Leapfrogging spring

Other than the odd spring-like day, we seem to have missed spring altogether and jumped straight out of winter and into summer. 

The flowers on the allotment are certainly enjoying the sudden upturn in the weather conditions.

We made the most of the weather and spent three afternoons at the allotment playing catch-up.

We don't usually have any trouble germinating peas, but this year the first sowing just never put in an appearance, so we resowed in the hope that the second sowing will fare better. We don't know whether something ate all the pea seeds or they rotted in the wet soil, if something did eat them, it will be one very fat creature as two full rows disappeared and we sow our peas generously. Whatever the reason for the no show, we didn't find a trace of any seeds when the ground was turned over and the second lot of peas were sown. 

As well as the time spent at the allotment we also spent an afternoon in the garden. The tomato plants were planted out in the garden greenhouse and also in the plot greenhouse. 

 More tomatoes have been planted in a raised bed in the garden. Also in this bed are planted, a mixture of lettuces and a Mini Munch cucumber.

Whilst, Martyn planted the allotment tomatoes, I tidied out the shed. This job was much overdue but, I was waiting for a dry day so that everything could be moved outside. It was just as well that I'm not worried by spiders. At least now we have a clear area in which to sit and have a coffee if we need to shelter from the rain. 

The brassicas destined for the plot very nearly were consigned to the compost bins as, for ages, they just didn't make any effort to grow but, once they enjoyed a bit of warmth and sunshine, they kicked their heels and quickly flourished. Instead of the compost bin their new home is now their very own bed on the plot. We planted cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli and sprouts and just hope that they do better than last year's failures. They are now safely protected from pigeons and butterflies under enviromesh.

Also now safely protected, from opportunistic birds, is our old strawberry bed. Our first ripe strawberry fell prey to either a bird or a slug. The fruit has been left, just in case the thief was a slug and it decides to return to the scene of the crime. Slugs will often do this, and will carry on browsing the same berry instead of moving on to a new target. The netting will unfortunately be no barrier to our slimy foes.

We planted our leeks on Sunday afternoon. This year we have slightly adapted our planting method after picking up a tip from last week's Beechgrove programme. George, one of the presenters was on his allotment planting his leeks. He advocated digging a trench and planting the leeks in the bottom. This was then done as usual by making a deep hole with a dibber and dropping the leeklings into the hole which was then filled with water. George stated that this way you end up with a longer white part to the leek, as the trench gradually fills up and blanches the lower half of the 'stem'.

It's not an easy process to photograph, but we did take some video explaining what we did and this will be posted shortly. I'll link to it in my next post. Despite some beds still being too sticky to dig it was quite difficult making the planting holes as the top layer of soil is now very dry and the holes kept filling up. Martyn 'dibbed' the holes and I quickly followed on dropping the young plants into the holes before they closed up.

Of course at this time of the year, the week wouldn't be complete without us harvesting some rhubarb. The large stick on the right is from a clump of Giant Grooveless Crimson.

We paid our weekly visit to Nostell where the trees were now at their very best.

Instead of there being dandelions for Ruby to frolic in she had fun amongst the buttercups and daisies.

I was anxious to find out whether all four cygnets had made it through the week and happily they had.

Both parents are constantly watching over their brood and hissing at any potential threat to their young family.

The cygnets are growing quickly and now there is no mistaking that they are young swans.

We haven't seen any ducklings yet but most of the ducks that we have spotted are males so maybe the females are busy sitting on nests. The male above looks to be a hybrid as ducks are not too fussy when it comes to a mate and often produce mixed breed offspring.

I'm guessing that the crows that we saw are potential predators of any untended young birds. The cygnets were lucky to have had such good parents.

There are plenty of young families in our garden too. The parents have to grab a quick bath whenever they can.

I'm still harvesting from the freezer and on Wednesday some of our frozen leeks went into a bean and vegetable stew made in the slow cooker. It was based on this recipe but I only cooked it for half the time stated in the recipe.

On Sunday I used some of our frozen French beans and made a chicken, potato and bean curry,

Fortunately they both tasted far better than the photos imply.

As well as the three afternoons that we spent on the allotment we also paid a visit on Wednesday evening to film a plot tour. If you are interested in viewing,  it is here.

As always keep safe and well 

This week, once again,  I'm going to sneak into Dave’s Harvest Monday collection of posts over at Our Happy Acres where no doubt others will again show off a much more prolific harvest than ours.

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