A Carrion Crow came to visit

This was a very welcome surprise the other day, a Carrion Crow. We first thought it might be a Raven but since investigating we think its a Crow. It came right up to me so I offered it a worm and it took several from my hand !

I think its trying to weigh me up? lol

The poppy shape has been marked out and John has put woodchip around the outside of the design. Various red plants are being planted here along with poppies to give colour  for as long as possible. Although poppies were sown here it seems they are everywhere but !

A circle has been left clear in the middle for coal and john is planting right to the outside edge with Geraniums.

John is lining the pond with carpet before the liner is put in.

Checking that he still has the correct number of fingers !

Thanks to Vodafone helping, John now has the liner in the pond. Its taking shape now.

Busy with Buzzing !

Strawberries are ready for picking and Pete has just finished making a frame to go over them to stop the birds from nibbling.

Delicious strawberries for everyone, taste so much better than bought ones.

AJ is planting beans now that the frames are up and strings attached.

Denis is doing a fantastic job of weeding the dig for Victory bed

 Alec is busy weeding one of our flower beds.

Gary and John busy weeding.  It looks like I’ve caught John crawling off towards the tea shed, hoping I wouldn’t notice him in the undergrowth ??

Gillie and Heather have done a good job weeding the Orange/red bed.

Looking good , could be some random bulbs popping up from previous planting and they probably wont be orange yellow or red !    

Sami & Ella

Here is Sami and Ella ,Heather’s two Bluebell hens

A small frog from our pond and with no tail

Sunning its self is a small frog with its tail still remaining.

A water snail ( Yoda)

First of the carrots and Broad beans

Our sweet peas are looking good and smelling good

First giant pink poppy out in the Nectar garden

First Rose out

New trenches have been dug, some manure added and then covered over ready for planting beans.

John and AJ are putting up the Bean supports ready for the runner beans to go in. Last year we had potatoes in this area so we rotated.

Dig for Victory !

The lads have been doing a world war 1 memorial garden so we decided to also do a dig for victory bed to show what it would look like. We used information given from the Ministry of Agriculture in war times. They campaigned that planting your own food would make your rations go further as they believed that when war broke out there would be food shortages. The government increased production by reclaiming pasture and unused land for growing crops and Land Army girls were needed for extra agricultural labour and they took over all the jobs that their men would have done before being enlisted. these included – milking, lambing, ploughing, gathering crops, digging ditches, catching rats, maintenance, managing poultry, chopping trees or running sawmills.

Sunday Lunch plate

Everything growing in this circle is what you may find on your Sunday lunch plate – carrots, potatoes, broad beans, peas etc  It was started with the home education group and Harriott has been helping Gillie to plant more veg in.  Harriott is showing in the book which squash she is going to grow at home.

Harriott is helping Heather to plant nasturtiums in our yellow/orange bed, hard work – all that watering 🙂

Pete cutting the grass with strict instructions not to do the orchard area, we are keeping it long for the bees,

John found a toad 🙂

We love the bees 🙂

Nottinghamshire Show

Saturday and here we are at the show with the theme V.E Day

We were also giving away sunflowers & seeds to families.

John with his Spitfire, not bad for someone who had never done it before!

Display board showing what we’ve been up to lately, including certificates, awards and log books.

We set up the tables for salt dough creatures and veg printing on the other, and we had lots of customers.

Gillie sorting flowers to pretty our display.

We are dressed as Land Army Girls. The chaps are dressed as soldiers / farmers.

This is John helping us as the show . . . . . . lol

Even Steven had a go 🙂

Gillie’s display

Some of the items made with salt dough.

Asparagus, Birds and Bees

Today the Asparagus was dug out and moved . We dug a trench put a layer of manure in the bottom and then covered it with some soil. We then made mounds 15″ apart all along the trench. The asparagus shoots were spread out down the sides of the mound. We then placed canes in to mark where they are before covering with soil

We did two trenches of Asparagus and covered the ends of the sticks with yoghurt pots. The Asparagus will be at least 3 years before we will get a decent crop from them. The fern looks quite nice in bouquets though.

Gillie has took photos of some of our flowers and made them into note- lets with our details on the back.

Practising with my  zoom on  my camera.

Look who came to visit us today!

One of our volunteers brought his three Angora Goats 🙂

This is a 6 week old called Rocky . . . so cute

We had a visit from some very young children today who were very excited to see the Goats especially the smallest as he was less intimidating.

They enjoyed grazing at our allotment, nibbling on our weeds 🙂

John is digging out a root which is causing a health and safety concern, it is just above the ground but not doing much else so we have now dug it out. We are going to plant an Acer in its place.

Cabbages have been planted and today Gillie and AJ have covered them with mesh to stop them from  being eaten.

Alec is pricking out and decided to move outdoors as its too hot in the tunnel.

Heather is tidying/pruning  the perenials

Two doves in the feeder looking comfy, Cilla pecking at the bits which get knocked off.

A Very Successful Open Day :)

The sun was out and we had lots of people through the gates

John’s Royal Navy pond ( under construction)

Drinking tea and eating cake whilst the children are doing crafts

We are extremely grateful to Bakkavor for our £1000 cheque 😀

Thank you so much

This is our new compost Loo, we are looking to replace the curtain with a door eventually.

The bucket contains sawdust for big jobs and we have hand wipes which go into a bucket as they are not environmentally friendly. Gary added some lovely Rosemary so it smells delightful. Well done Pete:)

Busy preparing for our open day this Saturday

Heather, Gary and Andrew have collected canes and made wigwams for the Sweet peas in the tunnel, this year the big frame is going outside. Heather tied string around the canes for the peas to grow up before crawling out of the door for some cool air! very hot indeed. Gillie planted the sweet peas as Heather was wilting.

This area is our ‘Dig for Victory’ bed. Gillie is planting veg which would be grown in the war.

Tony has been busy at the far end of the allotment planting cabbages and putting in hoops for the mesh. Alec has done a fabulous job at digging the ground over and weeding.

John is weeding his Forces garden with a little help from Loulou

John’s Spitfire is in place, well done John

John’s new mate ‘Jack’  kindly given to us from Andrea at Asda 🙂

John is holding Cilla at tea break, its not helping that he is wearing a black t-shirt! lol  I knew he was joking about the Paxo!

Frog spawn is getting bigger