bloomin' bloomin'

The flowers at the allotment are looking many times better than those in the garden, probably due to being just left to get on with it instead of constant fussing and watching for those in the garden (well that and a lack of foraging poultry which the garden is now filled with).

This is a very good thing as I imagine that passers by will find their eyes drawn to the glorious blooms rather than the very spiky weeds that I'm too scared to tackle (this is probably wishful thinking as most seasoned vegetable growers have weed detecting radar and several of my allotment neighbours spend all day, everyday mooching about on their plots...)

We've also been making good use of our 'Cobb' oven now that the days are warmer and lighter and having a hot, filling lunch/dinner after a day of thistle menacing is proving vital.  You are meant to be able to roast a whole chicken in one, although we haven't tried that yet, but we did cook some of our christmas dinner in it last year...

bumper berries

After all these holidays those of us with allotments should be way ahead this year - gulp.

At the moment I'm dreaming of thistle roots, having just turfed all my baby peas out of their spiky nursery in order to dig it over for the THIRD time this year...at this rate I'll have perfect soil by September, with not a crop to show.  Move over thistles and bindweed, the potatoes are coming.  My new tactic is to plant more potatoes than we will eat in our lifetimes in the spiky end of the allotment and then ignore it....

The lovely end of the allotment is doing well (if you don't count zero precipitation thus stopping all germination) and there are an exciting number of berries on their way this year - hurrah.