Allotment

Spring & Surprises at the Lottie

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Spring has well and truly sprung down on the allotment, bringing with it some old favourites, a new generation and a big surprise.

Being fair-weather gardeners we’ve not done much down the lottie over the winter, but when we have been down a pair of robins tend to follow our every move – always on the look out for a freshly unearthed worm.

I’ve been going down more frequently for the last couple of weeks to check on the pond – it’s frog spawn season! So I was very pleased when on 2nd March I spotted for the first clump of spawn in the pond. It could only have been laid a day or two before, making it about 10 days earlier than last year.

So out with the camera and the GoPro to record the start of a new amphibian generation.

 

By the 9th of March 3 more clumps of spawn had been laid – you can see the difference in size of the embryos and jelly in the photo and video below.

The GoPro did catch a blurry image if what I assume is a pair of frogs in a passionate embrace underwater. Having said that the smaller one does look a bit toad-ish to me, but there’s been no sign of any toad spawn in the pond so far. I read somewhere that 80% of toads return to the pool they were born in to breed, so it may take some years before we get any toad spawn.

In the hope of getting some froggy action on camera, I left one of the trail cameras running on the allotment for a few days. I ended up with a lot of videos of cats walking by, but eventually got this one – a stand off between a cat and a floating frog. Thankfully the frog has enough sense to dive when the cat makes its move.

I did have hopes of getting a fox on camera as I know we have them on the allotment. But what I did get next was a huge surprise – a badger drinking from the pond!

We’d no idea we had badgers down there, so this was a real bonus. It looks like another pair of frogs get spooked by the badger and also dive for cover. Needless to say the camera has been left down there in the hope of getting more footage – but so far nothing but more cats.

Hopefully in the coming weeks I can get footage of the frog spawn developing into tadpoles. Fingers crossed the newts return soon too and maybe even a toad or two. All this does show the  benefit of putting in a pond – this one only went in 2 years ago when we first got the allotment. We’d expected frogs and newts would use it and maybe birds would drink from it, but never dreamed that we’d get a badger. I guess “Build it and they will come”!

 

It’s a Frog’s Life

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I’ve been virtually staking out our allotment pond since the middle of February, hoping for frog spawn.  As it turns out, it was probably a good job we didn’t get any spawn that early, as the heavy snow at the beginning of March would probably have wiped it all out. But in mid-March there were squeals of excitement down the lottie, when we spotted the first magical clusters. We had frog spawn! We’d put in the pond too late for spawn last year, but we did get several frogs and newts using it throughout the summer. So it was great that the frogs at least deemed it suitable for spawning in. No sign of any toad or newt spawn yet, but I live in hope. As I’d just got a waterproof GoPro camera a month or so ago, the arrival of the frog spawn seemed the perfect opportunity to test it out. So here’s my very first underwater video, taken on the first day we spotted the frog spawn – 11th March.

Since then I’ve been down the lottie regularly to check on progress. We can’t be sure exactly which day the frog spawn was laid, but I would guess it was only a day or two before we saw it. At first there was only one clump, but two days later there were three. So I’ve been trying to keep a video/photo diary of the development. I’m still getting the hang of the settings on the GoPro and also on getting things in focus, so apologies if the images are sometimes a bit blurry. So first up here are the eggs on Day 2 – pretty much perfectly round dots in their jelly bubbles.

No real changes were visible to the naked eye for the first week or so, but by day 11 they were starting to change shape. No longer perfectly round, the eggs were more like fat commas.

Two days later and the comma shaped were definitely elongating, with the suggestion of a tail.

By day 15 there were definitely mini tadpoles inside the jelly blobs. No sign of movement yet, but heads and tails were clearly visible.

Day 18 (28th March) and the tadpoles had started to hatch. Some were still in their protective jelly, but quite a few were clearly visible stuck to the outside of the eggs. These were all on the first clump of spawn we’d seen, the tadpoles in the other two clumps were not surprisingly a few days behind, having been laid later.

Day 20 and most of the first clump had hatched. They were starting to move a bit more now and had got a bit bigger so that gills were just about visible on some of them. They were still feeding off the jelly of the spawn.

 

Day 24 (3rd April) and some of the slightly larger tadpoles were starting to move away from the jelly clump. Some of the tadpoles on the other two clumps of spawn were now starting to hatch too.

Day 29 and they were free swimming – the pond was alive with wriggling tadpoles. They were grazing on the algae growing on the sides of the pond and on the rocks.

I felt ridiculously proud of them that they had managed to make it this far, despite the rubbish weather spring has thrown at them! But they’re not out of the woods yet – as the next video shows there are still dangers lurking in the pond!

 

Newts will eat tadpoles, so the chances are that not all of these will survive, but hopefully there are enough of them that some at least will make it. The newts have to survive too. With a bit of luck maybe we’ll get some newts laying eggs too – the newt in the video appeared to have a bit of a frilly ridge so is perhaps in breeding condition.

So that’s the progress so far in the first month of our tadpoles lives. Hopefully enough of them will survive that I’ll be able to do an update in a month or two’s time, as the tadpoles develop into baby frogs. Fingers crossed!

 

30 Days Wild – Day 29 – Fine Crop of Flowers on the Lottie

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It’s Day 29 of 30 Days Wild and since I didn’t get home until quite late and it was raining when I did, the choices for today’s “wild thing” were a bit limited. Fortunately my friend was still staying and I’d promised to show her the lottie, so we headed up there to see what we can find. Although not everyone at the allotment site gardens organically, enough do that there are plenty of wildflowers to see amongst the deliberately planted plants.

First thing we spotted was Pineapple Weed (Matricaria discoidea). I’d never noticed it before but my friend identified it and got me to crush a flower – it really does smell like pineapples! Does what it says on the tin!

Next up was Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), a pretty wild version of Geraniums.

Another new one for me was a member of the Bistort family, possibly Redshank, but my dodgy rainy photo wasn’t good enough to be sure.

Next one we were a bit more confident about – Green Alkanet. The blue flowers were almost glowing in the rain. All these plants (weeds in some people’s books) were growing along the path as we walked down to our plot.

These pretty daisy-like flowers were actually Feverfew. As the name suggests, this plant has been used in traditional medicine to cure all manner of things. Like the bindweed photobombing in the corner!

Another medicinal herb growing around the plots was this St John’s Wort.

It had been a few days since I’d been down to the allotment, so it was really nice to see how some of the deliberate plantings had come along. The runner beans were going great guns – hopefully we’ll get a good crop.

Really chuffed to see one of our sunflowers was out despite the complete lack of sun today.

As is so often the case we had a surprise on today’s walk – we found 3 huge puffballs. Thought at first they were footballs, but they were way better than that – giant fungi. Seen here with a foot for size comparison! If it hadn’t been so wet we might have been tempted to take it back to try fried puffball steaks.

So even on a unpromising wet work night, there was still plenty to see and enjoy if you get out and about. Get your wellies on and get out there!

 

 

 

30 Days Wild – Day 10 – Down the Lottie

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Day 10 of 30 Days Wild and although it’s our wedding anniversary, I’ve spent most of the day down the allotment with my sister instead! We only got the allotment back in March, having e-mailed to be put on what I thought was an 18 month waiting list, only to get a plot 3 days later! Chris wasn’t too keen on the thought of all that weeding, so my sister and I are sharing the allotment instead. I have had to abandon the Too Lazy To Weed policy for the lottie, or all we’d actually grow would be weeds. Sis and I are sticking to our organic, peat free principles though, so ours is hopefully a wildlife friendly plot.

This is what some of the plot looked like when we started. Fairly overgrown with couch grass, bindweed and brambles, but it could have been a lot worse. Some of the empty plots are waist deep in weeds.

It is still very much a work in progress and probably always will be. No sooner have we cleared one patch, than the previous patch needs weeding again. And since we’re not using any weedkillers it is slow going, but worth it. Here’s the same bit a few weeks ago.

We inherited some apple trees, raspberries and currant bushes, all of which we’ve kept for the time being. The first major thing we did was put in a (very) small pond. Even one this size took some digging, which was a bit of a shock to my non-weeding/digging self. This is what the pond looked like just after it was put in.

And this is what it looks like now. The pond plants have established a bit and the water has cleared. We used one of those barley straw logs that clear the water naturally, it would have worked even quicker if a cat hadn’t kept fishing it out! There had been a large water barrel on the plot which had pond snails in, so we transferred those in.

We’ve already seen adult frogs using it – this is one from this morning.

We’ve also got at least one common newt that’s moved in and seems to be pretty much a full time resident now.

We’ve also had pond skaters and lots of midge larvae and a few weeks ago I got really excited when this red damselfly landed next to it.

We’re trying to be as environmentally friendly (and economic) as we can, so are using recycled stuff where possible. The cloches over our sweetcorn are old water bottles and we’ve turned other old bottles into plant pots that are hung on the fence.

This strange looking ring of fur may look like we’ve had some kind of ritual sacrifice, but is actually meant to keep the slugs off our courgettes. It consists of the hair clippings off my sister’s dog Pip – perhaps a bit odd, but we read it somewhere and thought we’d give it a go and it seems to be working.

We’re also trying out companion planting to distract the pests, so we’ve got marigolds amongst the runner beans, mint amongst the carrots and nasturtiums all over the place!

It must all be working because there are loads of bees, butterflies and hoverflies. We’ve put up a bird feeder too, so the sparrows are also doing well. We’ve even had moths – found this Small Magpie moth today trapped in the shed. A bit of chasing round with an old toilet roll and I caught him and released him – my good deed for today.

I do have to watch when I’m down the lottie that I don’t get totally distracted by the wildlife and forget to do the gardening. Today I spent an awful lot of time staking out a foxglove to try and get a photo of the bees going in and out. Unfortunately they’re so damn quick, this was the best I managed.

Finally no allotment would be complete without a resident robin. We have a pair that come down – I live in hope of getting them to trust me enough to take food from my hand, no luck yet.

By gardening organically we’ve accepted that some of our lettuce will get munched by slugs and some of the fruit will be eaten by birds, but there’s still more than enough for our two households.  This was today’s harvest – good to know that it is all pesticide and guilt free!

It is lovely and peaceful down the lottie and both my sister and I find it really relaxing. If I didn’t already know that getting in touch with wildlife and gardening organically was good for the soul, then taking on the allotment would have convinced me. Growing our own produce in a wildlife friendly plot – to me that epitomises the whole ethos of 30 Days Wild – and I couldn’t be happier!