28th February 2018
Map in progress to 8th March 2018
....from and beyond the belly of 'the beast from the east'.
I am surrounded by beasts of every dimension imaginable in the bad dream time of 'the allotment garden of Nowhere in particular'. Fortunately, I have a limited imagination and thus the chilling blast that became 'the beast from the east', was more of an annoying slushy puppy than a mythic, terrifying, snarling, icy toothed and clawed gray. The end of February and the beginning of March (the official start of spring) saw the allotment garden, and gardener, endure some belated winter weather and, with that, some more unsettling of the sweet dream garden to be. News reports warned of the whole month of March being inundated by snow, ice and freezing Siberian winds - and with that foreboding came a sense of doubt and disappointment in what might have been a false start to the 2018 growing season. It was the resilience of the honeybees, and the sight of lovage (Levisiticum officinale), re-emerging in the micro-orchard, that gave cause for some winter/springtime optimism.
28/2/2018.
28th February 2018
3/3/2018 - thaw
3/3 - checking and topping up fondant stores in the beehives.
It was encouraging to see both hives with good sized, and dense, clusters -
encompassing 5-6 frames in the brood boxes.
3/3 - A2a Purple sprouting broccoli - looking slightly limp and bedraggled
after the attentions of 'the beast from the east', though they soon perked up
with the warmth of the thaw.
4/3 - rebuilding A7a - planted with over-wintered kale (Georgia Southern Collard
from seed from the Heritage Seed Library) and globe artichoke - for 'roots' in
2018.
4/3 - checking the dahlia tubers in winter storage - grown from seed in 2017.
4/3 - sorting out staging for seedlings in the polytunnel.
4/3 - B top - micro-orchard - Lovage - weeding and mulching.
Mean while, in the other allotment garden of Nowhere in particular...
3/3 - potatoes, Cara and Setanta, with Oca - chitting.
3/3 - seeds germinating in trays in heated propagator - including above,
Tomato - Lilac Giant (to left) - from the Heritage Seed Library, 2018 collection
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