Open day and Show

Last Sunday was the Allotment open day and show.  Although the allotment has only been there for three years this is already their second open day, and would have been their third had last year's not been cancelled due to the weather.


I have to say it was a brilliant day, due to the efforts of the allotment committee and everyone else who put in so much effort both before and on the day!  There was so much going on that it was impossible to feel bored.  


Early on, people were carefully putting produce in the show tent to be judged by Alf, our local champion gardener (and my neighbour on the allotment!).  I have no idea who the overall winner was, probably because the outstanding impression was the fun that people had displaying the fruits of their labours!  Everything was arranged on tables inside a lovely marquee that appeared from nowhere a couple of days before:

Needless to say I didn't have anything ready to show, but I may have a few things for the village show later in the year.

The bells of the Borderline Morris Dancers could be heard for several minutes before they actually arrived, and they gave several performances during the day.  The music and the dancing were so wonderfully English and let's face it you don't see sights like this every day!










Here's a video of one of their dances:

There were hand bell ringers from the village, a boules tournament, cakes (never seen so many), cream teas, hot dogs, a lemonade stall, guitarists, singing, a vintage tractor, a steam engine, and best of all loads of happy people:

...and while there are still events like this, and people who care about them, it may be a cliché, but...







        There'll always be an England:

Coming Along...and a Well Travelled Butt

Well...today, so far, it hasn't rained...at all.  I thought I'd start by pointing this out since it is somewhat of a rarity so far this 'summer'.  A couple of weeks ago I was in Birmingham and managed to pick up a reasonably priced water butt.  It spent the first week happily riding around in the back of my car (amazing what you can get into a Micra!), then the next few days sitting on the allotment in the rain.  In fact by the time today came it had about an inch of water in the bottom and that was without being connected up and with the lid on!  Anyway, thanks to my friend Steve I now have guttering and a functioning water butt:

...and guess what?  There's rain forecast again tonight!




Having done very little to assist in the installation of the water butt I then knuckled down and weeded the cabbages/broccoli/sprouts.  This involved lifting up the netting and then crawling around in a rather undignified way, but they look a bit better now:

In fact they are actually starting to look a bit like cabbages/broccoli/sprouts...

The lawn is starting to look more like a lawn - except for the minor detail that there's no grass yet, but I seeded it last week so it should be starting to show any day now...

Oh, and I moved the compost bin.  I found myself whispering an apology to the ants who were still living in it and do you know what happened?  When I first looked the bin was full of ants, still carrying eggs around and so on.  When I finally lifted the bin off the compost/ants nest they were still there, but...following my apology to them...when I came to spread the compost around a bit later on there was not an ant in sight.  Not one.  Not even a stray egg.  Weird?

Here's the compost bin in its new spot.  So far it's ant-free!

Two other points of note:  first of all the flowers are still looking pretty: 

And...I have carrots!  A week or so ago I followed the advice of a man who said that if the ground is stony try growing them in large pots of compost...so I did, and so far it's working!

Finally, it's the allotment show and open day next Sunday...fingers crossed that it doesn't rain ALL week...!