Scum

The allotments have had some unwelcome visitors lately in the form of thieves and burglars. Both times were in the school holidays, which I think gives a clue as to who is to blame. They have a habit of taking things from people's sheds, and then for whatever reason (whether they get bored or are disturbed I don't know) leaving their loot around the place to be discovered later. They are more of an annoyance than anything else, as each time we have to tidy up after them. To reduce damage I no longer bother locking my shed, as they either break off padlocks or unscrew the hinges, and they have never taken anything of mine until now. This time they took both my plastic trugs and my wheelbarrow to help carry their spoils. All of these items I got back, but it was time I could have been gardening. One of my neighbours was not so lucky and lost a few items, including a complete greenhouse. Thankfully so far they have left my  tools alone and have not damaged any of my crops, that would really make me cross.

Quite what these petty minded idiots get out of spoiling other people's hobby I do not know. Of course the little rats are always long gone at the time I visit the plot, even though I am often there until sunset, so they must come round under cover of darkness. I'd love to leave some booby traps for them but of course I never will; that's the problem with being one of the law-abiding good guys, we make easy targets. Hopefully they'll get what's coming to them in other ways.

Just live.

You live and learn, so goes the old saying; that is oft appended in our house with "but in my case, you just live." Went to the plot in shorts recently because it was a lovely day, and got bitten twice by whatever bug it is that I have an allergic reaction to (I think it's ants). Now every warm day I have to change back into long trousers to visit the plot. One day I will learn my lesson.

We've had a mild winter and I was able to keep up well with the plot until we went on holiday in May. The warm weather and rain made the weeds grow like mad and I had a real job on my hands when I got back, things only now getting back under control. 

Over-run with weeds in late May. Note bike trailer in background

I planted some French beans direct in the soil in mid-May, judging it to be warm enough, but I didn't bank on the solid week of cold rain that followed, it was more like March than late May. As a result all my beans rotted in the soil. 

I was wondering how to get my compost bin and some plants down to the plot when I didn't have use of the car, and hit upon the brain wave of using the Tiny Human's bike trailer. This worked well for the compost bin but when I went to check the four courgette plants, I found they had tipped upside down in the trailer and scattered the contents. I couldn't have destroyed the seedlings more effectively if I had taken them out and stamped on them. Luckily I left a couple of spare plants at home that wouldn't fit in the trailer.

My disasters have been made up for by generosity on the part of my gardening friends, family and colleagues. I received three home grown cucumber plants from Wise Mike, which are now doing well under a plastic tunnel. I also received 14 sweetcorn plants from Derek, which came in 'Rootrainer' pots which I was very impressed with. I planted up the sweetcorn the same day and bought my own rootrainer pots to start off some replacement French beans at home, which are also coming along nicely. Derek also donated some lovely chilli plants, which have been planted at home in the garden where I can keep a closer eye on them.

Treasure

In the past couple of weeks I have found two interesting pieces of buried treasure on the plot. First was an old penny, heavily worn but still clearly marked 1908 on one side. It could have been in circulation for many years after 1908 of course, and judging by its condition it has had a hard life, but I wonder who dropped it and what they were doing there. I would like to think it was dropped by a soldier during the big military exercise that was held on Stacey Hill farmland before the outbreak of WWI, but it could just as easily have had a more mundane life and been dropped at any time in the last 100 years. At least it makes a change from bits of broken glass and plastic.

My second find was a bit more modern, an aluminium petrol token dating probably from the mid 1970s with a picture of a car on it. This has also seen better days but it's just possible to make out that it was issued by Shell and features a 1950s Mercedes Benz 300SL. I wonder if someone was disappointed to lose it from their collection.

It's taken me a few years of repeatedly digging the same soil to unearth this stuff, so I wonder what else lies beneath the surface. Actually, I don't need to wonder that hard. I'm always unearthing things, since these finds I also dug out three whole house bricks and a couple of broken concrete roof tiles. So although it is is theoretically possible someone buried a whole house, the real answer is probably 'a load more old rubbish'...

...and it started on the first pull

...and it started on the first pull.

Sounds so much like a joke punchline, doesn't it, but I am referring to my trusty allotment lawnmower, which burst into spluttering life the first time I pulled the cord this weekend.

I actually made three visits to the plot in as many days, some accompanied by sunshine, and some by hail showers. Buoyed by a couple of weeks of settled and warm spring weather I had intended to get my main onion sets in the ground, but as the weather has now turned cold again I settled for a mixture of jobs. This is the first real activity on the plot since last year when I actually had time to dig over about half the plot in time for winter. The winter rains have done their bit and the soil is quite workable now.

This spring has been much warmer than last year, so one of the first jobs had to be to get the mower out and tame the grass.Getting rid of some of the paths and raised bed borders has done wonders for my time-efficiency and it is much easier to keep on top of what needs doing when you don't have to spend ages on silly unproductive jobs like mowing. I suppose there is a small benefit to mowing, apart from keeping the place neat and accessible, it means my compost heap gets a nice big nitrogen fix.

After the grass, I also weeded my overwintering onions which were being slowly mugged by weeds, mostly grass and speedwell at this time of year, although dandelions have made remarkable progress on some other parts of the plot. I will need to weed the garlic soon as well, which has put on some fairly good growth with all the bulbs I planted coming up well. The onions are looking a little weedy in comparison, they could both do with a high potash feed to give them a boost. This phrase sounds like I know what I am talking about after all these years, doesn't it, but I don't  know really what makes a high-potash feed; I will have to go to the garden centre and look at the labels.

I did start to prepare some ground for the onions, this was hard work and has made the plot start to look loved again, at least in one corner. I didn't rush to get them in the ground, as I said above I'm fairly relaxed about the timing when the weather is not reliably warm. Dismantling my bed system has also made me dither a bit more about where to put things so I may need to draw up another plan soon. Otherwise I will start at one corner and put things in as they become ready - a strategy which seems to work. All I do is try to avoid putting the same crop in the same bed two years running.

Main crop potatoes have been selected, King Edward this year to make a change. An easily available variety but they must be popular for a reason, methinks. They are chitting at home in the spare room and will not be put in the ground too early either. Easter is late this year so I may not wait that long, but I won't hurry them. They will have all year to catch up. Besides, it will take me a while to prepare all the ground; I still don't know where I'm going to put them.

New Year Rituals

Seed catalogues arrived on my doormat on New Year's Eve 2013, just in time to re-ignite my interest in allotmenteering for the year ahead. A few things that I'd like to try have been noted.

I also received a nice Christmas present of a few unusual seed varieties in a 'Funky Veg Kit' mostly unusually-coloured vegetables, which has inspired me to give them a go. Some I've tried before, like Swiss Chard Bright Lights, and some I haven't, like purple carrots.

I have drifted away from trying new things recently as they are rarely successful, preferring instead to stick to things I know will be reliable and that we will use in the kitchen, but I feel a change coming on for this year. After all, even courgettes were poor for me in 2013 so we didn't get much variety from the plot. Also the pest and disease-resistant varieties I have been favouring tend to be the least interesting in terms of flavour. The decent summer of 2013 has given me a bit of hope that things don't always have to be like that, so I am hoping to nurture a bit more diversity on the plot in 2014. Salads and some different potato varieties will be high up on the list. I will probably keep some tough varieties in for insurance purposes.

Autumn thoughts

The dark evenings seem to arrive so quickly it's scary. Gone are my twice-weekly visits to the plot as it slides into semi-dormant state again until March next year. But there's still plenty to be done; not quite sure when I'm going to find the time to do it all.

Visited the plot at the weekend and retrieved all my maincrop potatoes and some nice carrots, before they got washed away or destroyed by slugs. Quantity not that great but did get some absolutely huge spuds, variety Sarpo Mira, unaffected by blight and some single potatoes at least twice as big as your fist. They will make good bakers, although one potato could feed three or four people! Very hard as usual to dig them without spearing them with the fork. Had just enough time to transfer them to the shed, but will need to check through them properly and sort out the non-damaged ones for storage.

Next I need to prune the raspberry canes, finish tidying up the strawberry patch and prepare the ground for onions and garlic to go in for next year, I had forgotten that autumn can be as busy as spring down on the allotment. Wise Mike's Autospade should come in very handy for winter digging. 

Each year I think about giving up but I would miss it now, maybe one day we'll move somewhere with a bigger garden, but not yet. What I really need more of is not space, but time!

Hello my name is Moog and I have too many cucumbers (now with pictures)

You may consider my recent lack of blog posts as a stunned silence. The reason, for the first time ever since taking on my plot, we have been basking in what can only be described as a 'summer.' Yes, you read that right. Think for a minute. When was the last time a British summer wasn't declared a washout by the tabloid press (and by me)? I'll tell you, it was 2006. Just before I started allotment gardening.

This has led to a period of new discoveries for me. of course no allotment year is ever exactly the same, but a certain depressing regularity has formed, mainly involving failures caused by too much rain and cloud. This year, after a ridiculously cold spring, we've been treated to nearly a month of wall-to-wall sunshine. It rather caught me out as I've never actually experienced a year like it on the plot. Suddenly, things they say in gardening books started to make sense. Like, "you can hoe on a dry day" and "don't forget to water stuff." Suddenly, crops (and weeds) have started behaving like they're supposed to.

Since my last post, harvesting has begun and taken up large amounts of my time, along with watering in all the hot weather. First I started harvesting my over-wintered onions, some of which grew so large that there was no space between them - from sets planted a hand-span apart to begin with.

Then came the strawberries. I have never seen so many. They started ripening mid-way through Wimbledon fortnight and didn't stop until the end of the Tour de France (I find sporting events a good way to plan the year). Our freezer is full to bursting waiting for jam-making to commence, and so, for a while, were our bellies. Raspberries followed somewhat later with a decent crop but have not been so prolific as the strawberries. This is a nice payback for the grim moments I remember from last year, trying to harvest strawberries in the rain. This year it was done with the sun on my back and the Iseley Brothers' Summer Breeze playing through my headphones. The strawberries, warmed by the sun, were sweet and delicious.

Strawberries

Toward the end of July as rain began to threaten, I harvested my garlic, which had done all the growing it was going to do, and my maincrop onions which were threatening to get too large. I also wanted to take them out of the ground before they could be re-energised into growth by the rains. Salad onions have also just got big enough to eat, and I have a very large row of salad bowl lettuce. I am surprised the lettuce hasn't bolted yet. It goes limp if you try to harvest leaves at the plot, so I have taken to potting up plants and taking them home that way. With a plastic bag over the bottom of the pot to retain moisture they have kept re-growing at home.

Main onion crop drying in the shed

And now, I have too many cucumbers. Both plants (variety "Ridge Burples") survived this year and broke out of their plastic tunnel. At first they were only ripening slowly and I got one or two in mid-July, but a visit to the plot yesterday in the first week of August produced no less than 9 large cucumbers. They are delicious, but we have too many. The plants have taken over an entire 4x9ft bed and are now exploring outside it too.

Butternut squash coming on at last

Other crops have been slow to catch up. pumpkins and squashes are only now getting going and we have only had two courgettes from the single plant I purchased. If there were more plants, you could guarantee each one would be heavy with fruit, I suppose. But at least this way I don't have a glut, as I do with cucumbers. Parsnips have failed to germinate this year, I have just a few very young specimens that won't be big enough to produce good roots this year. Potato plants are doing well, but have a few gaps in the rows, one of which has been filled by a rather spectacular volunteer tomato plant.

Volunteer tomato plant, variety unknown

Thankfully I have been able to keep up with watering and harvesting due to the lack of growth in both weeds and grass - meaning less mowing and weeding. I have, however, let a rather large infestation of bindweed creep up on me, and the potatoes in particular are badly choked by it. My wildflowers didn't germinate very well either, but every now and again a new flower pops up and the seeds will probably keep doing that over the years to come.

My first attempt at a wild flower display