Last day of November....

Toad is still in residence

It was a lovely sunny morning so I went to weed and dig today

I managed to do this large patch

But not this one as I ripped my nail of my finger half way down and it's very painful.

Digging after the rain & the return of the FROG

All that rain we had in the last few days has done me a favour!  The sun came out today and I went out to the Allotment to dig!!  It was like putting a hot knife through butter & I had the added bonus of a little harvest of baby sweetcorn and some beetroot!

To add to my delight of digging over a large bit of my plot I found my friend the frog!  He was hiding in a compost bag.  Now this was unknown to me at the time and I tipped the little amount of compost left in the bag onto the plot and out came this frog who was covered in compost dust - he did look a sight, so I got my watering can and gave him a shower.  He then rewarded my by posing for some photos....

A few new pictures from 121 & 144

I started on plot 121 today - all that was left to do there, as the rest of the plot is now full of potatoes (8 rows of maincrops just in case you need reminding) was to weed the Asparagus bed, which I completed in about 40 minutes.  I was very pleased to see a whole little group of Asparagus in all different sizes, waiting to greet me.  As this is year 3, I should get a lovely crop this year, as year 3 is the year that you should wait for, until you start to harvest.

Now back to 144 - I noticed that the flowers on the Micro Pond were in full bloom today, but sadly there were no signs of life, so I asked Blossom, from a neighbouring plot, if she had and life in her pond (which is massive) and she was happy to say that she had plenty of little baby frogs that she would be more than happy to share with me, so I took along a mug and scooped up a few, carefully walked them back to 144 and introduced them to their new home.

And here they are - well some of them anyway - it's hard to get a photo of them but you can clearly see that they have settled in well.

Today's Harvest & the FROG!!

Today's visit was mainly to de - erect the Sweet Potato Suite as the wind had blown it over yet again, so with the help of a pair of scissors to cut through all the many, many cable ties that were supposed to be holding it all firmly in place, I got to work, snipping here and snipping away there.  I managed to salvage the green plastic which formed the main body of the polytunnel, but the plastic used for both ends was really flimsy and just got torn to ribbons, so in the recycle bin it went.

I then set about harvesting the sweetcorn - the ones that I grew in a block.  There were only about 4 left so I put the corns to one side and pulled out and composted all 12 stems.

Unfortunately the branch holding the pears on the pear tree (well it wouldn't be an apple tree now would it) had completely broken off under the strain so I picked off all the pears to bring home and hopefully ripen up a little.  I also harvested som salad leaves, a couple of small leeks which looked too good to resisit and my Sweet Pepper from the Greenhouse - all to be used (not the pears) for tonights dinner.  Not too sure what I am going to do with them yet, but I have some Chicken Breasts, so possible bake them with the leeks, some tomatoes & the pepper in the oven, serve with salad and some 1st Early (pentland javelin) potatoes - cheap dinner!!

Now, if you remember, I reported a FROG sighting in my GH not so long ago, see   http://alithefrog.blogspot.com/2010/07/fruits-frogs-flying-ants.html and lucky for me he or indeed she showed up again today!!  I don't know if it is the same one but the markings do look similar.  Lets hope he or she is there to stay a little longer.

Frogs!

 As you know I have a micro pond (a washing up bowl) at  plot 144.

It has had tadpoles in it for a few months now.

To my delight I spotted this little fella there this morning!

He let me pick him up and happily sat on my finger for a long time

Before I put him back into the micro pond for a swim

Then Brian on plot 144a called me over as he had just discovered this big

Frog on his plot!

Fruits, Frogs & Flying Ants!!

Well what a week this has been!

Firstly I will start off with the Fruit Trees, as I haven't blogged about them much lately.

Above is the Apple,

below is the pear and

 this is the Plum (just in case you hadn't guessed already!)

They all seem to be doing well and their fruits are swelling nicely.

Now for the horrible bit. 

I decided that I needed more room in the Greenhouse, so I put one of my aubergine plants out to play in the Sweet Potato Suite as I believe it will have a similar enviroment to the Greenhouse one and it won't distrub the Sweet Potatoes, which as you can see are doing very well.

Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, a fellow allotmenteer noticed that I had a Flying Ant invasion!

There were everywhere!

However the next day (today) they are nowhere to be seen!!

I harvested my 1st Earlies earlier on in the week (Pentland Javelin) and after sitting on the shed floor for a day or two, to protect them from the rain, they came home, accompanied by 2 lovely looking courgettes.

My neighbours Artichoke had flowered so I had to take a picture of it's splendor.

And this little chap, I rescued from being entangled in a courgette flower.

And finally, when I watered the sweet peppers in the greenhouse today I spotted this Frog.

I am informed on the highest authority (aka AllotmentMate on Twitter) that it is indeed a Frog and not a Toad.

I am very lucky to have a resident Frog in my greenhouse and I hope he stays there for some time!

Kermit is rescued!

This is Kermit

I found him, a little disorientated, hanging around close to the bonfire that Carl was tending on the far side of the lotty. He was all dry and covered in mud.

Carl found me an old container, so off we went - away - far away from the fire!

I walked Kermit over to the only pond I knew of on the lotty - Adrians' pond

Here he is - ready to get out of the tub and into the pond!


And here he is on the side of the pond

It didn't take alot of persuasion to talk him into getting into the pond!

Ah - a happy ending.......

After all this excitement, I did get to plot 144 and made a start on the clearing up. I spent an hour digging. There are soooooo many roots it's unbelievable.

I am returning this afternoon for a marathon 4 hours as I am off this week!

This is what has been dug so far - it's about 1.5 sq ft - it's a start!