This time of year is when the allotment has the potential to look it's best. Everything's in and growing but not at at that 'out of control' stage where growth is lairy or early harvests have been taken and have left a mess or gap. It's all coming along nicely. I've taken a wander round the plot with the camera* and these are not pretty but they are a record keeping selection of pictures. This is more for me than for you (sorry!).
*pictures taken a week go and already everything looks different.
Starting with the left hand side: Potatoes, she says with a fixed smile knowing that I've said year after year I don' really care for eating potatoes. Yes I'll have potato salad and roast potatoes but I don't need a ton for a half plateful at every meal. So here's our 4 varieties of potatoes... Second earlies are Charlotte - lovely salad potato. We've just started taking some and they are delicious. Marfona. Main crop are Desiree and Maris Piper. I suspect I will be offloading many again this year and storing them in the cupboard/freezer.
Here's the runner beans, now these I actively dislike. So C has grown 2 rows of these. I have just sown borlotti beans for myself but they don't have a space allotted so who knows where they'll end up.

We planted these globe artichoke in sympathy as there were a load left on the 'sharing' table at the allotments where people put their excess or unwanted plants. I tried one the other weekend after an attempt at prep which left me baffled. Nothing really on it... I have a feeling these will be donated. What a lot of space they occupy, The broad beans behind them are quite the opposite. I love broad beans and they will all be eaten. We snaffled a few pod and all with a few minutes steaming but now they need podding.
The monstrous everlasting sweet peas. They refuse to climb and prove a trial to tie on to the arch.
After the shed and arch it's the beetroot, carrots, swede and more carrots. The netting is for the carrots as in previous years the carrot fly annihilated the crops. Last year we netted and enjoyed carrots for months.
The block of sweetcorn. We're growing Incredible F1 and I hope that ours is the first to flower or that everyone else on the allotment is growing the same variety. Cross pollination ruins the cobs.

Jerusalem artichoke which has spread a lot since started, then celeriac and leeks. The leeks are a bane to weed (and weeding is my job). The rows are tight and the fragile leeks cannot be knocked. I'll have to do it by hand asap. Update: All weeded nicely now.

Then right at the back it's the sugar snap peas and...
Dwarf french beans. The asparagus bed used to be here but we moved that to the old flower patch when I took them to the flower plot. Do keep up.

And so on to the right hand side from the back... In the muck bays we have courgettes in one and butternut squash in the other. I forgot to label the squash so it's either Hunter F1 or Inca Gold. But they are different to look t so I'll know soon enough.

Parsnips (covered) look what the rain has done, that needs clearing up. Then more parsnips. Then a lot of different brassicas. We have summer and winter cropping in different spots. When we planted the summer stuff it immediately got attacked by birds and virtually destroyed so C sowed a whole new lot in the greenhouse, but the first lot have bounced back (under netting now) so we have two lots. Oh. The partridges are the perpetrators of the leaf pecking we believe.


Onions, shallots, garlic and elephant garlic. Some ready to harvest. Not drying weather quite yet though.
Then down to the strawberry patch. First year to take a harvest but two rows have been dropping their fruits still green, all distorted and weird. Doom!!! I had such high hopes. Mice have been nibbling ripe ones.

This was supposed to be full of asparagus. Not a great showing so more crowns were planted. I really want a good harvest next year to make up for it.
I'll do a 'best of the fruit plot' as the flower beds in between the trees are full of waning spring flowers and not much else.
Rhubarb! We took some but haven't wanted to over-pick.
Late frosts haven't left us with many berries.We wanted buckets of red and white currants to make jelly as the last pot was finished back in January and the supermarket stuff is just rubbish in comparison. No such luck.

No sign of apples or greengages. There are some pears, plums and cherries. The late frosts put pay to a good harvest this year. Exasperating.



New raspberry canes in and establishing. Hops in too. Obviously for C's amusement.

So there's plenty happening, a mixed bag as usual.

Take care,
Sophie

I find that more often than not I can't find anything I want to buy when out browsing for clothes. It's a departure from the days when I used to go charity shopping and come home with bags of things which caught my eye. There's nothing worse than wearing something you don't feel comfortable in; whether it's fit, style or the fabric. It's experience that taught me a few good lessons. Now I'm much more selective about how I dress. So what if I have two or three go-to styles? Isn't that normal?
A dress must be a loose enough material and fit that I can move my shoulders and arms. I don't want static-prone wonders and I don't want too light a material which will float upwards in the faintest of breezes.
 Always ankle boots.
 Now I'm into bracelets and this big cuff.
Here's to making good clothing choices.

Take care,
Sophie

When I think of how many moments I've missed through total lack of being aware it makes me sad. Would I have noticed a different species of butterfly? What about the birds I like to spy now? Have they soared overhead while I stared militantly at the ground? These days I try to maintain a good level of mindfulness. Of noticing, of clocking changes and differences.
There's still much I might well miss but not through a lack of effort.
Remember the everglades pools? They were drying up (about a month ago!) with a high concentration of wiggly tadpoles.




I'm looking at nettles in new ways. Not least as they are laval food of some butterflies. C has made nettle beer and reports back it's unexpectedly good.

Wildflowers sprung into life.
There were a few weeks of hawthorns being so full of flower that it looked as though the snow had returned.

Sprinkles of speedwell. I love the pop of neon blue,
Cherries starting to grow here and there. They're bigger now though.
Speckled wood butterfly. One of the few I can identify (or so I think)
Ok, so this is a picture of an interesting little grub (?) hauling itself up a cobweb-style rope up to a tree branch. Curious. And tough to take a picture of, so this is the best I could manage.
Posing squirrel.
There's something magical about the woods.
I've looked this wildflower up. It's black medick.
Deer, yes I have seen you. Neither of us move.
Moth out. As moths go, this one is quite an arty black and white.
Above, orange tip refusing to STAY STILL.
It's a thingy.
And a more identifiable brimstone butterfly. I didn't relise until the other week that there's a brimstone moth too. (Too much to ask for a different name?!)

Ribwort plantain grass. Fun to 'shoot' at one another if you can fashion the stem into compliance.
Lovely pink tinged froths.
Vetch.

That one that tries to grow in lawns. Looks far nicer at large. Hedgerow crane's-bill.
Hedge mustard.

There are buttercups everywhere now but these were some of the first I saw which made them more interesting.
White campion
More speedwell

Colour palettes.
And is it another variety of speedwell below?

A hornet! Alarming, as I was close to walking on it when C exclaimed and made me almost jump out of my skin. It seemed a little groggy (I guess he/she too was caught out by the faux sunshine and lacked the energy)
More speedwell just because
and more vetch too.

What have you noticed recently?
Take care,
Sophie