Spring has arrived at the allotment

We've not been down to the allotment much recently, partly due to bad weather,  but also because of my ankle injury which meant that when the lane was muddy and the allotment paths slippy it was a bit of an unsafe place for me. But at last Spring arrived and fine weather, so off we went to get some much needed work done.

I was greeted by one of my favourite flowers in bloom, the marsh marigold in the pond. As I took a closer look I noticed that there was no sign of the frog spawn which had been there for a few weeks. I wondered if the rain had washed it away as the pond was pretty full up of water. But no, on closer inspection I could see little tadpoles swimming around happily. Peeping out from under the marsh marigold was a frog, I spotted another one down at the bottom of the pond. The frog was very quiet and still and didn't seem to mind me. 

Another welcome sight was the daffodils bordering the path, the bright lime green euphorbia under the sycamore tree and the tulips flowering in the big tub.

The last time we went to the allotment a few weeks ago, we moved the blueberry bushes from the fruit area where they were a bit overcrowded to another bed where they would have more space. They were looking fine after their move. The mulch you can see in the photo is shredded pine needles. We always shred our Christmas tree branches to keep for the blueberries as they like an acid soil. I have heard that this is a good thing to do.

Looking at the rest of the fruit bed we could see that the fruit frame was falling down, so some work will have to be done on it soon before we need to start netting the fruit against the birds. Richard dismantled the frame and repaired the support for the apple tree.

The rhubarb is growing really well and we should be pulling some of the stalks soon.

I'm a bit late planting the potatoes, I would normally have them done by now. So that was an important job to get done. We started work on preparing the potato containers with compost. I planted the first earlies in six of the potato bags. The variety is Maris Bard. I put compost in the bottom of the bags to about a third of the depth and sprinkled in a bit of bone meal. The bags are quite big so I put four potatoes in each bag. Then topped with more compost. When the potatoes start to grow and the shoots show through the compost I will top up with more compost. The next lot of potatoes to plant will be the second early Charlotte a salad potato.

Another important job was to weed the asparagus bed. I also fed it with some blood, fish and bone. I was pleased to see a few little asparagus spears starting to come through.

The fine weather didn't last long, it started to rain, but at least we got a good number of jobs done.

Our pond and bog garden

Our wildlife pond and bog garden at the allotment is looking really good now. Over the last few weeks I have been gradually planting around the pond and in the boggy area next to it. It really is very squelchy around the pond, I think we chose the right place for it.

I spent some time looking up which plants would be good for growing in very moist conditions and realised that I had quite a few suitable plants in my own garden which I could lift and divide to take to the allotment.

I've planted some hostas around the edges of the pond. I'm not sure how much wet hostas like, but if they survive then they should look really good softening the edges where the stones are. The boggy ground is a sort of triangle shape and here I've planted a rodgersia in the corner with astilbes in front. The astilbes suffered a bit of frost damage when it was really cold last week but they seem to be recovering now. In another corner is a meadowsweet. Also planted are some blue irises and I salvaged some of the yellow flag irises which had completely taken over when we first moved on to the allotment. I shall have to keep them under control now. There are two types of grasses, a carex elata aurea and another which I have had in my garden for years but I don't know the name of. I found a ragged robin plant at my local garden centre which was described as a bog garden plant and at the plant fair last Sunday I bought a pale yellow trollius. The label said grow in soil which never dries out. That seemed to fit the description of our soil.

In the pond I put a marsh marigold, a blue iris, a grass and a water forget me not. There are also a couple of underwater plants. I would like to put a floating plant in, most water lilies would be too big for our little tin bath pond, but there are some varieties which I know are suitable for small ponds, so I will keep looking.

So that was a lot of plants but for very little cost as most of them came from my own garden. It's looking very good now and should be even better once the plants are established and in flower.

The good news is we have some tadpoles in the pond which we rescued after finding them in the drain at the top of the plot.  They must have come down the pipe which drains the water from the plot above us.  I hope they like their new home, it is a much safer place.  The duck you see in the photo, is a rescue duck, we  found it in the mud at the bottom of the old pond. It seems to be very happy in its new home.