Unexpected visitors!

We had some unexpected visitors at the allotment today, but the first group were very well behaved and seemed interested in what we were doing, so I hope they pop along again sometime …

Aren’t they gorgeous! The foal was just adorable, but so fast moving that I couldn’t really get a decent shot.

Anyway, to more allotment-focused matters, today we planted up some more rudbeckia:

And also we added in some more pea seeds in the pea area, plus some beetroot (as below):

The alstroemerias are doing well and there is even one coreopsis in bloom (the yellow flower):

And the sweet peas continue to come along, although there is sadly a bit of a blackfly problem with them, so I keep on spraying …

And the lilies are in bloom (though not the new ones … yet):

Speaking of unexpected visitors, we have a rabbit interloper – oh the horror! So we put a plank over the hole as a temporary measure, but will have to get that fixed soonest …

Here are two harvests, as I popped up during the week to give the place a watering as the weather was so dry:

Here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Sweet Peas in bloom!

A quick trip to the allotment today as it’s my birthday weekend (21 June) and I have lots of other things to do!

We were pleased to see the sweet peas are finally in bloom, though they do have a lot of greenfly on them so I’ve sprayed them thoroughly.

We did a weed round and K trimmed the plot edges. Here is the harvest of sweet peas, verbascum, alstroemeria and carnations:

And here are the vases at home:

Have a great weekend everyone, cheers!

Anne Brooke Books

Getting the Beans In

This week is the week to get the beans in on the allotment so we’ve put in runner beans (at the front of the picture) and French climbing beans (at the back of the picture):

K did a brilliant job getting the supports in. We had a few plants of both types left over so we gave the French beans to a fellow allotmenteer (thank you, Helen!) and left the others near the gate for anyone who wants them.

Another allotmenteer was kind enough to give us some of her spare purple sprouting broccoli plants (thank you, Nicola!), which we’ve never grown before. We’ve added these under the netting next to one of the sprout areas:

It was also time to dig up the tulip bulbs, which I’ve now done. It was pretty hard as the ground was so dry but I think I have most of them. I’ve put them in an old bird food bucket and will take them home for planting in the garden in November, as usual. We’ll buy new bulbs for the allotment next year:

Whilst digging them up, I forgot to wear gloves (silly me!) and so managed to scrape the skin off my palm (ouch! ouch!) when using the trowel. Sigh! Oh, and I also tried to tidy up the communal shed but realised as I was just getting going that there is a new wasps’ nest in there (yikes!) so put everything down and backed away very slowly and carefully before they got really angry! K has now put a big post with the word WASPS on it leaning against the door, which he had to write with his finger and some dirt as we didn’t have any other way of doing it! That definitely deserves a medal or two, LOL. We have wasp killer products at home so will try to get back and sort it out at some point.

In better news, our first couple of sweet pea flowers are out, hurrah!! SO thrilled by this!

Anyway, here is the harvest this week – which consists of rhubarb, carnations, verbascums, 2 sweet peas and one sprig of Peruvian lilies, which is great. No proper lilies yet though, sob.

Here are the vases at home:

Have a great weekend, everyone! And don’t forget – today is World Gin Day – cheers!

Anne Brooke Books

Netting and Thinning Out

It was definitely time to thin out those sunflowers today before they start exploding! Here is the ‘before’ shot:

And here is the ‘after’ shot – I think I’ve done a pretty good job with them too:

K and I also put the netting up for the soft fruit – we’d ordered a new net and pins to hold it down, but the new net still wasn’t big enough! So we’ve had to add an old piece to one end of it and we’re hoping for the best. We’re also hoping the structure will stay upright as it’s been pretty windy today …

While I was doing a fairly serious weed, K also added the netting to the peas so they can get going:

The Brussels sprouts are also doing okay, which is good news, though I added more slug pellets to them just in case:

Plus we’ve given everything a bit of a water as – in spite of the rain yesterday and today – the soil is still terribly dry …

Here is the harvest of verbascums, carnations, asparagus and rhubarb:

And here are the vases at home:

Have a good weekend and stay safe, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books