Body Shop Product Review:
I usually opt for a weekly body scrub but I thought I’d give the body polish a go and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it. The scent is wonderful and very summery, which is great. And the polish itself lathers up well and also gives your skin a bit of an exfoliation at the same time.
This one has been setting me up nicely for the day! The product contains cold-pressed seeds from jam making.
A couple of visits to the allotment this week as it was so hot and we needed to get some watering done. Today, I thought there would be a huge amount of rain but in fact it’s not been like that at all and we’ve even had sun. Surrey must have missed the memo about the storms.
Anyway, the French climbing beans are doing well but of course there’s never as many as I’d like – I’m a real fan.
The second planting of peas we did a few weeks back are also finally starting to grow which is good news – we had been a bit worried about them:
Today, K planted another yakon to keep the first one company:
We’ve decided to buy some little gem lettuce to add into the raised bed above as there’s space – so will sort that out next week. That’s a hearting lettuce so we don’t have to worry about it bolting.
I have also sown some basil seeds and carrot seeds into the space next to the original lilies – they probably won’t do anything but there’s no harm in trying. You can’t see much in the picture but they are definitely there!
In the world of our new fruit cage, we have already found a couple of holes in the roof netting, so K has mended these with string today. We’re not too fussed about it as the roof netting is simply an old one we were using at home – it’s the wall netting that’s new.
We also have our first gladiolus in bloom, hurrah! Such a glorious colour – I’m a real fan of anything orange or red.
Here are our two harvests this week:
Above are lilies, sweet peas, the gladiolus, a Peruvian lily and a few roses.
Today’s harvest has soft fruit! We cropped gooseberries, blueberries (Smoky Blue variety), a few tayberries and one spare blackcurrant. We also have the French beans, the first of the scented lilies – which are amazing – more sweet peas, Peruvian lilies and roses. The house right now smells wonderful!
Here are the vases at home:
Have a lovely weekend, everyone.
Yes, we are mad. Quite quite mad. We have finished off building the fruit cage in the hot hot sun of today. Probably not the best way to spend the hours between 11.30am and 2pm, but hey we like to live dangerously, LOL!
So today, we have rolled the netting round, and K stapled it in at every wooden post. At one point I left the roll propped up to get some secateurs and it collapsed over the blackcurrant bush but no real harm done, phew.
Here’s the roll on the left hand side of the pic as we rolled it round:
Once the sides were all done, we then had a lot of fun putting the roof on. This consisted of me inside the fruit cage doing a lot of jumping up and down and pulling the netting tight so birds don’t get stuck in it – while K stapled the edges to the cross beams of the roof. We then secured it at the two remaining side cross-beams with ties.
I also went round the bottom and secured the side netting down with netting pins. There was a slight panic when we thought we didn’t have enough pins but we had a search round the rest of the allotment and found more, hurrah. There are always spare ties and pins lying around when you need them …
Here is the roof:
The final part of the puzzle was putting netting across the door which we have now done.
So all finished, we are VERY HOT and also very pleased with how it’s turned out. I must give HUGE credit to my lovely husband who has designed and built it all himself from scratch. We then went home, drank a gallon – at least! – of water and we have now opened the Prosecco to celebrate!
Job done.
Yes. Today is the hottest day in the whole world this year apparently. So how better to spend the hours between 11am and 2pm building a fruit cage in an area with NO SHADE!!
We are indeed insane. Still, we remembered to take water – so delightful when the water is hotter than you are when you drink it. Today we have finished the base which we have also been working on throughout the week. K has been putting the wood down and I’ve been building up the ground with mulch as the allotment ground isn’t straight. The result being no gaps at the bottom of the structure.
I also cut strips of ground sheet out to give to K to staple onto the roof cross-pieces so when we put the netting on, it won’t tear. After ten minutes of doing this, I took my scissors, my kneeler and the ground sheet roll to a tiny bit of shade near the hedge as it was just too darn hot in the full sun.
K has also very cleverly built a door which we fitted today.
We’re pretty pleased with it – it opens and closes and everything. Here is a picture of our now protected roof cross-pieces:
In other news, the gladioli now have their first buds on which is fabulous:
And the courgette has a flower:
And in very exciting news, the first climbing French beans have cropped:
Here are pictures of the two harvests we’ve taken during the week:
Above you can see carnations, sweet peas (such long stems!) and lilies.
And today’s harvest (above) is roses, sweet peas, coreopsis, carnations, the last of the mangetouts, the first of the amazing climbing French beans and some blackcurrants – which I’ll make into a crumble with some plums I bought.
Here are the vases at home:
Enjoy this scorching weekend, everyone!
Back in the allotment today after a two-week hiatus due to mental health issues. K has been nobly keeping things going and also working on our massive fruit cage, which is coming along amazingly well. He calls it ‘woodhenge’!
As you can see, we have decided to skirt round our rhubarb bed and the door area can be seen next to the rhubarb in the photo immediately above. A work in progress and a major undertaking from my amazing husband, but it will make life so much easier when it’s done.
We have also decided to take the verbascum out – well, it was just becoming a nightmare and to my mind is a terrible flower for cutting – it sheds petals every second or so and it’s a hive of moth caterpillars! Yuck. So I dug those out for the compost heap today and instead – inspired by our trip to Hampton Court Flower Show last week – have planted three scented roses for cutting. We have Desdemona, Lycidas and The Poet’s Wife. We also bought a fourth rose – William & Catherine – but we will plant that at home.
As you can see, the lilies are doing wonderfully:
And the sweetpeas are finally starting to grow:
Another thing that struck us today is that the weeds are just crazily out-of-control. Honestly, this year is the WORST year for weeds both on the allotment and at home that I have ever known. Must be to do with the amount of rain we’ve been having, but it’s just crazy.
Mind you, the rain does mean vegetables are doing well too. The cabbages are beginning to ‘heart up’ which is great news:
And the beetroots are doing okay too:
My favourite of all of them though is the climbing French beans which have already reached the top of their supports:
We have discovered a small wasp nest in the shed which is a real pain – K went back after we’d come home to deal with it, as we certainly don’t want those sort of shed tenants!
Here is another allotment view for you:
You can see that the gladioli at the front are doing well too. Today’s harvest is the lilies, some mangetouts and a decent amount of blackcurrants plus one redcurrant, all alongside my boot, LOL:
Here are the gorgeous lilies at home:
Have a great weekend, everyone.
The Allotment Wife 