Conjoined Cherries

Unfortunately these cherries are not from the plot. Damn birds ate all of ours! These are bought ones but another example of conjoined fruit. Nature is strange.

Rain, rain and more rain.

I could never ever forget for a second that I live in Wales. The rain reminds me every summer. The Met Office are rapidly eating their words over the BBQ summer they predicted and I'm worried about the onset of blight again. :(
Dave dug up a huge section of the back of the plot to try and 'dry out' the mares tail. That is probably going to be rather large puddlesome area now.

I'm sure my childhood summers were never this wet for days on end?!
Come on Sun - show us you still exist!

Love strawberry

Whilst eating some of our recent produce for lunch at work I came across a beautiful strawberry that was obviously some sort of twinned seed. It isn't two strawberries that have grown close together as they shared the same inners. No obvious divide. Nature can be very weird but inventive!
It was absolutely delicious too!

Strawberries, scarecrows, foxes...must be June!!

Mr Fox has been doing his rounds again but he has become more of an allotment regular recently. He tends to have a snooze in the greenhouse and potters around. Everyone knows him well now. I even got some photos of him. :) Dave built a scarecrow from a hoodie top, can of carling and some odd bits of wood. (Nicknamed 'Worzel Scummage!) We even used Coke bottle tops for his red eyes! The can has shells in it dangling to keep birds off. Dave is thinking of making a second 'lady' scarecrow to protect the crops at the back of the plot.

Mr Foxy

Mange Tout in the ground

Runners & Climbing French bean frames

Tomatoes!

Smelly comfrey fertiliser

Broad beans... flowering

Squashes

The first of the strawberries

BBQ Time!

BBQ time and we had one hell of a hot afternoon sunnying ourselves and enjoying being away from the mad park crowds down the road. New table came in handy!!

Construction in May

Dave has made a wonderful table out of pallets! Much bigger than the last one and more sturdy. (I think he's proud of this one!) Grand job.

Strimmer!!

You cannot under appreciate what a petrol strimmer does for an allotment plot! Hopefully we have blended in some slugs with the grass cuttings!! :D

Our "slightly" raised beds! Ready for courgettes and mange tout!

All Change!!

Bugger...we've had to make some plot amendments due to the weather and not being able to dig the areas we wanted to. The back of the plot has become No-Mans-Land over winter and digging backwards is a hefty job. Mare's Tail is a constant nuisance but we're getting there....slowly.
Here's an updated plot layout. (Click to enlarge)

Something is having a nibble

The year has started really well. Dave bought a petrol strimmer for £35 on GumTree (Bargain!) and we have been strimming the grass paths and weeds as much as possible. We have been pretty ruthless as the grass has been waaay overdue a trim! Hopefully we will have massacred a few slugs in the process?!
More beds have been dug and raised and Dave is building a new table. It was hot enough last weekend to be wearing suncream and sunglasses but it's a different story this week. Rain, rain, miserable rain.
We also have a mystery nibbler on the plot. First of all the chilli plants in the cold frame were nibbled right down to the core. No trace of slug-slime so maybe mice?
Then at the weekend 1 out of 4 courgettes were gobbled! They were all fairly established so I wouldn't have thought that slugs would be interested? 3 of them were under plastic cloches so there was a risk of damage to 1 of the plants but we haven't had courgettes eaten before?! They're usually pretty hardy and safe as they're quite tough.
I'm making a guess that it's either rats or the scraggy fox that seems to be venturing up the allotments during the day for afternoons snoozes! It doesn't seem at all bothered by us gardeners!

We have seen all 3 of our plot neighbours this year in one weekend which is a rarity but everyone seems to be putting in a lot of effort this year. Maybe that claim by the Met Office for a hot summer is going to come true? (Although I predicted a hot one back in Feb!) We'll see...