Make hay while the sun shines

OK, now I’m hacked off – I just spent the last 20 minutes typing out todays blog entry and a little slip of the keyboard and it’s all gone. I’m now using Word, and I’ll copy the text into blogger, at least Word has an “undo” function!

I set off for the plot at 10 am this morning with the intention of planting out my peas (Stephens – Heritage), broad beans (both Aquadulce and Martock – Heritage) and my raspberries (yet to be discovered). I returned home at 6pm having planted my peas.



Needless to say that’s not all I did! I’m not that rubbish! However, during the eight hours I was down the plot I left the peas in the sun whilst tackling some of the other jobs (which I’ll cover later), and the result is they look a bit sorry for themselves. I placed them in bottle cloches to give them a bit of protection, not only form the birds, but also the low night time temperatures we’re forecast for the next few days. Speaking of forecasts, it seems that we’ll be having a few days of grey skies, which should also help perk my peas up a bit! I’m a bit worried about them truth be told, with them being Heritage varieties I only received 5 seeds – luckily all of them germinated, let’s hope they last.

The broad beans seem to have suffered the same fate as me – sunburned. I was wearing my hat, and factor 25, but it seems to have not been enough. Maybe I should have also tried factor 25 on the beans.




As I was getting myself ready this morning – ferrying backward and forward to the car laden with trays, tools and sustenance, I noticed a couple of paving slabs that we had left over when we had the patio redone a couple of years ago. I kept them thinking I’d do something with them eventually – well, here’s what I did, albeit two years later.



All I need now is a welcome mat and a doorbell and I’m set!

One thing I noticed today was that the apple tree is looking a bit better after I gave it a haircut toward the end of last year. A couple of weeks ago I was wondering if I’d done the right thing or not as it seemed that nothing was happening – no buds, no new growth. Well, as you can see, things look a bit different now. I’m hoping that blossom means fruit?




Lat year, LadyWayne and I visited the Eden Project, and whilst there I picked up a couple of meadow flower seed packs, and it was one of those spur of the moment things – I didn’t really know what I was going to do with them to be perfectly honest. In my quest for home grown I have neglected to grow anything floral. So a while back I created a little flower bed at the front of the plot with the specific purpose of having flowers, just to brighten the place up a bit. I raked it over this morning and planted the seeds which include poppies. I laid some of the apple tree cuttings over the bed and draped some chicken wire over the top in the hope that it discourages the birds from nicking them all!



I had a couple of minutes spare so decided to make a pond. I walked round to the neighbouring aquatic superstore – Chiltern Aquatics, and asked the dude behind the counter if they sold off cuts of pond liner. He said they did, and sold me a 18x20ft piece of butyl liner for £20 which seemed reasonable to me. Back to the plot I trotted, with my new pond liner under my arm and about an hour (and a trip to the local garden centre to buy sand and a couple of pond plants) later I give you – Pond, Wayne’s Pond.




I used some of the old tiles that Dad gave me last year to neaten things up a bit, and placed a few in the pond so that there is a place for anything in the pond to get out – frogs being the obvious choice, children the lesser.

Now, I’m sitting here, my hands hurt, my back aches, I’ve got a sun burned neck, hands and forehead despite my best efforts, my feet are sore and I keep getting cramp in the backs of my thighs. This allotmenteering is good for you they say!

Oh, one last thing before I forget - which I'm prone to do as LadyWayne will vouch, I had some old bits of bamboo can lying about, so I chopped them up, bundled them together and hung them from one of the fence posts as a little home for some aphid eating ladybirds or lacewings.



I’m having a day off tomorrow.