Nature Blog by Jenny Bourne

An Easter Monday of perfect spring weather up at the plot, sunny and warm enough to bring out brimstone, orange-tip and peacock butterflies along with the staycation plotholders and buzzing bees!

In the past few weeks my eye’s occasionally been caught by an erratic and haphazard flight path around the plot; it’s a queen bumble bee emerging groggily out of her winter quarters and on the search for quick energy refuelling.

Flowering plants come in all shapes, sizes and colours but there are some essential requirements for attracting pollinators to your allotment or garden. As well as the bumbles, solitary and honeybees that create that buzz around our plots, other pollinators are also available

It has been more than a month of seemingly relentless rainfall; this was the waterlogged scene yesterday morning near the entrance to the site. After a grey and damp start the sun actually came out to make a pleasant day on the plot.

An annual inspection and maintenance work has been carried out on our SE perimeter mixed-species native hedge, after the planting of more whips to fill gaps last autumn.