Kitchen Garden Forum

That's great, OH. Our 'regular' cuckoo arrived on Sunday.
No rain here expected until 1 May at the earliest. I have resorted to putting the sprinkler on the vegetable beds in the evening.
I did my permitted one food shop of the week toady by walking to and from Skipton, a round trip of about 80 minutes. It's a great walk, seeing barely a soul and very few cars. I wore a mask into the shop (thus obeying my NHS-employed daughter who forbade me to go into a shop without a mask!) and sanitised my hands on coming out. The mask was supplied by my other daughter in Germany where they are freely available. It's properly fashioned to fit and has a pocket into which you put a double layer of horticultural fleece for extra protection. Strange times ........

Seems along time ago the storms destroyed my windbreak fence at the end of the vegetable garden, almost forgotten with the good weather and the strange goings on. Concrete mixer broke down, couldn't get the spare (only bought it in 1985) from manufacturers then son of supplier said he might have one, turned out he was stuck abroad then quarantined then didn't have one after all. Needs must, made something myself and it worked! So today I got the monkey off my back by completing it. The bed in front was the cracked on in my earlier post but my new little cultivator smashed it up a treat.

If there was a prize for "longest tap root removed from plot" I'd enter this one!

Mr 'A' has delivered my new sweet pea arches & the rust paint to make it last a bit longer! Hollow tubes so need some treatment! I should be weeding but sweet peas seedlings are screaming at me to let them grow! It's not going to be easy with the mutt in tow but weather looks fine so best not waste the opportunity for the paint to dry!

I love it when 2 things line up on the plot (and it hasn't happened for a few years due to a busy pre retirement end of career!!!)
The two things are having the ground ready to put the plants into when both the plants and the ground are coming together at the same time. Helped by the lockdown putting me into the allotment in amazing sunshine everyday for several weeks now!!

I'll try to remember to take some pics of the plot itself tomorrow

We heard a cuckoo for the first time this year today, too. Such a wonderful sound.
We had a real treat a couple of days ago. Sitting in the lounge just after lunch, a beautiful hare slowly hopped across the grass and then over the track to the neighbouring field. I've never been so close to one before. Marvellous!

Still waiting to hear the Cuckoo...but have just seen a pair of Swallow.. I was wandering down the garden with my cup of tea and heard a certain chittering, looked up and there they were...

C.

Bindweed has poked itself out of the ground by up to six inches.
Our Town Council had banned bonfires completely and without any notice period in March.

Presents me with two challenges.
As site agent I now have peed off tenants and some random dumping of trash for the council to take away. They don't, the T's and C's are tenants take away anything they brought.
Secondly how does one compost raspberry canes, bramble pruning's, apple prunings et SL
I have s couple of concrete bins/bays made of slotted concrete posts and concrete gravel boards.
The six foot square one is full of: assorted prunings, brassica remnants and mowings of home lawn and site track - about a foot of each.
I'll see how it goes.

Local council have suspended compostable eacyd collection to ensure general and recyclable continue to function.

I think a lot of people are having problems wondering how to dispose of very thick prunings. The only way I can think of, if you don,t have an overwhelming amount of them. is if you have some very large containers into which your prunings can be dumped, chopped up very small and then covered with water and left to soak. This might at least help them to rot down more quickly. This will I vious work better if the prunings are too covered with leaves which will end up making a rather squidgy brew.

I tried a shredder a few years ago but that went to the tip before lockdown, waste of time. I can still bonfire but thought adding to compost would be good.

Lots of butterflies about: orange tip, green-veined white, small and large white, holly blue, small tortoiseshell, peacock and, on the moor, green hairstreak. Not seen a comma yet but I understand they too have appeared in the area.

The bindweed! If only 6" is showing, it is slacking! This is how much I have removed in the last couple of days!

There is more, dumped in a second pile in the unused area and some more got burned before the bonfire ban.

The bind weed is having a whale of a time on my plot as well. Most of it is new, not my usual nemesis that has at least a foot of white weed but wee pieces. I think it has been imported on the stable straw we get delivered that I use to mulch over winter.
(And I check it carefully for obvious pieces). That has to be my target to remove completely while I can before it gets established, the resident ones will just have to have a hoe until then, as my dahlias are just poking through so don't want to damage them too much but it is their bed & the front flower bed. Thankfully that is all I mulched!

Another scorching day, but I am going to bite the bullet and get rid of some of the cleavers which are growing like mad.

I've often wondered about cleavers / goose grass, they appear to be so easy to pull out but are they, do they come again from the roots?