Allotment, good and not so good

There are lots of good things happening at the allotment at the moment.

Lots of parsnip seedlings have germinated this year after my unsuccessful attempts last year.


Lettuce seedlings are pushing their way up through my very stony soil.

The broad beans are covered in flower.

The redcurrants are already forming.

Then, there are the not so good things such as my broken compost bin.

Netting that has been pulled off the plants it was protecting and dumped in a corner.

This frame which supported the netting over peas has been snapped into pieces. Judging by the footprints it must have been broken by someone jumping on top of it.

Yes, our allotments have suffered at the hands of vandals again. I got off quite lightly really because I had very little for them to destroy. Every row of bean sticks on the field was pulled down and even thick stakes supporting raspberry canes were pulled over.

Why?

Whatever goes through the minds of the people who decide to purposely damage something that others have spent time and effort on?

I know in the scheme of things a few vandals damaging allotments is not the end of the world and most of us have already repaired the damage but what a pointless waste of time, for everybody concerned.

Spring Bank Holiday

There seem to be a lot of holidays at this time of year especially so this year with Easter being separated from the school holidays. The May bank holiday has always been one of my favourites, right at the beginning of summer, with lengthening evenings and the promise of warm sunny days to come.

We have had days of very heavy rain and the ground is waterlogged and muddy but the forecast for the holiday weekend is good and we should at last have some summer weather. Yesterday evening the clouds cleared away and a short evening walk seemed like a good way to start the weekend.

The oak trees looked particularly golden in the evening sun.


This one was covered in catkins.



The bluebell wood was damp and dim in the fading daylight but it looked and smelt just wonderful.

The scent of flowers often seems to be more pronounced in the evening and yesterday the air in the wood was very still.

We came out of the wood just in time to watch the sunset.

Have a good weekend.

Coastal walks

Nowhere in the UK is that far from the coast but we are over an hour away and don't tend to go that often. We had a short trip to South Wales at the end of the holiday and instead of heading to the mountains we explored the coast.


The weather wasn't ideal for the seaside but the scenery made up for it. This is Rossili bay at the tip of the Gower peninsular and below is Worms Head,an island ( I didn't study geography at school but I am informed that it is a wave cut platform) that can be reached at low tide.

It was a bit of a scramble to get across with pretty rock pools to look at and masses and masses of mussels.

It was very bleak and windy when we got there so we didn't linger. The wild flowers don't seem to mind the harsh conditions. The yellow flowers are kidney vetch and the blue ones Spring Squill.

I always think of scenery like this when I think of the coast but of course a lot of the coastline is built up and industrialised. The following day we visited Cardiff where the waterfront area is still being developed from a working docks to a leisure area.

It was a very grey day but the waterfront was a lovely place to wander around. Cardiff is the home of Dr Who and Torchwood and we did visit the exhibition but were not particularly impressed. For any fans of Torchwood, the headquarters are supposed to be underground in the vicinity of the water tower!

Next stop Penarth and a walk along the pier.

I like piers, being able to walk above the waves although unfortunately it was low tide when we were there. This one is just over a hundred years old. The Victorians seem to be very good at pier building, the railings still look good.

I hope some of the new buildings we saw in Cardiff Bay will last as long as this lovely old pier.

Minature Earth

I found this link today. Minature earth looks at different statistics as if the world was a village of 100 people. We all know how unequally wealth and resources are spread throughout the world, this short clip (just a few minutes) really brings the point home.

http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm

April gardening

I love this time in the gardening year when everything has started growing. These courgette seedlings are growing in the kitchen where I also have small tomato plants on the windows sill. These will move outside to my mini-greenhouse soon but I'm keeping them inside while we are still getting heavy frosts.

The little greenhouse has been useful for growing a few salad leaves during the winter.

On the lower shelf I now have some very young pepper plants and some broad beans. I have sown these few extra broad beans in pots after something (pigeons?) uprooted all the ones I sowed at the allotment a couple of months ago. I found the plants lying wilted on the surface, they would have been about two inches tall at this stage but didn't seem to have been eaten just pulled out of the soil and left. Perhaps I should net them next year. I will plant out these from the greenhouse soon and hope that they will fare a bit better.

The potatoes that I planted in pots are doing well. I planted these at the end of February. As they have grown I have been covering them with extra compost and now they and the compost have reached the top of the pots.

So all I have to do now is water them and wait (and stop the chickens digging them up first!).


The small plum tree I planted in the front garden last autumn has been in blossom so it looks like I will get a little fruit in its first year.




No pictures of the allotment this time. It is quite an exposed site and things have been slow to start this year. I'm sure once the weather warms up everything, including the weeds will be growing quickly.