A few winter survivors...

It amazes me that after all the snow and freezing weather we've had that anything survived the onslaught, I would have just curled into a little ball and given up. But some things did survive..I've just harvested the last of the curly kale, I will definitely be planting that again this year it's been great, even if you don't eat it (which would be a waste) it's the prettiest plant and it's complicated leaves seem to fox anything that might want to try an eat it before you do:)


  The purple sprouting broccoli deserves a medal for endurance, not only surviving the weather but a severe attack by pigeons when the netting got blown off. They must have been sitting in the trees waiting for the wind to do it's thing rubbing their little wings together:) It's the first time I've ever tried to grow it and I'm stupidly proud of it's little florets...might not be enough to feed a party of people but I think there's enough for a treat meal for me and Chris.
 

                                          

 

The celeriac looks like nothing has touched it, unfortunately it's suffered from my lack of gardening knowledge and although it has lovely healthy leaves the bit you actually want, the swollen root just hasn't happened. I think I sowed them too late in the season, I was a bit too eager when I got my allotment last year to start planting seeds...should have known better. I think I've also planted them all a bit too close together, I've just not given them enough room to grow. I will do my homework this year and make sure I get it right cos I love celeriac, I love the fact that something so ugly and unpromising to look at can actually taste so great.

 

I also planted some broad beans to over winter which I really thought had had it. I'd tucked them up under a lovely brand new pop up fleece cloche which at the first gust of wind just...popped off...I just couldn't get the thing to stay put even with heavy duty tent pegs. So the poor plants ended up fending for themselves and a few of them seem to have made it...a few unfortunately took the 'I'm just going outside...I might be sometime...' route but I can't say I'm that surprised. I'll plant a few more seeds near the potatoes just to bulk up the numbers a bit and because apparently beans and potatoes help each other out. I love broad beans I even quite like the mindless peeling of them, there's something quite satisfying about the fiddly process that appeals to me.

A school trip...for hens...

Today I took my hens to school. My small boys class is doing a topic on the environment and they have an incubator in the classroom and have been waiting patiently for the eggs to hatch. Eggs waiting to hatch are not very exciting (they will be though!) so when his teacher heard I had hens she asked if we would mind taking ours in to meet the children. I had visions of chasing terrified hens around the classroom pursued by a lot of over excited children like some terrible comedy sketch..cue music!

Of course in reality the children were lovely, sat beautifully and listened perfectly to me talk to them all about Barbara, Betty and Boo. My little hens who had never been out of the garden before let alone in a classroom surrounded by children behaved themselves too, apart from squawking loudly through registration...they were definitely present miss!...it was almost as if I'd trained them;)

 They even allowed all the children to have a little stroke at the end and didn't peck or poo on anyone!

I'm a bit concerned that I will now be known as hen lady (guess I've been called worst) but it was lovely to share them with the children and hopefully teach them a few things they might not have known before...who knew that hens go bananas for ...bananas?

A favorite plot memory...

It has been a difficult to get to my allotment recently when the sky hasn't taken against me the minute I get there (must get that shed!) so I thought I would go back a few months to when the sun shone...September to be precise and remember one of my most favourite allotment days of last year...
 
 I'm not as enamoured of my birthdays as I once was, I've had far too many of them, we should all stay 21 forever as far as I'm concerned! But last year I went up to the allotment after work as a birthday treat to myself to give my squash plant a talking too..it really wasn't very well (it didn't get any better either sadly). My big boy turned up on his bike with a very large and heavy rucksack on his back. He pulled out of his bag...magician like.. everything he needed to make me my favourite cocktail...a ginger mojito...he knows his mother;) He'd even brought the cocktail shaker, a bag of ice, the lemon squeezer..he'd nearly killed himself, my allotment is up quite a large hill!

 

   He makes a mean cocktail my big boy! We spent a very lovely evening drinking cocktails on the allotment, helped me to ignore the weeds for a time...they look pretty healthy in this photo I've just realized:).

 I'm hoping this year I will have at least managed to grow the mint to use so he doesn't have to bring that again (that will reduce the weight of his bag!) because of course all I want for my non birthday this year is a mojito on the allotment again...I'm really not hinting...well perhaps a little:)...cheers! x

Spring seeds...

Woo hoo...been big an brave today and started seed planting, the first of March feels like Spring so seed planting definitely feels like the thing to do! Last year I started too late with the tomatoes so by the time the poor things even thought about getting fruit the bad weather cut them down. I didn't really have anywhere to put them either because we had replaced the decking and Chris  got very tetchy about me putting my vast 'plants in pots' collection anywhere near its shiny newness. So me and the tomatoes sulked in the wrong part of the garden which didn't do any of us any good. This year I'm hoping to plant them at the allotment near what will, fingers crossed, be my asparagus bed. I've read ( I do read a lot..I work in a library for goodness sake) that they make good companion plants, tomatoes scare off some nasties that asparagus suffers from apparently..not sure what asparagus can do for the tomatoes but they like the same sunny sheltered spot so with any luck they will be just good friends:)

Anyway back to my seed planting, I've planted 6 different types of tomato, think it must be a family thing, the love of tomatoes so I'm on a bit of a mission to find the best and I kept getting packets with my gardening magazines. I've also planted 2 different types of wild/alpine strawberries which I've never grown before, some cauliflower and aubergines. I don't have a greenhouse so I'm not too hopeful about the aubergines but they were another packet of seeds I got free with a magazine and I was taught never to waste things and I think  they are quite nice looking plants anyway even if they don't fruit. I might have to sneak them onto the decking when Chris isn't looking...its not quite so new an shiny now after the winter we just had.

 I want to plant the strawberries around the apple trees, another companion planting thing. It's all a bit of an experiment but it can't hurt to try. I just need to make a bit more room on the windowsills for all the other seeds I want to plant now...