Lovely lottie spot

I was away this weekend in Kent. One of the days we went for a walk and I spotted this lovely, neat lottie in the garden of a village cottage. I am jealous!

Especially when you see the 'cottage' it was attached to...

Sigh.

Aw, sweet allotment song

Nick found this a while ago. Only just listened to it. Enjoy!

Photo challenge

Malmesbury Abbey arches
Originally uploaded by handmadeheavendotbiz

Jo @ The Good Life challenged me to post the 8th photo of my 8th album. I had a look @ flickr and this is it. A shot inside Malmesbury Abbey. I love the Norman-style zig-zag detailing. I'm a big fan of ecclesiastical architecture & stained glass, in particular. I'm a real bore to visit places with, always taking lots of photos! Comes with being a 'visual person'. You can view more of my photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephjones/

Construction keeps boys happy!

Unfortunately, somewhat of a disappointment on the seedling front. Lots of droopy and singed seedlings found today. :( What is still looking alive has been salvaged. All this effort can so easily be undone when it comes to growing from seed. So many things against you. I will post photos of what did survive and where I put it soon but the light faded before I took snaps.

I did, however, set my little bro and Nick a task at lottie today whilst I got on with weeding, watering, planting etc. The raspberries are now netted thanks to their teamwork and construction skills. I defy any bird to get into my rasberries now! Little bro was well pleased with his efforts and, I think, enjoyed building something :)

Look, he even built in a door :)

Thanks boys!

Mower mulch?

Well, now I've got my own mower, I'm going to keep the grass mown more often. My 4 compost bins are pretty full already, so I was wondering if I can use the grass clippings as a mulch around plants. Yes? No?

Sunday: Sowing seed, propagator protection & netting

Well, I am a bit disappointed with my seedlings to date so I decided to re-pot things & plant seeds on Sunday. I wont do these as individual pics as I planted A LOT of new seeds! (The hollyhock was a little plant). Here they are:

L-R: chilli - habanero chocolate (a christmas gift from my big bro),
dwarf beans - purple queen & stanley, hollyhock - salmon pink,
auberine - early long purple 2, alium (unknown variety from my mum),
forget-me-not - royal blue, patisson - sunburst
& sweetcorn - early extra sweet, mixed annuals,
pak choi - choko, red basil - dark opal, chilli - cayenne

Looking forward to all these coming up.
(click the photo to see them bigger)

These are some other seeds I planted - more of what I tried before, along with some new seeds.

Closest to us: peas - kelvedon wonder, sunflower - black magic.
The rest I've already mentioned in the seed list.

The plants in the photo are from my aunt. She's good to me :)

I also potted on some sweetcorn (early extra sweet) as they were doing ok. 6 survivors though - pathetic!

So much has been nibbled / not come up / perished in the mini-greenhouse that I decided to try the survivors in some propagators. I knew those leftover bits of palette would come in useful! Fingers crossed this plan works! Oh for a REAL greenhouse...

The purple podded peas (such a great name - I love saying it!) Nick's mum gave me grew so fast I've already put them into the soil. I have tried to protect them with some plastic bottles to keep them warm and, using some netting and clothes pegs, I made this protection from pecking pigeons :) I did the same netting around the mangetout but didn't take a snap. Looks the same anyway! Around the PPpeas, I planted the mixed annuals and around the mangetout, the forget-me-nots.

On Monday I picked up the new mower & spent a while trying to make it. Useless instructions & not enough hands hindering me! I tried it out last night and it works a treat. Huzzah

Now we are all up-to-date on the allotment antics & I am off to watch Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen... :)

Saturday: My box is full of tits!

Ok, before I get going, really I should explain the post title! Yes, that's right kids, there is a family of Great tits nesting in one of the boxes fixed to my shed. How exciting! I was getting some water into a can from the waterbutts and I heard some tweeting above my head. Giddy, I decided to sit a little way off and wait to see which flavour parent bird would come to the box. Turns out Great tits are in residence. Lovely little birds. I'm made up to have a fledgling family living on my plot. I took this picture of the adult feeding the squeaking babies, but only had my snappy camera so the zoom's not great.

I've been a bit quiet the last couple of weeks as I've had visitors, so not a lot of lottie time had. The bank holiday weekend my parents and older brother came to visit. We had a lovely time exploring locally - walking from my flat around the local countryside, as well as driving out and about visiting places. We even had a bluebell walk. The weekend after that my aunt & uncle came to visit. On the very wet & bitterly windy Saturday we went to the Malvern Spring Show. I got carried away and bought some plants and took oodles of photos of things that caught my eye :)

So, anyway, back to this weekend just gone. Saturday, as this is what this post is about. I went to buy some compost to pot more seeds & strained my back restraining a runaway trolley full of growbags. Not good! The seeds I've already sown are looking a bit sorry for themselves in the main. I think alot of it is due to Mr Slug & Mrs Snail, but probably the cold too. This is sum total of my propagation so far - pathetic really!

Anyway, I got lured to Homebase's 15% off day and bought a few bits. Um, and kinda bought a lawnmower! It is the same model as I've used before but now I have my own and don't have to struggle to get it in the car boot and lug it across 2 counties each time I want to use it! Alas, it is currently still on a palette somewhere in the warehouse, but I got it on the 15% discount. I am sure it will earn its keep :) I also bought a little patio appletree. It only grows 2m x 2m so will be tidy on't lottie. I've put it in the centre of my new mini-beds, road end. I like the name too - 'Patio Sophia'.

My aunt had brought me lots of seedlings she'd progagated, much more successfully than me so far! I planted out the cosmos at the road end, as they were about right to go in the ground. They should look pretty as I pull up when they're in flower. They will easily fill the space I popped them into. I also divided up the big road end bed, with string, into 9 sections, to make things less daunting.

Finally I tackled the nightmare that is my strawberry bed. Weeding. A lot of weeding! Here's the before...

...and after. I have only done 1/3 so far :(

All the photos are a bit orange, probably as it was quite late in the day when I took them.

I will post about Sunday's antics asap :)

Tuesday evening lottie time - planting some climbers & some balcony seeds

Amongst my many tasks once I get home from work this week is going to lottie and watering. Of course, it is never just the one task I do when I go there! I also did some weeding in the seed cling-film nursery and am pleased to see everything has come through. Even the celeriac did, which is teeny tiny currently, but I'm glad it germinated. It is the green specs to the far right. The radish is getting huge and I think I will need to thin these soon.

I also planted the 2 climbers I bought to grow next to my bench, under the blackthorn tree. The blossom is devine while it lasts, but it is a bit dull as a tree most of the year. The sloes are a no-go too. All wrinkly and inedible. There are so many locally it doesn't really matter. Anyway, I planted a clematis and a pink jasmine. The jasmine will smell lovely and I picked it for the name - stephanense. How could I not buy it! I even lined the little area with wood edges. Aren't I good?! Ha!

Above & below: the seedlings in the mini-greenhouse are coming on in leaps and bounds. Some of the squash varieties, the sweetcorn and the courgettes doing best. In the big tray, the marigolds are starting to show. In the little tray are some earlier-planted courgettes which need re-potting soon. I also planted some more seeds - asparagus peas (a new one on me!), purple podded peas and red flowered broad beans. The PPpeas and the RFbroad beans are gifts from Nick's mum. Bless her cottons. She has an allotment and I think they're her own seeds, as it were :)

Above & below: I have finally got round to planting some seeds in the troughs on my balcony. I accidentally dug out a bit of mint so that found a new home here, as well as planting a few mint seeds and borage in that trough. In the 2nd one is rocket and coriander; all herbs I like to have on hand at home. In the kitchen I always have a pot of basil, supermaket-bought as growing from seed last year took forever! I do pretty well at keeping basil alive and happy, so much so some of the plants I've had have even had woody stems I've had them so long :) Look at my amazing use of clingfilm again!

Saturday rush-job

It was a bit of a rush job on Saturday @ the allotment. Half ten til one, so no digging for me. However, I did do lots of weeding and watering, as well as getting on with more sowing.

This time it was some mangetout, 3 sets of 3 seeds next to a bamboo tripod. I covered the seeds with plastic bottle sections to protect the shoots from birds and to focus my watering. 

I also planted some sugar snaps next to the pea trellis. I made a second trellis frame and sowed the sugar snaps. I thought some cornflowers scattered amongst them would look nice, so they went in too.

This is how that bed now looks. Sugar snaps & cornflowers under the two polytunnels on the left, the mangetout tripod in the centre with protective plastic bottles and the far right, 2 polytunnels of peas.

I also planted out some sunflowers into pots as I am worried about the direct-sown sunflowers still not making an appearence. Perhaps I planted them too early? It has been cold overnight. Well, I can but wait and see what happens. If they're all a no-show I'll simply try some more seed. The sunflower plant pots went into my mini-greenhouse with the rest of the potted seeds. The yellow scallop squash has started to show, and some courgettes. Hopefully everything will germinate soon.

I planted two hollyhock plants last time I was at the allotment but I don't think I mentioned it. They're at the 'shed end' next to the globe artichoke there. There is a white one and a scarlet red one. Looking forward to seeing them. They're such magnificent flowers. That's them, next to 'Bob' my plastic pigeon :)

My spring flowers are also coming on well. New to flower are these narcissi...

...and some tulips in red. There are white ones to follow.

There will be irises and ranunculus to follow. The big bushy plant to the far left of the photo is 'Black Stockings', which I put in last year after loving it at Hidcote Gardens. The smaller green plant is a Lady's Mantle (love the fan-type leaves!) and in the plant pot is the mint.

Bad news on the tomato front on my balcony... I did something really dumb and I fed them with too strong a mix, I think. They're looking very sad and I am not sure if they will recover. Damn. Human error!

Huzzah! 1st BBQ of the year (and some jobs)

Sunday was allotment day for me over the weekend. Saturday was spring cleaning day at home. I am prepping for visitors so I've been busy with jobs whilst I have time. What lovely weather we had this weekend. Sun, and just the right amount of heat. Bliss!

Here's a snap of my chitting 'Rooster' potatoes. Not too many but I'm looking forward to eating these. I had planned to plant them out but I didn't get time in the end. A job for another day.

I checked the seed progress about the allotment and spotted this teeny tiny pea making an appearance. Currently it is the only one but I am hoping others will follow its lead. This shoot is about 1cm high!

The four pics below show the flowers I planted in some of the mini-beds I now have. I wanted something pretty I could cut and take home to my flat. I am particularly looking forward to the Ixia.

This photo shows the mini-beds. The 3 on the right are where I planted the flowers. Nearest to us is two rows of Ixia, the middle one is Gladiolus in the centre (maked with 4 little sticks), with the mixed annuals and Californian poppies around the edge. The furthest bed is the Dahlias. There are currently 12 mini-beds dug. There will be 15 soon. I was thinking this would be a nice size to work with, about 1m x 1.5m. Makes everything a little less daunting! I need to plan what will go in each bed but I reckon some more flowers could be in order, even mixed in with veg.

We had a fire. With MASSIVE flames!

Then, as the weather was good, I had my first lottie bbq of 2010. My friend Claire was chef. We made use of my big bbq as a stand for a mini one. Less bending down. Already it is asparagus season so I picked some (bottom right of the photo, on the shelf) and steamed it with a little water in foil parcels on the bbq. SO tasty. I love asparagus, me :) You can't get any fresher than that.

We celebrated with a bottle of bubbly, just because we could. I love this pic of Nick watching the cork fly into the stratosphere!

So, this is the tasty meal - veggie kebabs, fresh bbq-steamed asparagus, salad, bbq prawns and bbq-steamed salmon with lime and coriander. Yum! Trying to be healthy you see.

After dinner we released some pigeons... (!)
'Bob' the plastic pigeon, and his new friend 'Boo' went into the ground.

And Nick's bike got attacked by an alien! It is actually a left-over parsnip he found. I am sure it tasted revolting. :) He must've looked odd with this wedged on his bike as he cycled home.

So, they are all the snaps I took but I also popped in a 2nd trellis for sugarsnap peas next to the normal peas and cleared more dead raspberry canes away. I also planted the honeyberry, goji berry and blueberry I got from Suttons, but the pots were full of slugs and the plants look sad, so I am not holding my breath they will make it. Claire weeded the asparagus and Nick did lots of digging.

I hope you had a great weekend and the weather was kind to you too.