Gardening Gift Review Slot

I've received some allotmenty presents recently. This is what Moog thinks of them:

1. The Allotment Keeper's Handbook by Jane Perrone. Moog thinks this is a bit more realistic than most gardening books, in that it's written by a journalist that likes growing things rather than a professional gardener. Jane also has a good blog which is worth a read. Full of interesting, real life anecdotes that I can identify with, for example, trying to use a storage box as shelter from the rain (see Moog's Very Blustery Day). Jane doesn't assume that you know or care what all the long words mean. A much appreciated gift, which is actually next to my keyboard as I type. In fact I couldn't put it down for ages, and Moog points out it's a nice handy pocket size to read in vet's waiting rooms etc. For some inexplicable reason my copy has half the pages printed upside down.

2. The Vegetable and Herb Expert by D.G. Hessayon. Sorry, DOCTOR D.G. Hessayon. Sounds a bit pompous to me, I work in a university and none of the academics feel the need to keep reminding everyone how well qualified they are. This rather self-importantly claims to be the best selling grow-your-own book in the world, well, Moog would like to see the sales figures to back that up, and he thinks that high sales doesn't necessarily mean high quality. There is so much information in this book about pests, diseases, and problems to send any budding allotmentalist running back to the supermarket. I will probably use this for reference but didn't like the style at all.

3. Bionic Gloves! Yes really. I was a bit sceptical at first, and Moog thought someone had bought me a pair of driving gloves as an ageist joke, but actually I used them this week and they're really good! In fact, they're so comfortable I forgot to take them off and drove halfway home from the allotment in them, thus making me look like I was wearing driving gloves ( Moog thinks, thank goodness you weren't wearing your flat cap). Very good I shall be using them again. Can someone get me a bionic spine next, please.

4. The Allotment Book by Andi Clevely. Moog thinks this is a really good book. He knows it is a good book because whenever he sees me lately I'm reading it, or making notes. The writing style is really encouraging, it's laid out well, there are good pictures (for example, of ripe beans, so you know what they look like when they're ripe - which might sound simple, but if you've never grown them...). This book has given me a few new ideas, even simple things like having a bulldog clip on a nail in the shed to keep your gloves on. As soon as I put my shed up, I'm going to do that!

5. "Vintage" stainless steel digging fork. from Wyvale. I'm quite impressed with my local Wyvale store. I've had this since Christmas and I asked for it because Moog thought that stainless steel would make working our clay soil easier. He was right. It feels really nice to use and beats my old plastic-handled cheapo fork hands down. The only criticism I would have is that the handle seems to be working loose a bit, but the last time I used it this had miraculously fixed itself so maybe I'm being a bit premature. In any case, it is covered by a 10 year guarantee so I am fairly confident. A very nice tool to have around, and really looks the part. I have the trowel and secateurs from this range too and they're both good; the trowel is very tough and after a bit of thread lock on the secateurs to stop them working loose, they have a very smooth action. Moog thinks the wooden handles are very smart, and if he had thumbs, he'd use them, too.

6. Sony wind-up radio. This smart little orange thing lets me and Moog listen to the radio at the plot, and the best thing is it never needs any batteries. Moog thinks it actually sounds really good for such a small radio, and it has two different sorts of light on it too - a flashlight, for looking for things you've just dropped when it's getting dark, and an ambient light for reading books, err, attracting moths, etc... very handy and will come home with me rather than being left down at the plot.

First early spuds are in

My first row of early potatoes went into the ground at the beginning of April, during the couple of days warm weather we had. They're called Orla and are supposed to take 10 weeks to produce potatoes. I hope that the following weekend of snow and frosts have not had too much effect, since the shoots are not showing above ground level yet and I don't expect they will just yet. I've also managed to put them in the wrong bed according to my plan, that'll teach me for trying to be clever.

Also new to the plot this week:
- A garden bench - John next door said it was no use bringing seats down there until we'd finished all the work...
- Four rosemary bushes, partly to use for cooking and partly as a neat end to the plot.

I see young plants are available in the garden centres at this time of year, and as the cold weather has stopped me getting many seeds going I might be forced to cheat soon. Mind you, I will be filling up my greenhouse with seed trays in the next week or so. Already on the go are some marigolds to keep the flies away, and look pretty of course.

Plan number 1

Now I know where my beds are I've measured them out and done a rough plan of where things are going to go. Surprising how quickly the space gets used up. I may halve some of the beds, Otherwise I'll be over-run with one crop and won't have room for anything else; we'll see how much time I've got! I'm also going to think about successional planting, so that everything doesn't come to maturity on the same day.

Colditz

My neigbour's plot has been referred to by some as Colditz due to the amount of wire fences around it, but I've always thought that looks like a good idea - why grow a row of carrots to feed the wild rabbits?

After the appearance of some little anonymous visitors to my garlic patch, I realised that protecting each individual bed would take a lot of time and money, so I've decided that a better long term approach will be to fence round the edge of my plot.

My own fortifications have begun, the cheapest supports I can find are half-round fence posts, 2.5m for £2.50 from Wickes. I was going to order wire online, as during the winter that was the cheapest source; but Spring is a different matter, because as the seasons change I notice that places like my regular supermarket have started stocking gardening supplies, so I will continue to shop around. (Asda, 10m x 0.5m chicken wire for £7.97).

Green Manure Update

Only about half of my winter field beans have germinated, although some have germinated some distance away from where I actually scattered them! I suspect that birds (or as my neighbour John pointed out, mice) have stolen some of the beans. Either that or I was not very careful when I planted them; both are a possibility. They may also have just decided not to germinate due to conditions not being quite right.


I expected them to have grown a bit bigger by now and to have blocked out the weeds, but the weeds are much more numerous than the green manure. I think I planted them rather too late in the season to be truly effective. They were planted at the end of a very wet summer/autumn, and really only just before winter set in, so I might try again earlier in future, and I might protect them with some mesh whilst they germinate. I know that birds like to pull up seedlings, but that was a risk I was prepared to take this year as they weren't an important crop to me, just an experiment.

And So To Bed

As it is fast approaching planting time for most of this year’s crops I urgently need to get my beds sorted out and decide where things are going to go. With this in mind I took Mrs Moog-Keeper and a notepad down to the plot at the weekend. My intention was to make some sort of plan or maybe start marking out.

We decided we needed a clearer view, so with considerable effort from my other half, and manly supervision on my part (I have a bad back this week and can’t bend in the middle that well) we got the carpet removed and exposed the plot to the light of day for the first time since last September. What this has revealed, now the tall grass has nearly rotted away, are the outlines of beds that haven’t been used for years. I knew the ground under the grass was lumpy, because I kept turning my ankle, but seeing it for the first time without weeds was a very pleasant surprise.

The joint decision was that the most economical way of using the space would be to follow the line of the existing beds with paths in between. As the plot hasn’t been worked for years and years, hopefully soil-borne diseases and pests will not be a problem. Also digging should be marginally easier if the soil has been dug before.

We got to work marking out the beds with string until the string got hopelessly tangled after one bed. Then we started using wire until the wire got hopelessly tangled after one more bed. We could have tried the Alexander the Great trick of cutting the knot but that would have left us with lots of tiny useless pieces of wire/string, so we just started digging the first bed instead. I was reminded of Monty Python’s String Sketch - what to do with 122,000 miles of string in 3 inch pieces. "Simpson's Individual Stringettes!"A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!" but I digress. One bed down, many to go!

All in all a successful weekend of activity.

Tttthhhppppp!

This weekend I received my raspberry canes by mail order. They were bare root plants so I needed to put them in straight away, and managed to do so on Saturday before the rugby kicked off. I started by digging over about 18' x 3' of soil down one side of the allotment, with some help from the Moog, until I had to tie him to the fence to stop him getting carried away. After that I mixed in some manure; I could only get pellets unfortunately, I'd have rather had some well-rotted stuff to bulk up the soil but mine's not ready yet. I soaked the canes in a bucket of water and then planted them about 2ft apart. There are 9 in total, which seems a lot, but there are 3 of each variety - early, mid-season and autumn. Hopefully they'll settle in and last for years. Next job with those will be to protect them from the birds.

The only observation I can make about raspberry canes is the roots look a lot like the weeds I have just pulled out. Having said that, I'm happy to say there weren't as many roots in the eastern edge of the plot, so digging wasn't as hard as it has been in the past but there was still a good sprinkling of glass, plastic, wire, string and old batteries to remove.