Improvising slightly with ‘greenhouse’ space for the courgettes, cucumbers and squashes but it should be a nice warm week to get them germinated. I need to expand my cold frame capacity for next year. #allotment #gardening

Had a swarm of bees fly over head this morning at the allotment, you hear them first of course, then slowly make their way up, we thought they may have stopped at one of the allotments, but we couldn't hear them as we left so maybe not. We get a fair few swarms here and used to have a local bee keeper come and get any that landed. We had three swarms one year, and one landed just above our compost heap at home! Amazing to see the keeper just come and calmly cut the branch they were on and put it in a sort of temporary box, then come back later that evening when he felt the rest had gathered in it. Marvellous thing. #bees #allotment

Haven't seen 3 corner leeks

At the plot, made it to fix the trimmer, had a two hour go and two tanks of fuel, not finished yet.

Beans have survived a cold night, which is good. When putting them in the ground used what appears to be a very very large nail, off a wooden ship, who knows, to make a foot deep hole, to get through the weed suppressor, cardboard, then delicately insert the root up to the top. This way presumably the roots will stay in the wet, as it were.

Phew, so far. Am sitting in the shed having a cigarette.

Bumblebee nest – accidentally revealed when lifting some cardboard. I’ve put it back as well as I could and committed that patch of the allotment to them for the reminder of the season.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/274540340

Garden update: potatoes are up, peas and fava beans beginning to flower. Might even transplant the lima beans under cloches today. #garden #gardening #allotment #potatoes #peas #favabeans

Just a pic of somebody else's plot at the community garden. In two weeks he'll lay down a fresh layer of plastic, plant tomatoes, peppers, and sunflowers, and then never return to harvest a thing. I don't know why he does it. #CommunityGarden #garden #gardening #allotment #plastic #weeds

I kinda hate potting seedlings on as they always look so sad to start with. I water them in and come back in a few hours and they look fine. But right now all my tomato plants look like they have given up any hope
#allotment

I am at the #allotment a lot. Often there is no-one else here. Partly that's because I started the season in the relegation zone. Now comfortably placed in midtable. But also because I can potter quite a bit. There's not enough pottering opportunity during the week.

A cool (but not cold) rainy morning here. Perfect for potting on the Verbena bonariensis seedlings that I started on March 9th. They were thinned out to a "reasonable" quantity on April 9th, and now are big enough to pot on. I was just thinking about how long I've been reusing these same pots and I figure I've had them at least 30 years now, just like all the rest of the pots I use.
#gardening
#Allotment
#NewEngland
#Zone6b
@gardening

Two courgette plants is usually one too many. Potting these on regardless. #allotment #growyourown #gardening

We're browsing Nasturtium seeds on Kings Seeds and Kat shouts out "nasty! nasty!" ... so now we're listening tho "Nasty!" by the Prodigy whilst browsing Nasturtium seeds.

We always had Nasturtiums growing and I grew up calling Nasturtiums "Nasties", because @JillyG does... I wonder: is this a common thing?

Do you call Nasturtiums "Nasties"?

Home from the fruit cage, it's not finished by any means but it is at last mostly netted.
#Allotment

#Today BeetBear went out to appreciate all of the lovely sights that spring has to offer around out property. He admired the numerous dandelions, Star of Bethlehem, and Vinca to be seen and then checked up on my progress in the green house.
#BeetBear
#gardening
#Allotment
#NewEngland
#Zone6b
@gardening

It was a nice day out in the garden today and I got the second row of tomato stakes in and put the support wires around the peonies by the front door. The River Birch in the front yard is going to have a great year for seeds, The Goldfinches will love it. Forecast says rain is on the way for tonight and tomorrow, so we'll spend time under cover transplanting Verbena.
#gardening
#Allotment
#NewEngland
#Zone6b
@gardening

I’ve been away so did a quick visit to the plot this evening to water the greenhouse seedlings. Came away with a bag of rhubarb, cauliflower and greens to fill up the fridge #allotment

Hop now at 130cm and warm weather back.

And so it begins. First cut of the asparagus season. Eight weeks of binge eating one of my favourite foods, then I won’t touch it again until next year. #allotment #asparagus #SeasonalEating

I thought I'd done a good job digging out the mare's tail. I was wrong. #allotment

The raised carrot bed, seeds sown quite close together in short rows. Chantenay red cored left 4 rows, the rest are a fat stump rooted variety Katrin that stores well. Not sure how they will do at such close spacing but will eat the thinnings and just see how it goes. From RHS book on gardening, apparently female carrot fly, fly low so 2 feet high should be enough. Now I am thinking another foot higher, maybe I should add another bit of height.. haha oh well we will see!
#gardening #growYourOwn #allotment