Melting in the heat

This morning I pottered down the allotment a bit earlier than normal with the aim of clearing the weeds once and for all. The sun was out and the weather warm before 10 am.

By the time I had been there an hour it was boiling and I retreated to the bottom of the plot to clear away the weed fabric under the fruit trees to start making a wildlife section of the plot. I plan to plant wild flowers and put in a hedgehog hide to help the wildlife we have on site.

The plants have really responded to the warm and drier weather over the last few days. It’s lovely to see how much everything has grown across the site as well as on our plot…

I had a break after a couple of hours, catching up with Geoff and Will. It turns out one of Geoff’s chickens has been attacked by another one and hasn’t been walking. As always Cliff has been nursing it and it seems to be slightly better which is good. Our girls continue to do well and are laying regularly which is great. They enjoyed making a mess of the weeds I threw into the coop this afternoon.

There is also activity on the community garden – the fish have survived repeated freezing of the pond over the winter and the restoration the garden is being prepared for our daughter’s tree and the new bee hives. New seating has also appeared today.

The solar powered pump was working really well today once Cliff shifted the panel towards the sun! It should help aerate the water for the fish although we do need a bigger one to get more oxygen into the water.

The digging of the last potato trench a few days ago by my husband reached a momentous milestone today. It is dry at the bottom. Or at any rate isn’t an elongated lake anymore. I put in our main crop potatoes and covered them over. We have one more row to go but I think I will need to do two small rows as the blackcurrant bush is rather in the way! We have tried to plant the potatoes away from the marshy area on the path side of the plot in the desperate hope we will actually have some potatoes this year.

As an additional bonus, my cherry tree, now in the chicken coop, seems to be flourishing and growing well. I am hoping it will continue to grow well and big enough for me to train it to become part of the coop roof to provide a dappled shady part of the coop.

So the plan for tomorrow is to arrange which day my husband can come down with a step ladder and take the glass off the greenhouse roof before helping me repair it. Steve says the greenhouse is saveable provided we do something soon.