Bring on summer

I bought 2 punnets of strawberries in Melton Mowbray market today. They turned out to be a bit ropey so I hurriedly made the second lot into jam. I could have done without this job when I already have lots of other things to do tonight, but the house is now full of the most gorgeous smell of jam-making.
Bring on summer!

Plant Swop

The plant swop at our village hall this weekend was a great success. I took surplus borage plants, lettuce, wild rocket and red cabbage seedlings and some self-rooted honeysuckle from the garden.
I swooped for foxgloves, aquilegia, a hosta, a flowering currant and a variety of other unnamed gems from enthusiastic gardeners who I trust but who just didn't know the names of all their plants. Rather like me, in fact.
I had some time on my hands that afternoon so they all got planted. But horror of horrors - the cosmos and foxgloves are already being eaten by slugs. I knew there was a reason I have none in the garden. So I am lying in wait for the little critters tonight: tweezers and salt water at the ready!

Just another rock'n roll Saturday night...

Urgent dash to the lottie with the strimmer coz for once it WASN'T RAINING! Managed to avoid the plant labels but did inadvertently strim through a garlic. Just another rock'n roll Saturday night...

The Lincolnshire garlic harvest is approaching

It's my day off but it's too cold, wet and windy to go to the lottie today. I need to finish weeding the raspberries. The original canes have been in for about 4 years now and are pretty choked with weeds. More weed than canes in places, if truth be told. I started the job on Monday but didn't have time to finish. Ah well, I'm sure the weeds will wait until I next get there...
At least I managed to keep the garlic weed-free this year. I am growing Albigensian Wight, Early Purple and Picardy: all autumn planted and they are doing really well so far. With luck the plot is sufficiently well drained to ensure that the immense amount of rain we had during April doesn't rot them. That would be a real pain at this late stage in their growing season.
I planted too close together last year and it was almost impossible to weed between the bulbs once they reached a certain size. So this year, predictably, I went to the opposite extreme. You could probably march an army down the rows this year. But don't they look great?

Plant Swop May 20th

I have been busy sowing seeds in the greenhouse this month. Amongst other things I have borage, red cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, hollyhocks, salads, spring onions, raddish, sweet peas, runner and dwarf beans, carrots, lovage and meadow sweet all doing well.
Any surplus I have will be coming with me to the Plant Sale or Swop which my friend is arranging (Claypole Village Hall on May 20th if anyone is interested). Seems like a great idea to me!
It is probably a bit cool yet for some of the other things I want to try like aubergine and peppers so they can wait a while.
In the meantime the 40 borage plants which I potted on are playing "in, out, in, out, trundle all about" on their little trolley as I move them outside and back in again in the awful weather this week.

Now where did I put that spinach soup recipe?

I've heard people say that farmers are never happy - always complaining that it is too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold. Well I am starting to know how they feel. I have been stockpiling any and all containers which could be used to get water down to the lottie and have installed 2 more water butts because of the drought. Currently, however, the butts and containers are all chock full of water, it has been raining for a fortnight and the garden is too wet to walk on.
I nipped down to the lottie this afternoon, not intending to do much but wanting to check nothing major had been flooded away. I suspect the 3 rows of carrot, beetroot and spring onion seed I sowed last week are probably half way to the Wash by now. Certainly nothing has germinated but that's hardly surprising.
I wasn't really dressed for lottie work...but then again how do you dress for the allotment when it sunny one minute, pouring with rain the next, and is rounded off with a good battering of hail stones? Whilst I really did not want to walk on the soil too much conditions were just right for weeding. I couldn't resist pulling some up and chucking them on the compost heap, although as you can see the dandelions behind the spinach escaped my attentions. Must make a mental note to charge up the strimmer and take it down when it dries out a bit.
Last year's perpetual spinach is loving the current conditions and is growing like mad. I cut a large carrier bag's worth and figure today would be a good day to dig out the biggest pan we have and whizz up some spinach soup. That should see us right.

Bugger the manicure: just get over this rock

We have had a bit of a break from the lottie, garden, greenhouse and dog this week as we spent Easter visiting my parents in Devon.
On Easter Sunday Him Indoors and I left the girls torturing their grandparents and went to walk a beautiful section of the Devon Coastal Path between Beer and Branscombe. I have done this many, many times, usually taking the cliff path. This time on the way back we took the lower path and eventually dropped down to the beach where we enjoyed a lovely few minutes of peaceful sunshine.
The tide was exceptionally low and I recalled a vague memory of being able to get all the way back to Beer along the beach. Well clearly, as you are reading this you have already guessed that we made it, but it got a bit hairy (for which read slippery, scary, scrambly and toes-almost-in-the-water) at times.
There were one or two points at which I really did think: "Bugger the manicure - I have no choice but to haul myself by the finger tips over these rocks." It was much further, and took much longer than anticipated.
Happily the initials RNLI are not involved in the telling of this tale, and Him Indoors has graciously refrained from pointing out that it wasn't his silly idea but mine.
The photo marks the rock archway through which we could finally see Beer. To my immense and eternal relief.