Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Called in at the allotment on the way back from the Post Office this morning.

It was actually easier walking through the snow on the allotment site where, it had at least not been compacted into sheet ice as it has on many of the pavements.

I don't think there's any digging to be done today though, except digging out the greenhouse door so I can get in…

( Snowdrifts )


The sun's come out now (lunchtime) but I don't know how effective it will be at melting the snow and ice - there's not much strength behind it yet.

Yesterday it snowed. A lot. The birds have been hungry and spending a lot of time on the feeders. Which is sad for them but gave us opportunities to take their photos :)

Which I would have posted yesterday but Imageshack seemed to be having a bit of a problem uploading stuff. Seems to be fixed now though.

( Hungry Birds )

Despite having a weekly order of live mealworms, we've nearly run out today. So I checked on the RSPB website and from the suggestions there today we've been giving the birdies grated cheese, cooked rice, raisins and dried mealworms soaked in warm water.

Yesterday I got my potato trench finished and planted some onion sets. I was hoping to get the potatoes down to the plot and planted today, but the weather's gone all splooshy again, so that hasn't happened.

The first batch of sweetcorn has started germinating - ten seedlings showing at present. Probably time to plant a second tray then :)

I have nice little rows of carrot, brussel sprout and borecole seedlings in the seed beds, which I'm pleased, but mildly surprised about - stuff sown directly into the ground has historically not done well for me. But then the weather's been as mad as a box of frogs this year, so who the heck knows?

The strawberry plants have started to flower, and the apple trees are blossoming - but now the weather people are predicting frosts, which can't be good.

 No snow here today, but we had the first real frost of the year. 

Not bad really considering that last year we got the first snow in mid-November.  Rob's already done twice as many cycling miles this month as he did in December last year :)

The weather has been miserable and grotty this week, so to cheer things up a bit here's a flower :-

( Snapdragon! )

Today's harvest from the allotment :-
( Cut for picture )

Our friend Tom kindly gave us some spare broccoli plants yesterday, so today I toddled down to the allotment to plant them.

There were some really dramatic clouds over the power station at Radcliffe on Soar, but I don't think the picture I took does justice to the light quality.
( PIcture of dramatic clouds )

Had a sort through my seed packets today and found I had a variety of cabbage (Durham Early) that can be planted now to overwinter and that I can put some caulis in now for an early crop next year too. I'd already started clearing the weeds from a strip in front of the apple tree bed for winter crops, so I did a bit more of that today and planted a tray each of the two brassica varieties.

I won't get anything done on the allotment tomorrow as I'm off to Wolverhampton with the Anura (NooNoo to her friends :-)) again, this time with a selection of pedals to try. But I hope to get the bed cleared and rotovated next week provided the weather remembers that it's August and not October.

Today we toddled out to a small shopping centre at a place called Swinfen which was celebrating having been open for 25 years. Rob bought himself a new red t-shirt in the Rohan shop sale. There was a small farmer\s market there too and we found an interesting local jam maker there - I bought a small jar of Orange Curd for my Mum and Rob bought some fruit and chocolate jam for his. We also got a card from the maker so that if they like it we can get more :-)

We were promised rain today (again) but despite some dark clouds and a gusty wind there's no actual precipitation so far. In fact, I put a load of washing out at lunchtime and it's dry now.

Metcheck, the weather forecast website we usually use seems to have gone completely tits-up too.

We had a little rain overnight, but it was still very hot and stuffy today, which made it harder to motivate myself to go and Do Stuff on the allotment. But I got my backside in gear eventually and filled Roley Poley Oley,(my rolling water barrel) and trundled him down to the plot to supplement the rain barrels. They'd been topped up a little by the rain, but not enough to make much difference.

So as well as feeding everybody with Wazza Whiz, today did a bit of hoeing and now my herb beds look like actual beds again rather than outposts of the Great Weed Empire. My purple sage has gone bald in the middle though. Plenty of healthy growth on it, so time to take some cuttings to replace it with if I can get them to root.

The first flower buds are appearing on the runner beans and the broad beans have started producing pods - better late than never I guess! Artichokes will be ready any day now.