30 September - Brief Encounter

This weekend we were very busy with matters arboreal at the bottom of our garden, so our visit to the plot was brief, though productive. We had hoped to get some Hertfordshire compost from the recycling centre, but unfortunately (or, looking at the bigger picture, fortunately) they were sold out. We wheedled another pallet from the nice recycling folk, to add to the one we got from the Radlett hardware store yesterday, on a separate mission. Two pallets - schweet. Instead, we opted for 3 large bags of all purpose compost and ditto farmyard manure from Homebase. Interestingly, the latter was pong-free. This was to dig into our new bed, to prepare it for the growing season ahead, and to give our spring cabbage seedlings and onions the best possible start. It didn't take long, and now looks thoroughly dug and ready for anything.

More raspberries have appeared - and instantly consumed. We cannot help ourselves. The celery still appears to be thriving, but is still not ready for proper eating. The brussels sprout plant is doing great guns and we already think of Christmas dinner (even though I hate sprouts). The peas are beginning to look tired and a bit blit by something, though we took some home to have with dinner. We also had the first of the speedy leeks - akin to a spring onion, they are feisty and tasty and can be eaten raw.

The 5 remaining pumpkins are looking good and are probably feeling the benefit of the pruning the plant was given recently. In response to the changing season, the plant is now looking decidedly sleepy and is not putting out any new tendrils. Once it has done its bit, we will move the mound of soil about to put into one of the new beds (once dug).

The spring cabbage seedlings sown directly into the soil last week have come up. We worry about slugs. The onion seedlings appear to be happy but the cabbages we had sown into peat pots less so, most of which appear to have been eaten. We still think there will be enough for our new dug bed.

On the way out, we bump into someone who used to work at the same place as us a few years back who has a plot at the front of the allotment. It is a small world we think - as is the allotment. His was a cautionary tale - having managed to quash all weeds, he left it alone for 6 weeks and has just come back to a mini-jungle. The weeds are currently in the driving seat, but we hope not for long.

Weather note: some rain during the week, sunny and cloudy. Something for everyone. It is starting to feel less summery and the allotment overall is beginning to assume a slightly dishevelled look. Bit like us really.

22-23 September 2007 - Family plot

Much joy as my sister Rachel arrives for an overnight visit - fitting us in between Finland and Canada. Jet-lagged, she is bundled off immediately, of course, to the allotment, where she is suitably impressed, and notes the luxury of a plot within walking distance of home.

With the girls out on an improving walk in the pastures, I am left to complete the fourth wall of our new raised bed. Which eventually fits, with a little jiggery and some pokery. A final break-up of the soil follows, and the beginning of mixing in soil-improving compost.

Rachel watered like a seasoned professional.

Meet the newest allotmenteer, Corner Guy, as he will be known until we learn his name. Worringly, he says he was told that he needed some sort of planning permission to erect a shed. Hmm. Lacking aforementioned permission, we may need to paint ours in camouflage patterns and colours, rather than the fetching robin's-egg blue we had in mind.

We snack on some peas and raspberries, improve the raspberry netting, and note, with relief, the absence of rabbit droppings.

Not, we fear, a state likely to prevail on our western neighbours' plot.

Later, some teamwork on repairing the trailer so that it can support our allotment work in a manner befitting a trailer. All hands on deck, and a fine result.

Return on Sunday for a touch more pokery, then away to Radlett again to acquire more wood from our Freecycle philanthropist. Confess to the trailer mismanagement and the heroic role of his climbing rope, and settle for what battens we can fit in our car. He's got a really nifty circular saw, which I am coming to regard as a tool I must have.

So our wood pile grows, and plans forming for a Louis XVI-style pattern of beds and paths to the west, with fruit cage in the middle and shed, compost and (perhaps) gazebo to the east.

A brief tour for you.

16 September - Bedtime

A quick blog of today's plot events. As reported yesterday, the late lamented Pumpking left some deserving relatives who have rallied to the cause. We made soup today of the pumpkin flowers we harvested yesterday which was fine if a tad exotic. Apparently, you can eat pumpkin leaves too - they stirfry etc just like other greens. Also you deserve a brief weather update. It has been lovely, early September weather - sunny and warm and very inviting, though no rain.

N went to the plot and began the task of assembling the wood to make the bed where the potatoes had grown. Prior to that, we had gone to Homebase and acquired a corner shed tidy thingie for our tools - a tidy shed is a tidy mind and all that. By the time I arrived, one side had already been assembled out of three long planks nailed to a corner batten. I did some subsidiary digging in the bed to enable accurate placing of this first element of the bed, and matters proceeded apace, so that we have three sides of our first properly protected bed. The soil is piled together in a heap in the middle until we dig it properly. The plan is to have a walkway across the middle in order to reach the crops. The wood is fantastic.

There was also much remedial raspberry cage business which resulted in a cracked cane as the wind is getting up - the raspberries are coming into their prime and there are many more than we thought there would be.

I pondered long and hard about the poor seedlings I had transported up from our conservatory still in their peat pots. They are manifestly too small to plant out according to the books, yet I am unsure as to where they should be right now they have started to emerge as they are meant to be "overwintering". After a while, I remember the protecting cloche/hoop thingie we had bought ages ago, and put the seedlings in their peat pots and in trays underneath it in the bed with the sprouts and celery. This will give them warmth and protection whilst allowing them a bit more time to grow and us time to prepare their eventual home. Other than that, I guess I could always plant seeds direct but that would be a great waste of the time and effort taken to grow them indoors. I am beginning to think more positively about the bed option for our plot.

Following our time on the plot, we then adjourned to The Neighbours for a gorgeous Sunday lunch/dinner and lots of wine. We had some of our peas as an hors d'ouevre - nothing sweeter or fresher has ever been tasted.

15 September 2007 - Trailer trash

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

But first, the good news. After the tragedy of the original pumpkin, five of its brothers (or clones, I suppose) are making their presence felt. The have been propped on wooden boards, to avoid the decay suffered by the original. Sunshine will harden their shells in time for Halloween. Much trimming of dying leaves, leaves blocking the sun from reaching the pumpkins, and the remaining flowers (who, intent on securing a future for their own little fella, will divert resources away from our famous five. We brought one little guy home, and will see later what recipes are available from the Information Superhighway.

More good news on the peas-in-the-pod front. We sampled one with Pat and Jan next door, and they are the sweetest, freshest vegetables ever.

Pulled up a sample carrot, then another. Came on well - and these from seed!

Backbreaking work transforming the original potato patch into a proper bed. Got about half way through today, with the unexpected pleasure of finding some more potatoes that we had missed in the original harvest. This bed will be for overwintering cabbage and onions, also from seed, but now moved to the cold frame to get used to being outside.

Then to nearby Radlett, to pick up floorboards offered on Freecycle, to make borders for our new beds and, well, just because they were free, basically. Very nice fella (who got a dinghy from Freecycle) helped us load about 400 pounds of wood in our trailer, and lent us a rope when the front of the trailer started to look a little saggy. You may recall our shed-transportation experience three months ago, almost to the day. We didn't get far this time before the front splayed outward under the pressure of the wood, and we had a tense time on the three miles from Radlett.

Fortunately, we arrived almost intact, and with no one to witness our shame. Wood unloaded, harvest made, and no one the wiser. Apart from you, dear reader.

Harvest: the newly found potatoes; some lovely peas; two carrots; one celery (for soup); two raspberries. Tonight we eat like kings. Again.

8 September - The Winner Takes It All

We are entering the balmy days of September. A little chillier in the mornings and the evenings are drawing in ever so slightly. But lovely clear calm weather prevails, and joy is in our hearts this morning as we prepare for our first experience of the St Stephens Annual Show.

Earlier in the week we submitted our entry form, accompanied by 20p - in the Novice Potatoes (5) category. The tricky bit was identifying the most perfect specimens of our crop which had to be consistent in size and quality, as our modest harvest had yielded an eclectic variety of shapes, sizes and textures. We made the selection and prepared by buying some paper plates (the vessel of choice for showing produce on). N gently washed the potatoes and we were off to go to the setting up, not knowing what to expect.

We were delighted to find that there was only one other competitor in our category. We laid our potatoes out as artistically as we could, observing what others were doing, then took ourselves off for a couple of hours until the show started.

The atmosphere was electric. N felt "quietly confident".

To find that... yes, readers - the hard work, the toil and the sweat had paid off! We had been awarded 2nd prize and the other entry nothing!

We puzzled over the seemingly anomalous position of getting the best award in our category without getting a 1st, but then noticed that a number of entries had been similarly treated. We came to the conclusion that the Judges (who remained unseen except for a tiny shimmer in the air) had overriding criteria for each award - which kind of makes sense, a bit like university-degree classification.

We even had the benefit of a Post-It Note which confirmed that we would have got the 1st prize if our potatoes had been of the same size (well, they nearly were). So we could have been given a 3rd prize - indeed, that's what was awarded to our allotment-neighbours-but-one (the Model Plot) who put in some beans into the novice class. They were the only entry, but got a 3rd, which we thought was a little harsh as they looked fab.

Our heads spinning with the heady joy of achievement, we smugly swanned around the rest of the show. Various local friends and neighbours attended, and even The Neighbours from next door graciously put in an appearance as a prelude to watching the Ingerlund -v- Israel game. Our allotment neighbours were suitably complimentary and congratulatory.

There were more than 80 categories - onions, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, beetroot, celery, parsnips, fruit of all sorts, flowers of all sorts, cakes, pictures, kids' paintings, poems, knitted garments, embroidery and so on and so on. Very interesting to see how similar it was in layout and feel to the show we had gone to during our holiday recently in a small village in Wales. Though obviously there were no Welsh speakers, and strangely, no cabbages.

A particularly intriguing category was called "Ones that didn't work". Among the items was this rather rude carrot.

Another item which we thought our readers would appreciate was this splendid elephant made out of carrot and miscellaneous vegetables. This was made by the grandson of our allotment-neighbours-but-one (they who have the Model Plot). It won 1st prize.

The end of the show was marked by a prize-giving ceremony. There were many cups and mentions, including prizes for the children, including the abovementioned grandson of the Model Plot.

We have omitted mention of Mr Getley until now, but his name was liberally scattered throughout all the show entries, most notably the vegetables. Mr Getley was also the MC, the speechmaker and giver out of prizes. When, as frequently happened, he was the recipient of the prize, another member of the committee seamlessly took over the announcements.

In other circumstances, one could imagine that a degree of resentment amongst the assembly would be normal - but none could be detected. The applause was honest and heartfelt. We could only surmise that this had happened many times before, and, we hope, many more times in the future. Such is the nature of the Annual Show and we are thrilled and delighted to have played a small part in its success.

Oh, and England beat Israel 3-0, so good results all round!

2 September - Rollercoaster Ride

Oooh have we got news for you. A lot seems to be happening all at once, some happy and some sad things. Get on board the Allotment Rollercoaster!

Firstly, we dug up the potatoes. Avid readers will recall that they were planted in appalling conditions in small trenches dug directly into the grass, i.e. we did not dig up the soil as such. They have suffered, as have others on the allotment, with blight, and we came to the conclusion that the time had come to see what nature had given us. They are a pleasing pinky shade and by and large in a good state. There were a few mouldy/tiny ones and we put this down to the generally poor conditions and the blight.


They filled a sturdy carrier bag and were proudly shown to various allotment neighbours, including The Nettle Guy (who apparently is called Derek but I prefer Nettle Guy). Our potatoes are snugly stored in the garage in an eerily prescient set of sliding shelves donated by The Neighbours.




The next uplifting thing to happen was the completion of the plot perimeter. Some of you will no doubt have been fretting about the security of the plot, given that we hadn't fixed the corners of the fence nor finished the gate. After due consultation with Pat and Jo, we sorted out the corners (K was allowed to use the staple gun for the first time - woo hoo) and the gate is now operational pending the installation of a bolt (there's a bit of a gap in the middle, ahem). We are proud that there is no other gate like it on the allotment.

It's weird how much of a difference the fence and gate make. OK, we know we had to do it because of the rabbits. We feel less like pioneers and more like tenant farmers.

A note about the weather while we're all philosophical. Weather has been dry and cloudy for quite a few days now. Warm but not hot. No rain so we have watered since we came back (yes readers we actually left the plot for a few days R&R in a campsite - if I don't spend some time indoors soon I shall turn into Tess of the D'Urbevilles).

Other joys are the ever-happy celery and also the peas which are now definitely flowering and podding. Oh how we wish we'd planted more. Next year next year. The two Brussel Sprout plants are looking good especially after some jazzy looking caterpillars got ejected. We remain slightly mystified by the broccoli.

We now come to the sad part of the story. Your favourite and ours, the Pumpking of lurve, has been demolished. Something had made him all soggy and mouldy. Perhaps it was hubris. It's certainly a lesson not to take everything for granted. We are very sorry - though it must be said that there are some nice pumpkingettes coming along. They are small though and probably won't get to any great size. We think we might take a few of the best potatoes to the Garden Society Show next Saturday instead.

And onward we go. We have decided to dig up where the potatoes were completely and use it as a winter growing spot, in rows, not a bed as such, as it is in the area where our rows will be established (we must do a chart of the layout for you and indeed for ourselves). After some consideration, we have now sown 60 Hi Keeper F1 Hybrid (Overwintering Onion) seeds in peat pots for planting out when they have learnt to cope with the microclimate in our "conservatory" - and 30 Flower of Spring cabbage seeds likewise. The onions are ready in June and the cabbage in March-April. Not all these seeds will produce viable plants of course. We'll finalise the preparation of the soil next week, and put some wood round it to protect it from weeds. It is very exciting thinking that there will be things growing over the winter for us to eat afterwards. Just imagine, in the early spring, we will be able to sow things to eat over the winter itself! See what we mean by the Rollercoaster Ride?