Out of action

Any gardening activity has been put on hold for me. My problem with my shoulder has migrated and now the length of my arm and wrist are affected. When I wake up on the morning, I mostly feel ‘normal’ but soon after getting out of bed reality settles in and activity is restricted. I’m writing this on my iPad again as I can sit back nestling in the cushions of the sofa. 

I have managed to wander around the garden to take a few photos. 

There is quite a lot of colour in the garden. One could almost imagine that we had waved goodbye to winter weather but sadly this isn’t the case as the temperatures drop.

Martyn has been busy tidying the garden and sorting out the garden greenhouse whilst I have had to be satisfied by curling up with a Kindle. At this rate I’ll have to pick out more books. As well as some tidying, Martyn made sure that the newly sprouted potato’s and dahlias were covered with layers of fleece to protect them from the sudden cold spell. It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of the week, we were basking in summer temperatures

We had an afternoon at the allotment but for me this just involved a mooch around with, Ruby whilst, Martyn uncovered more beds and hoed the soil in preparation for planting. We made a video tour of the plot which is posted here.

There is lots of colour on the plot too. Some tulips in the pear tree bed are fully open. Soon they will be joined by pear blossom as the trees are covered in buds ready to burst. I hope that they wait for the cold weather to disappear.

The flower buds of the earliest blueberry bushes are also ready to open.

The Oullins Gage plum tree, as usual, is the first of the fruits to flower. I hope some of the bees spotted the early flowers during the short spell of summer. Ruby is worryingly showing great interest in anything that flies so we are hoping that she doesn’t manage to catch anything that will fight back.

The warm weather and slight easing of lockdown meant that we shared our first coffee break for over a year with our plot neighbour. We have all had our first vaccination but still sat far enough apart but at least it was a start.

We gathered a small harvest before heading home.

We still have a few red cabbages that have stood up to last winter’s weather better than the green ones. Some of these will be cooked and frozen.

The Rudolph broccoli we are enjoying freshly picked.

This week’s selection of meals start off with a Thai squash and pineapple curry. Into this went some Crown Prince squash, onion and frozen green beans.

Next was a spiced chicken stew made in the slow cooker into which went more of the Crown Prince squash.

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Finally, I made an Indian style vegetable rice. Into this went, onion, carrot and from the freezer green beans, sweet corn and peas.

That’s it for last week, I’m hoping that this week my activity level will improve although the weather is not likely to tempt us to do much outdoors. It may have been summer at the beginning of last week but we had a light covering of snow early this morning. Fortunately, it didn’t hang around.

As always in these uncertain times keep safe and well.

This week I'm joining Harvest Monday on Dave's Our Happy Acres blog so I have linked to him this week  

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett