Fred

We spent a fair amount of time at the allotment yesterday and finally cleared the last patch of grass and weeds up to the water tank. We planted some sunflower seeds, dug up some potatoes and endless more jerusalum artichokes!

It was another gorgeous hot day, but the sun slipped behind the trees by about 3pm to give us some shade to work in.

This is the view from the other end of the plot, I think you can really see how much work we've done in such a small amount of time.

We have a new addition to the allotment...meet Fred! We're hoping he'll help us out by eating his fill of slugs.

Daz and Loulou were pleased to have some shade today.

Another nettle recipe

Just found this on the Guardian Allotment blog, for nettle quiche, sounds delicious!

27 degrees!!!!

Popped up the the lottie this evening for a couple of hours.... on a weekday....and 27 degrees. Which was fab til I realised the water butt was empty!!!! Anyway, it was still gorgeous, did a couple of hours digging (sadly the fork we unearthed on the bank holiday did not survive!)

There were only two other allotmenteers up there so it was nice and quiet and I listened to the lovely Eddie Mair on me portable radio - an allotment essential if you ask me (that's if anyone is still awake!!??)  

Dug round the rhubarb, sat and enjoyed the late evening sunshine and dug up some potatoes kindly left by the previous allotment holder (thank you whoever you are). I can't tell you how much I am loving the allotment - well, I could but you already asleep!

Bank Holiday allotmenting

This post might stop part of the way through as I am soooo tired after a wonderful day at 28a. Tanya got there first, followed by me then Seamus and the dogs (and their own wee sun tent) then our lovely friend Mistress Val from Skelton Towers. Lovely Val has now been officially appointed as our new Dishonourable Member! Between us we got an amazing amount of clearing, digging, planting and chatting done.

We cleared all the couch grass from the magnificent raspberry bushes, almost finished the tool shed, replanted the cornflower, tulips and hollyhock!!. Whilst digging up part of the plot we found an abundance of jerusalem artichokes, potatoes and something red that we are not quite sure of. We replanted a lot of it and I will be having a huge pot of jerusalem artichoke soup this week.

It really was the most beautiful day today and I for one have burned my back, what with the allotmenting in a vest. It is so lovely to be in the middle of London with the sound of the birds and your hands in the soil....and what lovely soil it is too.

I thoroughly recommend physical labour for the bingo wings and for getting a good nights sleep!!

Monday 5th May - scorchio!

The weather was gorgeous today and we spent 4 hours on the allotment. We were joined by Val who dug and dug and dug! Thank you so much for your help Val, it was great to have your company and hard work.

The picture above shows the plot first thing this morning, the last picture will hopefully show how much work we did today.

We dug up a healthy stash of Jerusalem artichokes and some other unidentified root veg and replanted as many as we could. We also found some spuds so put them in too. 

Other finds included a fork (in really good condition), another trowel (that makes 3), foxgloves, alliums and tulips. 

We moved the bamboo wigwam thing so we could dig easily, and Seamus moved a couple of the raspberry canes that were getting a little trampled. And then we sat down for lunch.

May the fourth be with you

Seamus, Paulene and I have just taken on Allotment  28a at the Dulwich allotments. It needs a lot of work and some tlc but hopefully with three of us putting in some back breaking hours now, we should get on top of the worst of the grass and weeds in the next week or so.

Seamus and Paulene spent a couple of hours last weekend digging over an area so we could get some potatoes in, Paulene and I continued digging this weekend as well as clearing an area towards the back of the plot.

Today is May 4th and the three of us visited 28a together for the first time. Paulene and I showed Seamus where we had found Horace (the hedgehog) sleeping peacefully underneath some plastic roofing, curled up in a tight ball in some leaves....

He had thankfully decided that he wasn't going to get much more peace and quiet with us lot around so he had left his bed.

We cleared an area at the back and built our tool storage box, great to have it up so we don't have to carry tools back and forward each day. We listened to Gregory, the local woodpecker, tapping away while we were there, the sun came out a few times but it was mostly cloudy with a nice breeze.

While digging I found some fennel so replanted it in a different place. Paulene replanted some bluebell bulbs that were being trampled while we put up the tool box. I picked some nettle tops and made a fairly successful nettle soup for dinner, one of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's recipes, I found it on the BBC website here.

Hopefully the rain will hold off tomorrow and we can get a couple of hours work in.