28 July 2007 - Good fences; good neighbours

The corner plot beside us - one of the few remaining available plots - has been snatched up. Hence we have new neighbours, Jan & Pat, who we met when we ambled up early afternoon. Very friendly, and we shared tools and advice. Once more struck by the casual friendliness of local people.

They had already dug a trench for our shared boundary and generously agreed that should be that - which means that at least one side of the plot is now fenced. This shamed Nicholas into making a start on our fence, which remains the one thing we can do which will make a considerable difference to who gets to eat our produce (ie us or the rabbits). He completed the trench for our western boundary. Interestingly (although not for our readers, obviously), the soil down there is clay-ey and stone-free, unlike the upper reaches, which is a nightmare of stones and pebbles. Incidentally, the apparent curve in my trench is an optical illusion. There's also a video.

Kim got busy with our new manual mower (from The Argos £29.99), keeping the undergrowth under control. We also brought up our rotating composter thingy from the house, full of good kitchen compost, and put it in a disused compost bin from the back of the garden. We had of course to take the rotating composter thingy back afterwards to keep the Karmic Cycle going. We'll be digging that into the beds during the autumn.

Rabbit droppings on the tarpaulin taunt us. Also scant progress on the seedling front, except for the peas and we think we can see some speedy leeks coming up. A few carrots have shown their tops. The line of raddichio seedlings observed last week has completely disappeared. This makes us think that we need to do more to condition our soil. Celery continue to thrive and something is eating the potatoes.

We stop by the much-admired next-but-one plot, which is still thriving. It's their first year (they got the top layer of grass taken off from their plot), and much discussion ensues - with a guest appearance by Mr and Sue Getly - about the September produce show. There's a novice category. Our most likely entry is the pumpkin on our compost pile. Its leaves now stretch around eight feet, with one bright yellow pumpkin waiting to burst into action. Many other flowers, none of which have yet produce budding pumpkins. Apparently we have to nip these off so that the pumpkin's energy goes into one or two fruits.

Over a delightful hummus and pita lunch, we pondered priotiries for next year, based on things we like to eat. Postive consensus on courgettes, corn, potatoes, onions, carrots, raspberries, broccoli, peas, leeks. Also easy things like radishes. Mixed views on beans and lettuce. Need Gantt chart. Also need to prepare the soil properly over the autumn.

Harvest: several radishes.

Injuries: small blister on N's left ankle.

Took 'panoramic' shots from the potato bed, so you know what their perspective on the world is.

Home, to be greeted by our (house) Neighbours, celebrating a birthday and bearing sparkling wine. A fine end to an afternoon at the plot.

22 July 2007 - The sting

A late afternoon persual of the plot.

Potatoes in need of further weeding and earthing up - accomplished using the compost mound. Sadly, the courgettes (zucchini) planted on the mound have given up. (And yet, on a plot, nothing gives up - it simply becomes future compost.) On the far side of the mound, the pumpkin thrives. Leafspan of four feet and a couple of future pumpkins. We remain unsure of whether a pumpkin is one of those plants that needs, ahem, a 'helping hand', to germinate. Judging by the swelling bulbs, however, we suspect the pumpkin has taken this matter into its own hands.

Kim, in turn, turns her hands to killing young weeds (also future compost) in both active beds. Radicchio seedlings coming up. Small leak seedlings, too. Peas thriving, aided by supportive twig structure, and now protected by a netting roof. Celery (from the St Stpehens Horticultural Society - aka St S Gardening Club - see blogs passim) thriving.

We need more carpet, to kill weeds around the beds. Donations welcome.

Weather here has been mixed, remarkably so. Much rain, soil clay-ey. Sun and rain over the last week. Elsewhere, but not quite far away enough to be complaisant, floods are occupying central England. Many pictures of people cycling through four feet of water. Plucky lot, the English. Our river, the Ver, swollen, but not yet bursting its banks.

Harvest today of radishes and final batch of original spring onions. Kim says radish leaves sting one's hands.


Learned:
1. This season is a test-run. No need to mourn the failures.

2. Preparation is key. Like wallpapering. Preparation for next season starts tomorrow. The future belongs to those who double-dig.

3. We need more carpet.

4. Weeds are stronger than non-weeds.

5. Having guests is all very well, but they don't tend to dig. Apart from Australian nephew, who reports by text, that his kitchen cupboard grows bigger onions than our plot.

6. Tim Tyndale, if you have any conscience, please come for a digging weekend. Free food and beer. And you can hang out with The Neighbours when you're not digging.

7. We still need to secure the perimeter. Tim?

21 July 2007 - Beside ourselves

We entertain this weekend, prompted by The (house) Neighbours' party. Among our guests are Joscelyn and Dragan, all the way from Islington. Drag ourselves away from 'Now That's What I Call Music 2003' (and a fine pavlova), to take a tour of the allotment, wary of the floods overwhelming central England.

We see rabbits (another of whom our murderous feline Archie will later that night bring home and devour) and our guests see what has been occupying every waking hour and keeping us away from the fleshpots of London.

It was instructive to see the plot at around 9pm, when we have usually drawn the blinds and retired for the evening to read about things other people grew successfully. Mist covers the neighbouring fields, lit by a perfect half-moon.

Joscelyn and Dragan were kind, and supportive. Dragan remarks, upon departure some 20 hours later, that the visit had felt like a week. We are inclined to think he meant a good week.

Jim and Beatrice (small one, foreground) also made a most welcome visit, but escaped a tour of the plot.)

Please do feel free to post comments. There's no catch - our audience participation is, unlike the BBC phone-ins, scandal-free.

15 July - Slow motion

Things are looking a little sluggish on the plot.

There is very little evidence that any seeds were planted during the week, i.e. nothing has come up. We have looked very hard and the only real seedlings showing themselves just now are radishes (quelle surprise). If we squint, we think there may be the tiny beginnings of raddichio. No peas as yet, though it said on the packet that germination took 6-8 days, so here's hoping. I have deliberately not gone to have a look today.

Though the weather has been louring and ominous, no water has fallen, so watering has had to be done. If the seedlings don't come up, I shall be worried that we are not greenfingered - that the plot is in the dodgy bit of the allotment - and that we are asking too much for this late in the growing season. Or a mixture of all three. Or that we have been too lazy in preparing the beds, i.e. not got rid of all the ****ing stones.

Something greedy is eating the broccoli/sprouts, despite the netting. And one of the courgette plants (in the compost heat) keeps "losing" its flowers. And we found incontrovertible proof of rabbits.

But the potatoes are growing well and flowering; the celery looks to be strong, green and crunchy; and King Pumpkin is showing us his lurve on the other side of the compost heap. And we have had lovely lettuces and springies and radishes.

We have two videos of the slug - I know, I know, we're too good to you. But it was an enormous thing and oozed quite quickly and efficiently across the plastic.

All in all, the successes and failures are adding up to a keen appreciation of life's karmic balance. It's quite a bit of "on the one hand, on the other" type of thinking with an allotment, as the slug above learnt the hard way. Please note - this is not one for slug-lovers even if it is sideways. Nature red in tooth and claw and all that.

11 July - All quiet on the Preston front

Exotic visitor from another country - Scotland!

The newly married Alison Preston comes to see the plot (and the Tudor pile).

Brief visit to the plot for an inspection, including pumpkin progress

and salad harvest.

10 July - Seeds and such

I had today off so after a morning spent doing useful things indoors, I thought the time right to go in search of more seeds to plant and to really resolve the issue of winter vegetables. The challenge is that with the allotment half plasticked up and with only two workable beds that are protected there are limits to our creativity. Once the fence is properly up, and the other beds dug, then we will be able to fly.

I had already sown some more radishes and lettuces in Bed A quickly at the weekend. What is good about the plot is that even if you only do a little bit you feel so much better. It's similar to the "clean sink" syndrome which I read about in some magazine. Apparently, keeping your sink squeaky clean is very good for the internal karma - you are at least able to control the state of your sink and from that, the rest follows.

A trip to Homebase yielded two possibilities for expanding our harvest. One was quick growing leeks called Atar (as opposed to the overwintering ones which we yearn to do but we are too late this year) - and peas. It is not too late to sow peas and we had some twiggy sticks from the garden that I had saved for I knew not what. As we have been going through a phase of eating peas from the pod bought in supermarkets, I thought that these would be great. We had already bought some Italian Raddichio seeds, which promise full heads of lovely red crispy leaf in the winter.


Carefully considering Plot B, I sowed some more carrots into the carrot half - some had come up but not as many as we had hoped. The other half I sowed two small rows of peas, with twiggy sticks, and a bit of compost from the recycling centre (100% Hertfordshire garden waste), a long row of raddichio (they need more room) and two small rows of "quick" leeks. (The white thing you can see along the side of the bed in the picture is carpet. We have put down some of our carefully scavenged carpet in a bid to create walking room and to kill the weeds. Allotment people are apparently divided about the benefits of carpet - if it kills weeds, and it ain't poisonous, I'm all for it.)

After weeding the raspberry patch (one plant doing very well, the other sulking), I checked the courgettes and pumpkin in the compost. Sad to say that I knocked off one of the courgette flowers by mistake - aarrgh. Hopefully the courgette will forgive me. The pumpkin plant looks lovely and expansive (see left). And then I watered it all, as strange to say there has not been much rain in the last few days. Interesting to see the mark of little paws over the black plastic - obviously the damnable rabbits.


Good things: chatting to nice allotment chap; looking at other people's efforts and thinking that we weren't doing too bad at all (though there is plenty to aspire to); thinking about overwintering onions.

Bad things: bad plot holder killing courgette flower; running out of twiggy sticks for peas.

7 July 2007 - Live Earth Day in the allotment

Another weekend, more dirt under the fingernails.

Went to the garden centre - heads a bit heavy from an encounter last night with our neighbours Chris and Liz, and their vat of rose wine. Examined things you insert in the ground to form borders, but realised we would have to buy 400 of them to enclose our plot. Decided not to. As a technique to avoid thinking about the perimeter, we stocked up on black plastic sheeting (20 metres) and set off the cover most of the plot - in order to suppress weeds and improve the soil. It's either that or tackle the undergrowth on a regular basis.

Also bought shears, and a soil tester so we can ignore its warnings about our soil's potential (or lack thereof).

The plastic went on smoothly, and N then got to work weeding around the potato plants, about seven of whom are thriving - two have flowers, which is very exciting and indicates, we believe, actual potatoes growing. Then, 'earthing up' (see fact sheet GG9) to protect the tubers from blight.



Also, the courgette (zucchini) and Giant Pumpkin in the compost heap are thriving. Their companion courgette has gone to a better place - fucking rabbits.

Meanwhile, much delicate weeding of Beds 4 and 5. And further sowing of spring onions and radishes. Have written off Mr Birt's magic beans (and want cow back). More seeds to sow tomorrow.

And harvest of several radishes, one lettuce (a bit chewed) and a batch of spring onions. Tonight, we eat like kings.

The aforementioned neighbours spent the afternoon trimming a tree between our properties and then chucked a bag of leaves into our garden. (Everyone else in Hertfordshire is so nice.) In due course, this matter will become compost for next year's crops. See how far we are thinking ahead?

First Mate is downstairs now conducting the soil test. If you're lucky, there'll be a video.

Weather: glorious for a change. Much rain of late.

Injuries: N stung by nettle. Bearing up, v brave.

Poles apart

In response to Gillian's query about poles, according to Wikipedia, links, poles and chains were all known as "Gunter's survey units" from the C17 onward. A link was approx 20.12cm, a pole 5.029m and a chain 20.12m. The pole is also known as a rod or perch.

So there we are.

I'm now not sure how big our allotment is. (N inserts: 5 poles, hence a touch over 125 sq m.)

30 June-1 July 2007 - The Visitors

A quick word about the weather before we get really engrossed in blogging. The weather has been dismal - mostly rainy and cloudy, and no really good sunshine. The weather forecasters say that it is above average temperature for June but that it is likely to be the wettest June on record.

We have not had much time recently to do anything new to the plot, and we are beginning to have thoughts about how to achieve a more satisfactory result next year. It unfortunately involves lots of digging. But at least we are thinking about it, and any day now we will have the first of our four lettuces. The springonions are also ready. The celery seems to be OK, though slow growing. The radishes need thinning and something (the Bloody White Cabbage Butterfly methinks) has been at either the broccoli or the sprouts - hard to tell now after the carnage. But the courgettes and the pumpkin appear to be happy in the compost, or not died at least. The potatoes are still growing, and the very urgent thing to do is earth the bigger ones up, otherwise we will be eating poisonous green potatoes.

You are probably wondering about the picture at the top. These were our first visitors to the allotment, our friends John and Collette. They had arrived the night before bearing traditional gifts of champagne, chocolate, cider and various seedlings. A night of fun, jollity and excitement then ensued. The next morning, Saturday, it was chucking it down, so the trip to the plot was a less than comfortable prospect. John and Collette seemed to be especially keen on the shed, possibly because it was dry. On the way back, we popped into the smallholding near the allotment to get some duck eggs. It is not always open and the honour system of payment for eggs left in a cupboard had broken down, due to theft. However, the owner has installed a foolproof cupboard with a padlock which only the privileged few are allowed to know the number to - we are one of the few.

The next day was Sunday - and being Sunday it was time for family visitors (right). Pip, the mother of the Australian nephew (AN) who had dug so mightily, the aforesaid Australian nephew and his charming girlfriend Kaeran had a very traditional English roast beef dinner. We had fun explaining what Yorkshire puddings were -"...errm, they're basically batter" and such. And then, for the second time in two days, our plot received guests. Obviously AN was extremely excited to see it all again and liked the shed immensely. We shared with him our vision to get the plot more productive and controlled, the first step of which was to get it fenced properly - we think he got the gist. The Australians were amazed at how lush and green everything is. We were amazed at how fast the bloody weeds had come back.