Six from the allotment

I made it along to the allotment last week, for the first time in a while. We’ve been trying to social distance there and my allotment partner had been doing all the work this spring. I had a day off from working from home so made a trip to the allotment to do my share, complete with gloves and hand sanitizer for dealing with the gate. Here’s what was happening there.

There was a friendly robin, sitting in the apple tree and hopping round my feet. It was excited by all the digging, finding food in the freshly dug soil. It was particularly excited by the runner bean bed, which I had filled with compost from the compost heap:

I dug the bed, following my usual method – described here – and put the poles in place, ready for the baby beans to move in at the end of May.

Another task was to plant out the Brussels sprouts. I had grown them from seed back at the house and they were ready for their new more spacious homes at the allotment

A ladybird popped by to say hello

A fox ambled past, showing little interest in the people digging their plots. I didn’t catch a photo but it was lovely to see it. I did some weeding and watered the overwintered onions and the newly sown broad beans. It’s been so dry but I was pleased to be able to use water from the water butt, installed on a snowy day two years ago

Unfortunately I noticed that our trusty watering can was leaking. I took along a spare one from home and I have a plan to convert the leaky one into another mint and lemon balm fountain

Then I gathered up some rhubarb, brought it home and turned it into jam and cake (cake recipe here):

So that’s my six from the allotment: robin, runner beans, Brussels sprouts, ladybird, watering and rhubarb. If you want to find out more about Six on Saturday, see here