Hello sunshine!

The last few days here in Cornwall have been fab! The sun has shone, I feel like I’ve got plenty done and the rate of seedling demise seems to have slowed. The alliums in the garden have started flowering, I’m definitely planting some on the allotment next year – the bees can’t get enough!

I have plans for making more rhubarb jam this week (hopefully I won’t burn it this time!) and have seen a recipe for a rhubarb cordial that I’d like to try.

On the allotment, the peas we put in at the weekend have so far avoided any significant damage from birds and we found a birds nest above our potting bench – the chicks are now big enough to peek out of the nest:


Yesterday, Ashley and I collected some carpeting from a local marquee company that was to be dumped or burned – we are going to use it to mulch our paths and other areas for the next year in the hope of really getting on top of the weeds. I’m hoping for another good weekend so we can get some more work done – although it’s a bank holiday in Cornwall which practically guarantees rain!

I’ve spent loads of time this week sat out in the garden potting on seedlings, sorting and clearing pots that have been emptied by the slugs and re-jigging plants to hopefully have some colourful flowers in the garden in a few weeks time.

Hope you’re all enjoying some sunshine too!

A quick visit to the allotment

I popped up to the allotment last night about 8pm to give the plants in the greenhouse a water and generally check on things as I haven’t been up there for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the birds and baby rabbits (who we discovered could get through our fencing!) have been having a nibble! The damage isn’t too bad but I needed to do something about it quickly before we lost crops. The peas and young brussel sprout plants were the worst affected, the Swiss chard had been nibbled but not too badly. Everything else seemed OK. Luckily, I had some gardening fleece in the car that was intended for the allotment anyway so I covered the affected veg with that.  I had some hoops to raise the fleece off the young sprouts but the rest of it was just laid over the plants. It’s so light that it doesn’t damage the plants at all. I had to try and wrap the fleece around the pea supports. I will try to find a more suitable alternative for the peas but hopefully it will save the peas from the hungry birds for now! Thankfully, the bigger rabbits can’t get in or I don’t think there’d be much left at all!

allotment