Ovar the Rainbow

We are in Ovar just south of Porto for a few days before heading inland to play at the Andancas festival for a week. If anything it is possibly a bit cooler here than it was in the UK but still pretty steamy. Not quite able to enjoy the moment though as stricken with a bout of bronchitis which is bad timing indeed. However it seems to be abating a little today and thank goodness I have four more days or so to get better before we have to play.

Reality Cheque

The night sky was full of the heat of the day and the promise of more with beautiful and indescribable colours, crimsons, violets, reds and others that have no name.

Peace is not a destination. A road map implies a destination and movement, both of which are false. Peace is like rain, it comes into being if the conditions are correct otherwise it cannot be. It never came from the barrel of a gun and never will. Peace also requires vulnerability and open hearts. This is why politicians and so called religious leaders can never bring it about. Both are enclosed within their unbreakable shells of opinion, ideology or faith. Their hearts are closed and hard. Children of any race or culture will play happily together; race, religion and political boundaries mean nothing to them at all. The conflict can never end until we have learned this lesson from them. It is not that they are bad teachers it is just that adults are too stupid for words.

Woke this morning to the sound of rain trickling and gurgling in the gutters and to fresher air and a cooling breeze so welcome after the last few days.

Carbon Dating

These are some of Ben's camping buddies.....they seem to be exploring the make-up potential of raw carbon.

They will go far.

Plum Duff

This plum tree is only a youngster and it flowered beautifully and set to fruit so heavily that we had to remove some to prevent the branches collapsing under their own weight.

Over the space of a month it has turned from a healthy specimin into the sorry state you see in the picture and the branches are dying from the bottom up. Anyone know what might be going on here?

Wildlife Garden

This is the wildlife garden and pond we have been working on at Ben's school. We ran a plant stall on Saturday during the school fete and Cathy worked up an activity which involved people walking round and identifying 10 of the plant species therein with plenty of clues to help them. A pleasing number of people took part also spending time reading the notices explaining what the wildlife garden was all about and looking at the childrens art work which we put up on posts round the pond. If they identified all the plants correctly they could choose a free plant from the stall.

The stall does not look so big in this pic but there were a fair few plants in there and the majority of them sold making the PTA about £75 which, if I have my way, they will spend on a half decent strimmer for the garden as the school does not possess one of it's own.




The pond viewing platform displayed some of the childrens artwork and other information.

I hope the display encourages the teachers to do some more work with the children in the wildlife area. It is a resource that more could be made of. Hopefully all the health and safety concerns have now all been met.

Can't blame the head really, it's a damnably litiginous world we live in now and they have to be careful coz if johnny gets post traumatic stress disorder from being croaked at by a frog, then someone is gonna have to Pay Compensation.


These blousy Livingstone Daisies did a good job attracting folk to the stall.

Such a hot weekend! And getting even hotter today. Spent all morning clodhopping; mostly hand weeding and ho hoeing. Stopped at noon and went home to cool off.

The white spider lilly Cathy sowed in the spring has flowered beautifully and now graces our bedroom windowsill. I needed to take it into the garden to get a decent shot of it. It leans out of it's pot at such a crazy angle that it is threatening to fall over.

Berry Good Morning

The garden seems to be holding its breath this morning. There is a hushed stillness over everything. Even the birds seem reluctant to break the silence and those that do seem shy of their own chatter. Other mornings they are full of exhuberance and vitality but not today. Today everything seems to be tapped into the well of power behind life and is drinking quietly, gratefully, together.

Religion is one of the most destructive and divisive forces known to mankind. Each would have us drink from their own branded well and so divide us and have us destroy one another; in the name of what?

Things are waking up now but the stillness and silence has been established and no amount of noise can break it. The redcurrants are positively dripping off the bush and the first rasberries are ripe and ready to pick. I feel a fruity breakfast coming on.

Midsummer Moments

The cooler weather and rain has been a blessing and is giving me a break from watering.

Most things are pretty much established now and are
growing well. The broad beans, tomatoes and sweetcorn look particularly fine and, touch wood, the dreaded black fly seems to be keeping a low profile for the moment.

I am pleased to say that most of the scurvy has cleared up now and I am able to get my hands mucky again though I have to be careful and smother them with emmolients to try to prevent it returning.

Today we be mostly 'arvesting strawberries and radish and lettuce and it do be so pleasing I am going to put them all in one sandwich and eat it neat so I am. Was getting very jealous of all the more southerly plotters who have been munching their own lettucees for weeks if not months now. The asparagus lettuce is very nice but I think my second sowing of it has been ruined as I left the seed tray out and it got thoroughly swamped by the rain.....der...should've sown it straight into the ground and that's the last of that seed I think. Oh well.

Was reading Seed News last night and I must confess I did not realise quite how much of a badness it was to use F1 Hybrid seeds. Now I have been shown the light, verily I vouchsafe unto thee, tho I be tempted 40 days and 40 nights, never again will I be seduced into such
wickedness no matter how tender, succulent, juicy, long, short, fat, hairy, smooth or disease resistant or damned cheap the product shall be amen..... three hail marys and four alfalfas.

When firms like Monsanto start taking over seed companies.....yech! tis time to revolt neh?
maybe long past time?

The eggs are from the very nice man further down the plots with the er....chickens. They were so warm and fresh and delicous but clearly they have been genetically engineered because they are making Ben's legs grow twice as fast as is normal for a seven year old.

After he'd stuffed me down the water barrel I thought it jolly decent of him to let me know that help was on the way and would be here in an hour or two and would I like a rocket sandwich to keep me going?

This Life

What IS this life so full of slog
I have not time to sit and blog?

.....nor even eat vanilla fudge graham
wafer clusters with cashews whatever they
are.

Cinebar

...What's this chap doing about at breakfast time (Cinebar moth - Tyria Jacobaeae)? He's supposed to be nocturnal.

Oh dear, that's why he's not camera shy...it seems his night time wanderings in between the sticks of restless beans are over for ever.

What a beauty he was. The black and gold caterpillars of cinebar were used to control ragwort which they love to munch.



Seems to me there are far far fewer butterflys and moths around than there should be for the time of year. Anyone else noticing this?

Some of our plant outs will not yet be deep rooted enough to cope without water in this heat and it looks set to continue into next week by which time I will have hoiked 50 zillion cans of water 30 metres. I should then be ready to take on Arnold Swartzenegg.......er and similar oiks. Who says allotmenteering isn't aerobic?

Moons nice tonight. Hope it's clear when it comes full. There something special about the midsummer full moon neh? Flower Moon, Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon, Hot Moon are other names it goes by.

Felix

Felix sunning himself on the rocks at the bottom of the garden. He's about to stick his head in the spiders web in the crevice.



"whatya lookin at wise guy - gemme a croaka-cola"

Boraging

Looking forward to these in a week or two with a nice single malt....I mean single cream.

The dreaded eczema has struck again and is doing a passable job of turning my hands into mincemeat. Just when I thought it was clearing up too. SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has put me on a dairy free regime to see if that helps.....What, no cheese...intolerable. Anyway we'll give it a go and if it doesn't work I'll just have to chop my hands off and garden with my teeth. SWMBO is doing sterling work keeping it all going and has caught up with the planting out of stuff and much else besides. I did manage a bit of trimming the grass and another sowing of lettuce and collected a pile of comfrey to make some smelly fertiliser. No sign of of parsnips whatsoever which were sown yonks ago. So who looks a dumb ass now after all the blurb on parsnips last month? D'oh. Maybe it was duff seed. I dunno.


Fossicking about with
a camera is relatively
painless and I like these of the bees
borageing about in a buzzy
sort of way.

Jingly Jangly Mornin

Haven't been clodhopping for a week now and expecting severe punishment....probably 40 lashes from the horsetail over a cold frame. Ouch!

I see no realistic chance of getting up there until next week either by which time I expect a jungle. That's just how life is sometimes. Herself has been up a few times to fly the flag and plant things out that desperately needed to get out. She also brought back some of the asparagus and psb which was unbelievably tender and delicious.


The Fete de la Mazurka at the weekend was great fun and we played two bals and various sessions for about 60 or so dancers. We tried out the lottery waltz set on them. It's a long set of waltz tunes starting in 3 time then respectively 5, 8, 11 and 18 time waltzes and the dancers have to change steps accordingly. The dancers did thin out a bit but a surprising number of them stayed the distance and one cheeky bugger even asked for the bonus waltz. I think we will have to write one in some totally stupid time sig which is impossible to dance.

Work has been complete bedlam this morning and I'm taking 5 to chill out for a bit. I took the pic of the aquilegia in our garden last week and I've put it on my workstation this morning to soothe the jangly nerves.

Show Me A Garden That's Bursting Into Life - (snow patrol)

it's my birthday today
i'm mumble something now (gulp)
this morning I had a dream
and it was like waking up
i'm glad i'm mumble something
coz when you're young
you can spread tears around
like a catherine wheel
spreads stars
and we have to grow up too
just like our seedlings do
happy birthday world

Ted's Bounty

Yesterdays rain was SO welcome it could only be regarded as liquid sunshine. The ground was looking so dry and parched. Today it is blowing fierce gale force winds and so far there are two casualties that I know of. One of those plastic covered greenhouse kits took flight from somewhere lower down the plots and, narrowly missing Jack and Tom's greenhouses, was arrested mid flight by Cathy and some other plot holders. The other casualty (sob) was my own cold frame whose top was flung back and the glass smashed. My own stupid fault really for leaving it propped open too much in such windy weather.

However, I missed all that fun as I was out collecting Ted's Bounty. Ted is in the process of downsizing his gardening operations and had lots of goodies to give away. We got three water barrels, two more compost bins, lots of trays and pots and propogaters and some bocking 14 comfrey plants yippee and loads of other useful bits and pieces. Our very grateful thanks to Ted and......if you're reading this tonight......one of the other plotholders is interested in the greenhouse frame and is going to ring you.

Everything seems to need doing at once now but we don't have a huge amount of time for as well as the usual work commitments we have to spend any spare time we can grab rehearsing to play at the Fete de la Mazurka on Friday & Saturday nights with a newish lineup that could really do with at least three more rehearsals but we have no chance of that. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be alright on the night. Herself is muttering meaningfully about needing a base flute now!

mothernessity

Hampered last week and this by a bad flare up of eczema on both hands which, frustratingly, limits how much I can do in the garden. We need to start clearing the greenhouse of seedlings so that we can establish the tomato plants but where to put all those pots & seed trays? So, (and it was probably silly given the state of my hands), on Sunday I turned one of good old Mildred's windows into the cold frame you see. That will help a lot, although spacewise, we could probably do with another one like that.

Ahhh, I see that camomile lawns (see last post) like acid conditions and hate clay. Maybe it's not such a good idea then. We would certainly have to throw in a lot of efficacious compound. Maybe it wouldn't take too well to the amount of traffic on it either? I don't know. Any ideas?

I notice on the path down to the poultry section of the allotments that there is lots of comfrey and nettle growing. I think it was a couple of weeks ago that Monty made a witches brew of liquid manure out of these by taping some pop bottles together and compressing the leaves in them to eventually release a concentrated liquid fertiliser. Never done it before & I bet it's a tad on the whiffy side. Still I have some old drainpipe left and my sinuses are stuffed anyway so...what the hell?

Helicopter Head

Went for a walk and a helicopter landed on Ben's head as they do (can you spot him)?

It turned out to be the North West Air Ambulance based at Blackpool called out to attend someone who had collapsed in the woods left of picture. It was sad because he was there planting a tree in memory of his mum who had recently died. I think he was ok though because they didn't have to fly him out.

Ben of course found it all terribly exciting and blagged his way into the cockpit and now insists the only thing he wants to be when he grows up is a helicopter pilot.

I think he likes the idea of being able to get from Jenny Browns Point to Blackpool in 8 minutes flat. I like the idea of getting anywhere out of Blackpool however long it takes.

Saw this bracket mushroom on a stump but my cheap and chearful digital can't really do the colours justice or pick out the beautiful patterns that were in it.

Sowed a lot of asparagus lettuce seed and re-potted all the tomato and sweetcorn seedlings which were attempting to grow themselves to oblivion where they were. More work done digging out, weeding and levelling the various mounds of earth in front of shed.

The latest thinking is to put a bit of a camomile lawn in front of it for dossing on during the long hot summer while drinking something chilled. I was going to use up the rest of the flags but lummy they've all gone so they have.

Fiddlesticks Update

According to the oracle, up to 200 species of young ferns are widely eaten in the tropics. We seem not to have acquired the habit for some reason although they have been shown to be very nutritious. Even bracken is apparantly edible although considered carcinogenic but then what isn't? Here, the Royal Fern (Osmunda Regalis) would be edible but I'm not going to be trying this anytime soon as I can't tell one young fern from another to save my life which it might as you can bet that, like mushrooms, some of the ferns will be toxic for us to eat. I wonder if the early inhabitants of these lands tried them? Oh well, just have to go to Canada in the spring sometime I guess.

Digression Over......The greenhouse seedlings are going bonkers.



The path by the shed got (sort of) finished.













Sown in greenhouse: Cauliflower (goodman); Courgette (dundoo); Carrot (flyaway) in big pots; Winter Squash; Sunflowers; Pumpkings; Cabbage.

Clodhopping till about 7.30pm last night in sunny warm conditions and then straight to the pub - aHHH! does it get any better?

Outside everything is doing its stuff...the only slowcoach being the sprouting broccoli which is on work to rule or something.

But what's with the woad? Is herself planning to daub ma knees (or worse) blue and pack me off to No 10 or the White House to effect regime change? A laudable aim in itself, but I will not do this unless sanctions have failed and the weapons inspectors have finished their business and certainly not without the full backing of UK Allotmentholder Resolutions.

Maybe she's found some sort of legal loophole like that reported on Allotment 21 whereby it is legal to kill a Welshman in Hereford with a bow and arrow except on Sundays.

Do I get to wear a kilt too I wonder? Better stop this thread right there.

Fiddlesticks

After finishing off the earlies we dug out the unloved south east corner to find a mess of plastic sheeting shot through with couch. Really hard work getting it all out but well worth it as at one time it must have been the manure dump as the underlying soil is the best on the plot, beautifully rich and friable.

Also dug out and levelled area in front of shed and layed a path to join up with the one by the greenhouse.

Sowed three rows of Heinz 57 flower seeds to prettify the plot over the summer. Thought it might be a bit too early but we'll see what comes up.

I wonder if anyone knows of or has tried the UK equivalent of 'Fiddlers' or 'Fiddleheads'. They are picked and
enjoyed about now (particularly in New Brunswick) but all across Canada and as far down into the states as Virginia.

"Fiddleheads are the young coiled fern leaves (about an inch in diameter) of the ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris).

Nearly all ferns have fiddleheads, but those of the ostrich fern are unlike any other.

"Harvest the tender little rolls of fern almost as soon as they appear within an inch or two of the ground.
Carefully brush out and remove the brown scales. Wash and cook the “heads” in a small amount of lightly salted
boiling water for ten minutes, or steam for 20 minutes. Serve at once with melted butter. The quicker they are eaten, the more delicate their flavor. They may be served, like asparagus, on toast. Cooked, chilled fiddleheads can be also served as a salad with an onion and vinegar dressing."




Cathy has had these and says they are delicious so I am wondering if there is a UK equivalent. Must dig out
the wild foods books when I get home.

Funny Bunny

More accurately, my head hurts. Have some sort of non-specific dropsy so going to bed early with me cup of camomile to drool over some dirty magazines!

No der....not that kind. Herself, in a fit of enthusiasm, joined the Heritage Seed Library and today the catalogue arrived - very dangerous.

I want THAT one and yes, we MUST have some of Those and I absolutely must try THAT one, and I would REALLY like to.....blah blah blah.

Suddenly our plot in my minds eye seems ever so small. When it needs digging it seems ever so big. Funny that.

hO yes....almost forgot happy easter hols and happy planting everyone.

Hail April

Alpine clouds scud east and an ominous blackness looms from the west. Four rows of onions (improved turbo) went in and then someone up in those menacing clouds ripped open some polystyrene bean-bags and tipped the lot on us. Took shelter in the shed and sat in a trance watching the hail bounce and dance off the surface. Quite mesmerising. At times like these the mini-bar is a real asset. Big mug of hot tea with some walnut bread and a big wodge of cheese. Can live with that.

Sowed some sweet pea (cupani) and some we saved from last years seed crop. Courgette (black beauty) – old seed so maybe maybe-not. Lettuscees (fortuna;smile;miluna and a French curly one from old seed I know not whot).

Sun came out to play so did a bit more levelling but blimeyohriley its claggy to work.