Plenty of sunshine, plenty to report, still cold at night.

Recently there has been a lot of sunshine, it has been strong enough to bring on the sun tans but not enough to push the thermometer outside the green house above 16 degrees. Inside the greenhouse it has been able to reach 45 degrees and thanks to very good advice from our lass we have some greenhouse shading material arriving next week but it has all been contrasts as in the evening we have been greeted by frosts and minus 3 degrees. Makes for a very confusing balancing act to keep all the plants happy.

Can not sustain such high numbers.

Far too hot in the greenhouses to sustain the lettuce

Our lass is always good at finding a bargain and upcycling things around us. On a lone trip to the allotment our lass completed a project of surrounding an inconvenient tree stump with milk bottle plant pots, should look even better when the flowers grow from them.

Just like winter currently bare will look even better in summer when in flower.

Another great find from our lass on FaceAche, you can't beat free

Two iron gates, quite some weight to them, will be very useful

A little early but the runner beans have been sown

Will any of the leeks make their way out of the holes?

Slugs like rhubarb as much as we do, but this is the rhubarbs first year so needs as much chance as possible to get a foothold. So our lass has a cunning plan to help it survive, so far so good.

As we have been leaving the allotment we have been finding some great allotment giveaways, firstly a couple of tubs, mostly likely not wanted due to the half an hour plus it took us both to part them, but once done we now have one for beans and one for carrots. So we didn't fill it all with compost, we filled to the top with straw and horse muck from the pile at the bottom of the hill and watered down, then just used one bag of compost instead of five. French beans sown and as the straw/manure rots down hopefully a source of nourishment as well.

Trying to fill every bit of space.

Another find as we were leaving moment was the logs and off cuts you will see below, this is the second time a pile had been left, before we were naive enough to think they would be still there the next day, obviously they were not. This time even though it was a trek back up the hill for the barrow, back down the hill, and back up the hill with a full barrow, we now have stepping stones and seats for the grandkids.

Nice little haul

and finally 

As we were leaving the other day, to look back and see the clear blue sky and to take in all the feeling of potential

Happy New Year 2021 - New Years Day down the allotment.

Everyday is a learning day, today we learnt not everything can be a success, but you learn from it and go on. We also, well I learned thanks to our lass, that there is a lot more to life, just being in the game can be just as if not more rewarding than going for the win. People will normally only talk about their successes and never of the failures, but they do say you have to taste failure to make the flavour of success taste sweeter.

But first, lets start with a little bit of repurposing, our lass put up this sail boats decoration on the shed of doors. 

A not so healthy looking onion set, they have in the main part sprouted shoots, and as you can see here, have a semblance of a root system. but the onion part has gone funny. I am trying this out on one which wasn't fully rooted like the rest of them. 

I re potted the onion set from above, it now lives in the green house. I am thinking the ground has been too wet for them and although a lot of grit had been added, it may have got water logged. will keep you updated.

The tomato seeds which germinated when I tried to save them and so I tried growing them instead have as you can see succumbed to the first frost.

Next we have the aubergines, as you can see I only tired out 5 seeds have 95 more in reserve, they need a warm start, and the green house isn't quite up to temperature yet, but I have put them on the hot bed, and as always will be hoping

When on the back window of the greenhouse, the thermometer thought it was 20c

When moved to a more honest position, and the back was not touching the glass heated by the sun, but in the air of the green house, the temperature dropped down to 14c and by the time we left it was down to 8c.