondered if the bulbs would grow at all.  But they did and they now have buds ready to burst into flower any moment and cheer us up.  Every time we go to the allotment we look at the bulbs to see how they are doing.  There's one daffodil ahead of all the rest which we've been watching carefully, and today it had burst into flower.

Over on plot 8 our new allotment there didn't look to be anything growing, it's still being cleared of rubbish and all the important jobs like drainage being sorted. But amongst all the rubbish I spotted some bright yellow flowers.  It was a pot of tete a tete daffodils.  I rescued them and brought them over to plot 10b where they could be seen. I also found some clumps of yellow Coltsfoot. This is one of my favourite wild flowers which reminds me of my childhood.  It used to grow on the land near my home.  My wildflower book tells me it is one of the first indicators of spring. It's probably classed as a weed by gardeners and allotmenteers, but I love it.

There are some people at the allotments who say ”If you can’t eat it don’t grow it”. Not me, I love to see a few flowers brightening  the place up.