Grand day down at the allotment.

 Well you wait a few weeks for a blog post and then you get two in one day. Bank holiday weekend and whilst you will see photographs of beaches being swollen with folks, we had our plot all to ourselves, we took a picnic and the hours flew by. The crowning glory to the day is that we finally saw a frog residing in the pond. It is all the little things which make life good.

A grand day to go to the allotment

The sunshine brought the alliums out to flower

Our lass put out the reserve sweetcorn, having bought some thinking the first lot might fail we now have two lots, but they have replaced a row of raspberry canes which were simply twigs.

All the seedlings in, now lets see if they will flower, I am sure our lasses creation will be a success

My one job, putting the shade netting on my greenhouse, now lets see if it stays on.

And finally, a frog in the wildlife pond.

Day 40 Dig, Dog, Do.

I know a lot of the time is where I write Our allotment, but today I truly felt like it was our lasses allotment. Our lass did a lot of work today and all I did was barrow some wood chippings up the hill. Now I ain't fishing for credit, just in awe of our lass. 

The dog rose is all in place, and for an added touch our lass noticed some tree trunk/thick branch sections from a well established tree. So I brought them up with the wood chippings and our lass edged the area as you can see in the photographs below. The trench from yesterday was lined with blood fish and bone, the dog roses were then bedded in with compost mixed with grit. We also got a bonus as it seems someone from where got them from couldn't count to ten as we got eleven. Must have been a one more for luck.

Then when our lass had finished planting the dog rose, the potato bed was her next target and with the flash of a spade the lazy worms had the straw part of the manure turned over bringing it closer to them, so this will help more rot down for next month. 

I did also do a drain pipe of peas, in between the trips up and down the hill with the barrow and swept. but the star for today was our lass.

How this area used to look

And how it looks today

Our lass will be happy when the dog roses have grown up to cover the fence and block out the blue.

Can our lass dig it, yes she can.

Before

New photographs from the wildlife camera

 Who would think such a small area would generate the interest it does from the wildlife around us.

But the camera has been busy, even in the winter time, mostly all your standard birds such as blackbirds and tits, magpies and robins. But we have caught a few others passing by.

A great spotted woodpecker which was a favourite of our lass, and a male chaffinch, but the yellow flashing on the wings threw us as all the photographs we had seen, showed white flashing.

Always interesting to see what is passing by the allotment.

Day 22 - Signs of a hedgehog and our lasses experiment

Our lass has always had the goal of getting wildlife into the allotment, I am sure there is plenty out there but if you can get the right sort, such as hedgehogs, they are quite unlikely to eat your vegetables but they will dine on the slugs, so all in all everyone will be happy. Today we had our first little message from a hedgehog, next week I am hoping to set up a motion camera which might catch any action when we are not about and of a night time, but for today we will have to settle for a number 2 in photograph number 2.

In other news, you will see tea break corner, and what might be a bargain if it works. Our lass is also trying to see if the pop bottle planter will stay in place before filling it with bulbs or flowers, we brought up some old hooks from the previous allotment and now our lass is trialling different things to hang from them.

The dark patches are where our lass planted bulbs not number 2's

A hedgehog number 2 at the side of the pond.

Chicken soup and a coffee break

Time will tell if that was 75p well spent, you do get what you pay for in life. This being a thermometer on a spring.

Our lasses experiment with a pop bottle

Day 17 - The path reaches the shed, and more plants are planted.

I can indeed be annoying, impossible you may think, but today was a rare day of crossed words. On the half allotment there was never enough room for everything, On this allotment, we have a large shed, greenhouses, vegetable section, fruit section, compost bins, wild life area, the list goes on. I do however have the urge to clean up, and whilst our lass had been sorting around the pond, i had got disgruntled the grass was getting mixed up in with the bark chippings. in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, It is good it is a rare event now. In what we had achieved, the tayberry (* correction needed, it is a Loganberry bush not a Tayberry) and blue berry got planted as well as strawberry plants which couldn't fit into the bed, other plants found a home, and I finally made the potting bench up, maybe as asked if I had checked it when we got it a few weeks ago, I would have noticed a part was broken and we could have got it sorted, but all the same said potting bench is made. 

Day 16 - A door with a view and other things.

After every busy day, becomes a more relaxing one, today was just adding the finishing touches to things, we put some shelving up in greenhouse number two, (our lasses cuttings greenhouse) putting some card board up as the wind was pushing thru the foam, and putting two plants in the pond.

Day 15 - Pond Life and more digging.

Our lass had bought a pond when we still had the half allotment, but for sometime it had spent its days in the garage and then our new shed on the new full size allotment, Today was to be it's day for being put into place, with nearly every choice, and our lass makes the choices, I make suggestions. It can take a eureka moment to go, "that's the location" or "this is what we will do." The pond was no different, Our lass had deliberated with differing locations, but this had been the same for the compost bins, and now everything is slotting into place. You have the before and after photographs, but this was not all, whilst I dug for the pond, our lass dug in front of the new compost bins ready for the new fruit section. Plans are in place, potatoes down one side, with vegetables in the other side, and they will be rotated each year, fruit along the edges and around the compost, and flowers anywhere else we can put them. The pond area under the apple trees will have wild flowers which our lass has since sown. 

After

Before

Before

After