A P(l)otted History Part 4, April 2016 Onward

[Westi]

Good One Pa!

Would have been fun if you had sent it to one (or all) of your plot holders about something, but judging by the average age on our plot you might have been hauled up to the judge for culpable homicide!

Westi

[Pa Snip]

Love it. It was the Mrs Kay Nein that gave the game away.
Does somebody else in your family have the same wicked sense of humour as you do?

My father was a wind up artist at times, but I am considerably more so than he was. Even at school I had a wicked sense of humour, usually at teachers expense which in turn of course I suffered for BUT it was so so worth it

Poddington Pea is pretty good but still learning the art from the master

[dan3008]

[Even at school I had a wicked sense of humour, usually at teachers expense which in turn of course I suffered for BUT it was so so worth it

Ah Pa, you had much to learn. When pulling a prank on the teacher, make sure the class bully is the fall guy

I still lay claim to the title of master though. One particularly cold winter day, me and a few friends poured LOTS of cold water over a particularly nasty teachers car, freezing it shut all week. He took pleasure in making students cry, so we felt justified in making him cry. He was a science teacher

[Pa Snip]

Although being cautious about frosts and not yet sowing or planting in any great volume we have, over the last few days, transplanted some of the two varieties of onion that I sowed as seed on 2nd January.
60 Mammoth

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plus 66 Bedford Champion have been planted out on the plot.
Have tried to give both types a little shelter from the winds.
Hopefully some large onions for the show entry will result.

Also yesterday managed to plant the final lot of potatoes, late mains Sarpo Axona.

Late in the day three other plot holders claimed a frost was predicted for our area last night. BBC online weather forecast for the area was overnight temperature minimum of 4 degrees. Foolishly we didn't ask the others where they had gleamed their information from so Ma and I thought we would take no chances and returned to the plot early evening to try and give the pear and plum tree blossoms some protection. Eventually managed to get some fleece on both. This morning there was NOT a sign of overnight frost.

I am really pleased with the plot this year, Everything has finally come together and despite there being little growing on it yet the ground looks and feels good. What is growing is growing well and it is probably the most ready for the new season that it has ever been.
Just finding it more and more tiring some days but determined to keep on top of it, age & health can beset many of us if we let it.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I'm glad the frost has missed you, we've had a slight frost every day except one for the past week, but the blossom still looks good and there are lots of bees about, when the sun comes out, for pollination.

The onions look good and isn't it satisfying to see your plans coming to fruition. I'm still recovering from a really bad chest infection ( bad cough ) and am out of breath just going up the steps. We've five flights from the bottom garden to the top with terraces up the levels, so I get plenty of exercise and normally don't even notice.

[Primrose]

Those onions look good Pa and hopefully we should now soon be entering a frost free zone. I missed the boat for sowing any Mammoth onion seeds which I had planned to experiment with and seeing yours wish I had done so. Glad you are feeling hapoy with your plot. You've put an enormous lot of work in over recent months and hopefully this will all bear fruit when you start planting out.

This is first year I've not felt my usual impatient enthusiasm for getting out sowing and planting. I am doing thngs but everything takes longer , feels more of a physical effort and i now have to work in ahorter batches of time which is frustrating. A total body transplant for my next birthday would be a welcome gift As the old joke says, the ground moves further away every time I get down on my knees to pull up the weeds!

[Pa Snip]

Those onions look good Pa and hopefully we should now soon be entering a frost free zone. I missed the boat for sowing any Mammoth onion seeds which I had planned to experiment with and seeing yours wish I had done so.

A total body transplant for my next birthday would be a welcome gift !

Never having grown onion from seed before I have no idea just how big they should be at this stage,
I feel they are a little small.
Well there's an admission, my onions are a little small !! .....

But I still have almost a seed tray full if you would like some.


I don't think my offering you my body would serve any useful purpose

[Pa Snip]

2 > 3 weeks back, or thereabouts, I mentioned on a post somewhere that I had found in a writing bureau drawer a packet of French beans dated 2006 for use by 2007. For the sake of curiosity I sowed 30 into two module trays to see if they would germinate.

The result was 100%



Failure

[Primrose]

That,s a pretty good lesson Pa not to take the "sow by" dates on packets too seriously.
I'm waiting to see whether my swede seeds from the last century are going to germinate . Nothing has appear yet but I suspect it may be frosty nights rather than old age which has done for them.

[Pa Snip]

Primrose

I think you might have missed the small print at the end of the post

[Primrose]

Morning Pa! Yes I did miss it. Blame it on geriatric eyesight ! That's the internet equivalent of that annoying habit used by TV competition hosts where they say "And the winner is...........and then leave a long pause which makes yiu want to throw a brick through the TV screen!

I think that probably proves old beans are not good for anything, even eating.
I had an elderly jar of dried butter beans in the cupboard which I soaked as normal overnight for using up with a ham hock. Despite simmering them gently for ages they still remained as hard as rocks. I guess they just harden as they age to the point where it's impossible to breathe any new life in them.

I'm glad I removed my germinating runner beans from the plastic mini greenhouse. Even in the house last night our temperature fell to 16 degrees.

[Pa Snip]

I was in two minds about taking the bird protection off of my three types of young peas yet.

Rare that I actually sit down to drink a cuppa whilst up the plot, usually sip whilst working or stand having a chat.
Yesterday I decided to sit in the shed doorway and whilst doing so watched a pair of jackdaws on my neighbours plot.

My neighbours had put a small amount of string over newly planted lettuce bed and a number of young brassica's

Had to laugh as the jackdaws took it in turn and quite deliberately stepped or hopped on the string to hold it down to the ground whilst the other bird nipped the tops of the plants out and ate them.

You could say they were having a field day but it meant my bird protection stayed in place.

[Primrose]

Jackdaws are quite intelligent birds, as are crows. We have a small mini pond with tadpoles in and the crows regularly come and go fishing on the edge of the pond. They just yank reams of pondweed out with their beaks, put it on the side of the pond and pick out all the wriggling tadpoles caught up in the weed.

I have always thought of sparrows as being innocent little birds s but judging by various reports on here they can also be very destructive. You would have thought that with all the new green leaves appearing on trees and hedgerows at this time of year the birds would have had plenty of greenery to peck at without coming down to allotments to be so destructive. Maybe human foods just have a better flavour!

[Pa Snip]

Maybe human foods just have a better flavour!

Reinforces what we keep saying on here.....tastes better straight from the plot

[Pa Snip]

Following on from the post I made on May 27th, about being in two minds about taking the pea bird protection off I started to do so as and when the pea were over a foot high.

Until yesterday morning that is !

I arrived at plot at 08:10 and as I drove slowly up to the plot a flock of pigeons and a pair of crows took off from the plot. On inspection they had been having a feast on the various pea leaves and stems.

The frame work I have used for the pea supports made my task somewhat easier. Fortunately I had enviromesh and netting in the shed.

To me the resultant defences now look akin to the cab and bonnet of a large MoD Land Rover, roof mounted AK47 lookalikes may have to be next

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