Nature Blog by Jenny Bourne

No rain, parched plants and yellowing grass in parks and on the allotments – we’re all hoping the water pumps keep going and water levels don’t drop too much. Temperatures are due to rise even higher next week to the low 30s; at least Wimbledon players seem to be coping with it! But for us in the fields it’s hard work keeping on top of watering and it’s only the really needy, hungry veg that we’re targeting – cucumbers, courgettes, squash, tomatoes and also the French climbing beans.

We’ve got a white tail bumblebee nest that’s been made in the ground just in front of our shed entrance – very exciting! On 9 May I first noticed a small hole, about 1cm diameter, with bees flying in, some with back legs laden with pollen and climbing back out of it, passing each other like planes at Heathrow.

Jem Negus, one of our RPA qualified beekeepers gave a talk about beekeeping on Sunday. A good crowd turned up in the sun to watch Jem demonstrate the make up of a beehive and to find out about what beekeepers do during the year, what goes on in the hive and swarming.

Almost June and the warm weather with a little rain has brought on the vegetables, the flowers and the plants in the wrong place (aka ‘weeds’!). I’ve been musing on the ways that we grow flowers on our respective plots and flowers on allotments generally.

A small but select group of us met early on Sunday morning for a May bird walk guided by Jon around the site, binoculars ready and listening out for familiar and not so familiar bird songs and calls. Swifts were wheeling high in the sky and we were lucky to both see and hear a whitethroat – one of the summer visitors. Jon says it’s so much easier to find a bird if you can identify its song or call and this whitethroat performed splendidly,