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I saw this tree on my travels last weekend. You don’t see many of these in this country to be honest. So I was impressed with this.

It has been one of those weekends when you really wish you weren’t a gardener. The rain comes down, and down, and down and there is nothing you can do outside until it is too late.

Still, today it has been a good excuse to stay in and watch the tennis, such as it is. It has been disrupted due to rain as well. There may be another bit of play today, the covers are coming off, but I don’t think it will settled tonight, unless one of them gives up.

I took these pictures on a day out a fortnight ago. The bird was called Rodney.

A bit wet today. Still managed to get something done. It's also not doing my beans any good, this wind that is.

Here we go again with the Gardener's World Live. This year again at the NEC.

Last year I missed some of the show gardens as I spent too long inside with all the equipment, which I didn't really want. I also saw Alan Titchmarsh on the stage, when I didn't really want to. This year I by-passed all that and went straight to the show gardens and saw them all. I was also able to spend longer in the RHS tent getting very jealous of what they had grown in there. I know they have green/hot houses, but I still wish I had something resembling a glass-based building in which to bring on my seedlings and cuttings.

I wont bore you with the names of everything - you can see some of them on the pictures - just enjoy as much as I did.

Click on an image to open it in a new window as a bigger image.

My iris has finally come out. I put this in two years ago, but it has only just felt the desire to flower.

Well worth the wait I thought.

I thinned out my straberries last year, but it has done little to stop them moving ahead this year. In fact it has meant even more plants. I’ve not done anything special to them, other than thin them.

It does mean getting more strawberry mats or straw. The latter will be cheaper, so I am going to ask a friend to bring some over.

I’m hoping for a bumper crop this year. Not that there were few last year; but I’m thinking of making jam this year. We will see of course, the year is but young yet.

I have been able to harvest some comfry this weekend, though I have left the bits that are still flowering. It has gone in the composter to make up the space left after I nearly emptied last week.

I am putting the sweetcorn in this weekend as it has started off well under glass, but with the good weather I thought I would put it in now. Let’s hope it fares better than last year.

I decided to take some of my compost out this week. I have planting and re-potting to do.

As you can see it has come on nicely and is rich and going to give my seeds a good start. It is all peat free so that’s a bonus too.

It took a while to dig out as it was really compact in there. There were one or two big lumps, but nothing that wont continue to rot down, so I put it back in at the top and away we go again.

I’ve not been active here of late as I am leaving the plot to its own devices for a while; but I thought I would mention that I saw a film over the Xmas period relating to allotments - “Grow Your Own”.

Below is a sort of review.

This is the sort of thing we have come to expect of British cinema trying to do comedy. there are no out and out gags or laughs, just wry smiles all round.

It’s a feel good film that doesn’t really pick up enough for me. But if you have an allotment you may well see plenty of truth in the characters.

The constant wet weather has meant that the spinach has run away with itself. You’d think that it would slow down as it was so wet, but spinach likes it wet and bolts something rotten.

Here you can see a seed head.

If you wanted to keep it down you would need to cut it every week - whether you wanted to eat it or not. At least you could compost it if you didn’t want to eat it.

Well, I have to admit to being an absent gardener last weekend. I went to London for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not a lot of greenery, but plenty of things to do.

I went here:

Can you guess where it was? You might have seen me on TV?