After admiring the flag iris around the Culpeper Community Garden pond we nipped over to the allotment to check on our own pond.
✩ Our first flag iris ✩
Hooray for Dock Bugs doing it!
The Ragged Robin is flowering its socks off...
... and the creeping buttercup is too pretty to cut back just yet.
Since we were passing by, we made some time to visit Culpeper Community Garden to take a peek at the smooth newts that make a home of the pond.
We spotted our first Flag Iris of the season.
Finally, our first radishes are fattened and ready for eating.
Admittedly we've not been consistent in our successional sowing but, there's plenty for a couple more salads yet.
Word on Oxford street, allotmenting ranks with queueing for festival portaloos and builders sipping tea as meme of British good times, capers and high jinks.
Coo, look at the size of those brassicas! We ♥ the current Selfridges windows.
A grand day out with friends.
We took lunch in the kichen garden because the weather permitted and ogled the magnificence of the pigeon-proof pea trellis and silver beech bean wigwams. We bemoaned our meagre lot of not possessing wooded land to coppice. Oh envy!
Stiles and...
... buttercup meadows, but alas no maids-a-milking.
We gaped at the wonders of Petersham Nurseries...
... and gawped at the gingerbread-work bedecking the Royal Rowbarge Gloriana.
The Heron goggled the passersby, waiting for its sardine dinner.
We use shears, rather than a strimmer, to clip the grass to give the critters a chance to move out of harms way.
The promise of plenty! We can't wait.
Inspired by the sorrel recipes in The Weekend Magazine we nipped down to the allotment to pick some for our brunch.
The 'creamed sorrel with poached egg on toast' recipe went down a treat.
A Small Copper butterfly spotted at the allotment today.
We braved the threat of May Bank Holiday rain and took the train to Wendover to see this year's bluebell show. Oh sublimity! The Ridgeway path was a sight to behold.
Not to take second billing, the Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum), Wood Anemone, Dog Violet, Wood Sorrel, Primrose, Cowslip, Bugle, Ramsons and Spurge were out on display too.
Our homemade picnic of sushi and gingerbread kept us going on our expedition up and down the Chilterns
Since the rain has kept the plotters away, the critters have come out from hiding.
The allotment fox warming itself on a compost/manure heap, ain't she a beauty.
We planted out our French Beans as we couldn't keep them indoors a moment longer. We've built them a fleece tent to try protect them from the predicted frosts.
The list of allotment jobs is growing: paths to be mowed, peas to be weeded, broad beans to be staked, grilles to be lashed... but it being soggy we took the responsible decision of let alone and scurried home.
More rhubarb baked in a pie to warm the cockles.
