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.

Easter weekend at the allotment

rubbish on plot 8

We had some good weather over the Easter weekend, although it was cold and the mornings were frosty the sun shone most of the time. So we made the most of the fine weather, wrapped up warm and went to the allotment.

Our first jobs were on plot 10b, where the fruit bushes needed attention. We have gooseberries, blackcurrants, autumn raspberries and rhubarb. The gooseberries needed pruning and all the fruit needed some rotted manure spreading around them.  Helen did a good job of digging out the manure from the bottom of the bin.  I could only stand and watch as I still have limited movement in my wrist.

On Easter Monday we spent a full day on plot 8. It was a lovely day and there were plenty of people down there working on their plots and having bonfires. We got a fire going too because there was a lot of rubbish to be cleared. Every time I go to plot 8 I get quite despondent about the state of it. Everyone keeps reminding me about how bad plot 10b was when we took it on last June and how much progress we've made on there. I must remember that.  I think it's because I can't get stuck in to the work because of the injury to my wrist and it will take some time yet before it gets back to normal.

the fire

Helen started pulling up all the many layers of membrane, carpet and anything else which the previous tenants had used to make paths or suppress weeds. This revealed some decent looking areas of soil and some old flagged paths.  Richard carried on cutting back the conifer hedge which has been very neglected over the years and been allowed to grow too much, so cutting into the branches means it won't grow back, and it does look quite decimated.  It has given us more space along the side of the plot though, and this at the moment is going to be used to store stuff we need to keep.  Meanwhile I floated around doing what I was able to do, which was tidying up under the hedge and moving wood, pots and bricks (only one at a time unfortunately).

storage area under conifers

There are a few very flimsy raised beds on the plot which I weeded.  We will use these this year as overflow beds for any plants we don't have room for on plot 10b.  Next year I hope we will have something better in place.

The incinerator burned away as we chucked in all the conifer cuttings, old wood and dried plant material. We ended the day with a big pile of rubbish for taking to the tip and a feeling that we had made a little bit of progress.

Waiting

Today was the sort of day to tempt you outside to do some gardening or go to the allotment. The snow had cleared and the sun was shining, it looked beautiful outside.  But I knew better, the wind  was howling and it was bitterly cold. We needed to go to the allotment though, not to work but to feed the cat and take some kitchen waste for the compost bin.

We checked the crops, some of the purple sprouting broccoli needed tying up to a stake. The wind had blown some wooden frames down onto the fruit bushes and while we were there some long planks of wood blew down across the path. Definitely not a safe place to be on a day like this!

I'm longing to get stuck in and do some work at the allotment especially our new one, plot 8. The beds are all looking very tidy and ready for us to start work. But it will all have to wait for better weather.

Spring garden

We have a little tiny border at the side of our drive which at this time of year starts to burst into life. I call it the spring garden because it looks its best in the spring. There is a laburnum tree in the centre of it. It's on a bank and it's difficult to grow very much there. It's a shady spot, I tend to let whatever will grow just enjoy being there. A few years ago in an effort to improve the border I planted cyclamen, tete a tete daffodils, snowdrops, muscari, primroses. For later on I planted bluebells and aquilegia.  I've tried growing other plants for later on in the year but nothing seems to grow.  Once the laburnum comes into full leaf and flower the whole bed becomes shady and not much else will grow there.  So I enjoy it while I can, in the spring.  It's a place to stop and stare and take in those lovely spring colours as we pass by for a moment.

Cold

Well it was really, really cold, but we still went to the allotment. Richard wanted to put some drainpipes into his dug out drains on plot8, Helen and I wanted to do other things.

 I still have restricted movement in my wrist so wasn't able to do very much. I just watched and acted as director of operations. Helen put some staging in the ploytunnel on plot 10b and sowed some carrots in a tub to grow in there.  She also dug up the gooseberries and blackcurrants and put them in a new border which we had prepared along the front of the plot. We had originally planted these bushes in the autumn in another border, but felt that there wasn't enough depth of soil. They should be quite happy in their new border. Helen dug over the old bed after we had moved the fruit bushes.  It will be fine to grow veg in.

We also went over to plot 8 to see how work was progressing with the drains. We investigated the pond and to our delight we found frog spawn!  Hoping that means lots of frogs to eat the slugs.

 

Draining plot 8

We made a start on plot 8 our new allotment last weekend. We didn't really know where to start, there is so much rubbish and it has been very neglected. We sorted through broken plant pots and seed trays, managing to salvage some big pots which would do for growing potatoes in. We started to make a pile of bricks, there seem to be hundreds of them all over the plot, but they will be useful. There are lots of other stones and rubble lying around which again will be useful, especially as we are needing rubble to lay the foundations of the paths on plot 10b. The very flimsy raised beds still had the  remains of dead plants in them, which we cleared.  They seem to be not very deep, lined with membrane and filled with compost, but we can use them this summer as overflow beds for plants from plot 10b. We noticed that there were two small beds with strawberries in so we will leave those, give them some TLC and see if they produce any fruit. The whole plot seems to have had membrane, bits of carpet and wood thrown down in an attempt to suppress the weeds.  I don't think it has been dug over in years.

Down one side of the plot, part of the boundary fence has a conifer hedge, which we could tell had not been cut in a long time and our neighbours confirmed this.  They keep their side well maintained. Richard made a start on cutting it back. Although he has cut into the wood which means it will not grow again on our side, we have probably gained a few feet of extra space.

 

As  we worked with our clearing up Helen's husband David got a fire going on our other plot to burn the debris and hedge cuttings. We still finished up with a big pile of rubbish which couldn't be burnt.

All the work  was made more difficult because of the water running down the plot. Some areas are very muddy, making it very slippy. So Richard has also been tackling the drainage problem. He has dug out a drain from the top of the plot where the water source starts. This is channelled down to the pond and then out to the bottom of the plot onto the lane.  He intends to put some drain pipes into the dug out areas to make proper drains.  This is the most important job at the moment on the plot. We can see some improvement already as the path and steps into the plot has now dried out and we can enter without worry of falling over in the mud.

As we spend more time clearing up our new plot we are forming a plan in our mind of how to lay it out.
We've a lot of work ahead of us though.

Not completely useless

Here I am recovering from a broken wrist. I'll try not  to dwell on it too much, but sometimes I feel useless. I'm trying to get back to normal, I'm told to do things to exercise my wrist but then I suffer with pain and I'm told I'm doing too much. What I really want to do is dig the allotment, but I know that's a long way off. The very thought of digging makes me want to squeal in pain.

So, longing to get out in the garden and do things, I've been thinking about what I can do in the garden, gentle things which don't overtax my wrist. I 've been able to do a little bit of tidying up in the borders, clearing away dead foliage and a bit of hand weeding. I enjoyed that. I  chitted the potatoes. That was an easy job. At the allotment my daughter Helen and I planted onion and garlic sets in modules. That was a nice gentle job, it didn't hurt.

At home I have been sowing salad seeds for micro greens and baby leaves. I can manage that. I sowed pea seeds for pea shoots, rocket, radish, mustard, mixed leaves, kale, cabbage, beetroot. All these can be sown at this time of year for baby salad leaves. They grow quickly if sown indoors and are kept on a windowsill. They are great to cut and add to salads and sandwiches. I even got the grandchildren involved one day when they got home from school. I filled a big tray of compost and brought it indoors. I then found some recycled plastic food containers to use as seed trays. I let them choose what they wanted to grow. The fact that they were going to grow salad leaves was of no interest to them, as they said they didn't like salad. I suggested that mummy would like to have some, but the thing which really grabbed it for them was that it was a messy job. They dug their hands into the compost, got dirty and made a mess.

So in the end they enjoyed their after school activity and they had a tray of newly sown seeds to take home. Their mum was pleased. I just had a lot of mess to clear up afterwards. It was a bit painful, but I managed. (ouch!). Hopefully they will get more interested when they start to see the seeds germinate.