Sunny Days

Sun glorious sun! Today the allotment was basked in a wonderfully warm glow, erasing all memories of the previous rain-filled week. As we surveyed the allotment for what needed to be done, it was clear last week's rain had not been all bad as some new flowers had bloomed and our vegetables, particularly the broad beans, had grown even taller. But alas, despite the good news, our old enemy, the weeds, had decided to come back for revenge. This time, feeling somewhat lethargic, we decided to employ a new tactic which would utilise the hoe. We roughly dug up the weeds and left them on the surface of the soil for our old friend, the sun, to dry them out. This method was of course far easier on our delicate hands and dodgy knees but we'll have to wait and see how effective it is. Stay tuned!

The weeds are back!

Two hours of hard work later...

Full of Beans

After our successful escapade in the warm weather last week, this week was destined to be different from the start. Our wonderful runner bean pole structure that we built last week was looking particularly bare and needed some plants to finish it off. As we begun to plant the runner beans, storm clouds started to gather above us, an ominous sign from Mother Nature. I began to reassure my fellow volunteers but my words of wisdom seemed lost on them. In hindsight, after 10 minutes of being pummelled by hail stones and then heavy rain, my earlier wise words of 'a bit of rain won't hurt' and 'it won't last long' seemed wholly inappropriate. Some of us huddled in the tightly packed shed, with only garden tools and bags of compost for company whilst the rest of our garden troupe decided to make a dash for home, the revision they had been putting off for weeks suddenly seeming very appealing. In the end, the rain did not subside so the rest of us quickly finished planting our runner beans and trudged back to the University. At least we didn't have to water the plants!

Still looking bare but the runner beans have finally been planted.

One of the sweet pepper seeds we planted in February for Go Green Week 2013.

War of the Weeds

It was a delightfully sunny day today and as we approached the allotment we talked dreamily of relaxing on our new bench and enjoying our new view. Yet as we arrived and surveyed the sun-parched soil beds, our gasts were flabbered by the sight of a stickyweed blanket over our crops. The weeds had invaded! As we bravely begun the battle of man vs weed, we strained to think of childhood memories of stickyweed and a strategy to defeat them. Our initial pull tactics seemed to be successful and we eventually cleared the herb bed of all remaining weeds. As we surveyed the bare soil before us, our sweaty bodies tired from our toil, we began the clean-up operation by heaping the weeds onto the compost bin. We had reclaimed the herb bed. The first battle had been won but the war had only just begun...

Oh and we also found some time afterwards to put up our bean poles and repair the compost bin!

The bean poles are up!

The compost bin...fixed.