Flowering, fluttering and firkling

The love-in-a-mist had started flowering by yesterday which Beginninghere will be pleased to see.

The Pretty Lady roses are on the way whilst one Valentine Heart is already blooming

On Thursday morning I was doing some weeding and kept noticing brown butterflies fluttering past me, although none settled on the plot.  I got the camera and went walkabout finding this one  sunning itself on a nearby path Once home I identified it as a Painted Lady which according to this have been seen in very large numbers over much of the country during the past week.  Whilst taking photos of the roses I turned round to see this one on the nearby perennial cornflower It’s amazing as I’ve seen more butterflies in the past couple of days than I have in the past few years!

My Swift early potatoes have now been in the ground ten weeks so this morning, after hut duty,  I went firkling and found these under one plant, of which the smallest one is about the size of a golf ball. I brought them home and for lunch had a few boiled along with a cod and parsley fish cake and some (frozen) vegetable mix. Very tasty! That was followed by some of plot neighbour Brian’s rhubarb with a couple of scoops of vanilla icecream.

I’m grateful to A Midwife’s Muse for giving me a One Lovely Blog Award. I shall do a seperate post about that during the next week or so.

It’s been two years…

since I did the first post here, and it’s not really surprising that when I wrote this one yesterday the weather was just the same!

It wasn’t until September 2007 that I made this my main blog since when I have regularly done at least two posts every week. I’ve actually done nearly 300 of which 115 have been Flighty’s plot ones. I also notice that there are over 400 images in my media library most of which are photos that I’ve taken on the plot and shown here.

I have to say that I’ve throughly enjoyed  plotting, pottering and pondering on the plot and then blogging about it afterwards. Rest assured that I fully intend to carry on doing both for a good while yet!

I’m most grateful to everyone who has read this blog and especially to those of you who’ve commented.

I recently revamped my rather neglected Flighty blog changing, yet again, the title and header picture, and deleting previous posts!  There’s now a link to the blog under Lawn loungers as I intend to do occasional posts there from now on.

There’s nothing on TV next week worth mentioning here, except Springwatch which continues Monday through to Thursday on BBC2 at 8.00pm.

Have a good,  lawn lounging,  weekend!

A look round

Both the Pretty Lady and Valentine Heart roses have lots of buds on them, this will be the first of the latter to bloom

Bees drink from the pond and take nectar from the creeping buttercups that surround itIncidently the pond looked like this a month ago when I saw a pigeon drinking from it!

The first Love-in-a -mist will be starting to flower soon

My Swift early potatoes have been in the ground nine weeks so I’m leaving it another week before I have a gentle firkle!

A few days of warm sunshine and I’ll soon be eating some strawberries

Both the green Buttercrunchand red Lollo Rossa lettuces are looking good

The broad beans have flowers on them, these are the variety Masterpiece Green Longpod

The Jerusalem artichokes that plot neighbour Mary gave me are growing well

On Friday afternoon in the warm sunshine the bees were buzzing all around, especially on the comfryI shall leave it to finish flowering before cutting it right back.  It’ll soon grow, and flower, again.  The spent foliage will be added to the compost heap.

I hope that you all enjoyed a look round the plot!

Springwatch

Starting next week on BBC2 is Springwatch, which is on at 8.00pm Monday to Thursday, and the following two weeks.

Once again it’s coming from Pensthorpe, and presenting from there will be Kate Humble and Chris Packham. Among the birds they’ll be following are familiar blackbirds and exotic kingfishers.

Simon King will be in Wales where he’s hoping to see a highly elusive polecat, and Gordon Buchanan will be in Essex filming a family of  badgers.

As well as watching  it on TV, or if you can’t do that,  visit the Springwatch website where you’ll be able to follow everything that’s happening.

Have a good weekend!

Plot plants ~ Poached-egg flower

The  Poached-egg flower (Limnanthes dougasii) is a quick-growing annual, and one of the most free-flowering,  from California which I think is a delightful little plant.

The flowers are apparently delicately scented and certainly beloved by bees.

These photos were taken on a dull day last week,  and as you can see I’ve used  another one for my new header picture.

Why poetry matters

Next week the  BBC Poetry Season gets properly underway with Why Poetry Matters on BBC2 Wednesday at 9.00pm. It’s introduced by Griff Rhys Jones who reads aloud some wonderful works in a charming, and moving, way. Watch it and see the sheer delight of a bunch of school kids when they join Charlie Dark reciting his verse Airborne.

Earlier in the week  the long-running Poetry Please is on Radio 4 FM Sunday at 4.30pm, introduced by Roger McGough. This popular poetry request programme returns to celebrate 30 years on air with verse including A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and Walt Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain.

Daisy Goodwin says…the best poems are perfect distillations of emotion which is why we turn to them at key times in our life.

I agree and think that’s why poetry matters.

Have a good weekend!

Lawn lounging!

I’m having a day off today,  but won’t be lawn lounging!

My thanks to Allotments 4 All friends Digeroo, for finding this,  and littlebabybird,  for the link.

Thelwell was a terrific cartoonist best known for his wonderful pony cartoons.

World wide watching

South Pacific is a new six-part series starting on BBC2 Sunday at 8.30pm with 1/6. Ocean of Islands. This looks to be a fascinating documentary series on a remote part of the world.

It’s being repeated on BBC2 Monday at 7.00pm which is handy if,  like me,  you’re wanting to watch Martin Clunes: Islands of Britain 2/3. The West which is on ITV1 Sunday at 9.00pm.

A Place In The Wild is a two-part documantary centred on the  Ol Pejeta wildlife reserve in Kenya. Part one is on ITV1 Tuesday at 8.00pm.

The third, and final, part in the short series about the elements is Winds on BBC2 Wednesday at 9.00pm. As with Rain and Snow it features a mix of science, history and clips of extreme weather.

Have a good weekend!

Plenty of plotting

I’ve been making the most of the continuing good weather by doing plenty of plotting every day last week.

Part of the vegetable area now looks like this with the potatoes, onions and broad beans  all growing wellI shall be sowing more beetroot, carrots, lettuce and spring onions soon, then the runner beans and sweetcorn around mid-month and  the courgettes and cucumbers towards the end of the month,  but not transplanting my two  Gardener’s Delight tomatoes until early June.  By then my first early potatoes may be ready to start harvesting!  The yellow flowers at the top left are my plot neighbour Lesley’s wallflowers.

Much of last week was spent preparing the flower area then sowing lots of packets of seeds.  It looks pretty bare at presentbut the  aquilegias have started flowering including one with white flowers, unlike its parent which you can see is purple.  The yellow flowers around the pond, and towards the top right hand corner, are  creeping buttercups which are weeds! Incidently honeybees use the pond to drink from so there’s always some buzzing round it.

Here’s another view of the flower areaThe grape vine, just visible beside the log seat, seems much happier in the ground and I shall run it across the side of the compost bin at mid-height and along the top.

Brian, who has the adjacent plot,  gave me some rhubarb which I’ve not eaten for ages. Much as I like crumble I made do with simmering it,  making sure that it didn’t go mushy, then eating it with just a sprinkling of demerara sugar. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  Next year I should be growing and eating my own as Joe has several clumps of it one of which he doesn’t want and will give it to me when he digs it up later in the year.

My wildlife highlight of the week happened yesterday. I could hear a lot of quacking and looked up to see four mallard ducks, a female being pursued by three males, landing on a nearby plot. They then waddled off along one of the grass paths before taking to the air again heading straight for me at little more than head height continuing overhead and on towards the ecology park pond.