I'm allowed to spend my daily exercise up at the allotment, but in practice that's not something I'm doing very often. With just one excursion per day, it's not often going to be spent on the allotment. That said, I got up this week to struggle my potatoes into the ground (and have nearly done so -- not quite all, the main crop still need to go in) so here's a little allotment progress in pictures:
I stood right up in the rough to take the overview photo, to fit in the fox's compost bin and the tube I use for couch grass "disposal". My Broad Beans are short (not enough water, soil thin and mean) but very floribundent. Filing some extra tulips up on the allotment has worked out well.
My pea plants are still very small. I gave them a weedaround. Might help, or might just turn them into salad beacons for pigeons. The bed behind the bean sticks has Jerusalem artichokes in it, and below that's the couch grass I pulled out of the second earlies potato bed, left bottom. The winter mustard has bolted, and the hover flies seemed to be liking the flowers, so I left them to it. No sense in clearing anything you're not using.
Speaking of things being used, the bees are still very much present. I managed to weed a bee into a huddle of yellow ants that promptly swarmed it. It shook off most of them but two hung on, onto each wing, keeping it pinioned and stopping it from flying off. I'd never seen anything like it. The amazing photo below shows it shaking its wings to try and dislodge the ants. This didn't work, and I last saw it crawling off into a dense tussock of grass, scraping its wings on everything to try and dislodge the ants. That also didn't seem to be working. The little fuzzball with the pollen-caked legs also came up in a trowelfull of earth; presumably it had been down there laying its eggs. Sorry bee!
Finally, the daffs and tulips that I hadn't reckoned I'd like the look of in the garden all came up. Looking good, everyone! Right decision there I think.
I stood right up in the rough to take the overview photo, to fit in the fox's compost bin and the tube I use for couch grass "disposal". My Broad Beans are short (not enough water, soil thin and mean) but very floribundent. Filing some extra tulips up on the allotment has worked out well.
My pea plants are still very small. I gave them a weedaround. Might help, or might just turn them into salad beacons for pigeons. The bed behind the bean sticks has Jerusalem artichokes in it, and below that's the couch grass I pulled out of the second earlies potato bed, left bottom. The winter mustard has bolted, and the hover flies seemed to be liking the flowers, so I left them to it. No sense in clearing anything you're not using.
Speaking of things being used, the bees are still very much present. I managed to weed a bee into a huddle of yellow ants that promptly swarmed it. It shook off most of them but two hung on, onto each wing, keeping it pinioned and stopping it from flying off. I'd never seen anything like it. The amazing photo below shows it shaking its wings to try and dislodge the ants. This didn't work, and I last saw it crawling off into a dense tussock of grass, scraping its wings on everything to try and dislodge the ants. That also didn't seem to be working. The little fuzzball with the pollen-caked legs also came up in a trowelfull of earth; presumably it had been down there laying its eggs. Sorry bee!
Finally, the daffs and tulips that I hadn't reckoned I'd like the look of in the garden all came up. Looking good, everyone! Right decision there I think.
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