Losing the Plot

I decided some months ago to give up my allotment - it was becoming more and more of a chore, the plot was too big and I often hadn't the time or energy to work it all, and the last two springs the weather, ill-health or just general busyness meant that I got off to a bad start.  But the real tipping point was vandalism.  Despite being at the "safer" end of the site, my shed was broken into several times - tools were stolen (though later dumped elsewhere on the site - no doubt after being used to damage someone else's plot), but mostly they just trashed the place, trampling plants and fences and throwing things about.  After the second time it happened I spent every walk or ride up to the site worrying about what I would find, and something that should have been all about relaxation was suddenly a huge cause of stress.

Having realised that if I was going to hand back my plot I'd have to clear out the shed and remove any plants I wanted to keep, Mr. B. and I headed up there on Monday afternoon - only to find the worst vandal attack yet: the waterbutt tipped over, someone else's spade dumped in one of the beds and every pane of glass in the shed and coldframe smashed.  There was much swearing - the pointlessness of it absolutely enraged me - but by the time I got home again I just wanted to cry.  I can't help but despair of a society where people have so little regard for each other that they will destroy property purely for their own amusement (nothing was taken, so I can't think why else anyone would have done it.)

I have carried home my tools, and the fruit trees my grandparents bought me for my birthday, and the herbs I grew from cuttings from my dad's garden, and after this week I won't be going back there.  And after this week, I'll be glad of that.

It is not my intention to put anyone off allotment gardening with this post - this is just my experience.  I hope - and expect - that the vast majority of allotment holders have a far more positive experience than this.  Indeed, I've had some wonderful times on my plot, it was my bolt-hole, my little piece of green when I lived in the centre of the city, and I'm sure it saved my sanity on more than one occasion!

Spring is in the air

The blackbirds are singing their hearts out, the goldfinches and robins are going around the allotment site in pairs, and the cock-pheasants are fighting for death or glory. My windowsills are full of seedlings, and I've just spent a happy hour soaking away a day's digging with Mark Diacono's book, making a list of seeds to sow tomorrow.

I've already got underway

• Tomatoes - far too many varieties: Matina, Gardener's delight, red brandywine, gartenperle & mountain pride
  
• Chillies - the ominously named Inferno, and a "hot shake" mix
  
• Sweet peppers - Marconi red & Jolly Giallo (yellow, if your Italian isn't up to much)
  
• Celeriac - Giant Prague
  
• Coriander
  
• Sweetcorn - True Gold
  
• Aubergine - Calliope
  
• Cucumber - Marketmore
  
• Pumpkins & squash - Mars, berettina & butternut
  
• Courgette - Verde d'Italia
  
• Artichokes - Imperial star & Violet de Provence
  
• Cauliflower - Romanesco
  
• Flowers - many types, including but not limited to sweet peas, zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, nicotiana & sweet William - (the dahlias are going into the new coldframe tomorrow to free up some space!)
  

tomorrow's indoor planting list includes

• Beans - borlotti, French and possibly broad (I have broad bean seeds, but I'm not convinced I like them enough to bother)
• Brussels sprouts
• Chinese leaf
• Swiss chard
• Kale - curly and Italian
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Peas & mangetout
  
• Purple sprouting broccoli
  

and outdoors

• Fennel - Romanesco (for bulbs - though it may be a little early yet)
  
• Swede
• Potatoes - King Edward & Pink Fir Apple are chitting on the bedroom windowsill, International Kidney went in a couple of weeks ago.

As well as assembling my new coldframe, I sweet-talked T into digging me a couple of new beds for my globe artichokes yesterday. Last year they were shoehorned in amongst the chrysanthemums, and three of the four I planted were devoured by slugs & snails. The last remaining survivor was transplanted into the herb bed at the end of the autumn, but this year's seedlings will need a home in a few weeks. So now I have a pair of 4 foot x 2 foot beds, generously manured (thanks to a plot-neighbour wanting to empty his last barrow so he could go back to his local riding school for more), tucked in between the herbs and the gooseberry bush: I reckon two, maybe three plants to each bed, Imperial Star one side of the path, Violet de Provence the other.


Busy day tomorrow, I best take myself off to bed!

A year ago today...

... we first broke the ground on my allotment. This is how it looked on that dreary April day. Twelve months on it has fed us well, provided flowers for the house, and given us a place to escape to when living in the middle of town has become too much. According to last year's notebook, the first day up there was spent measuring out the beds and digging over the first three, sowing wheat (rather late, which probably explains why it didn't crop well) and then sowing seeds at home.


Today it looks like this



and has produced our first ever spear of asparagus (oh, if only we could eat it! Roll on next year!)



The allotment's birthday present was a smart new cold-frame - a "free" raised-bed kit, wrapped around with anti-slug copper tape, topped with a couple of windows donated by a friend when I first took the allotment on. A second raised bed kit has been ordered to go on top, which should make this set-up deep enough for getting most things started.


Happy birthday, allotment 28b!

Friday flowers

The stars of the allotment show today were tulips, and the first ladybird of spring. A half-hour trip to check on things turned into three hours of planting & enjoying the birds and the sunshine. And a detour into Homebase for a packet of cucumber seeds saw £10 spent on raspberry bushes to replace the pound-shop canes that didn't survive the winter. I went for Polka (their only autumn-fruiting variety) Glen Clova and Malling Jewel. I need a good summer, I simply must have fresh raspberries.

Productive? No, but lovely

Chives donated by my plot-neighbour this afternoon

I do love my allotment, it's on a lovely site, sandwiched between a cemetery-cum-nature reserve and an ancient common, (which is still used for grazing cattle,) has rich, fertile soil and, sloping gently to the south, has day-long sunshine. And best of all, it's less than half an hour's walk from our city-centre flat - and barely ten minutes from the house we'll hopefully soon be moving to. I took charge of my half a plot (5 poles, for those who know about these things) almost a year ago, and it's far from my first gardening experience, but I'm still learning all the time.

Today I learned that my new plot-neighbours have a dog called Google (I can only assume that he's good at finding things) and that the shrub that makes up most of my hedge is extremely flammable.

I have no idea what this shrub is. It is evergreen, with oval leaves, green on top, silver-white underneath, has thin flaky bark on its woodier stems and has daisy-like flowers in summer. It grows (or has in my case grown) into an untidy beast, about four or five feet high, which is why it had something of a haircut a couple of months ago. The prunings have been sitting in the middle of a path ever since, waiting for a dry enough, still enough day for a bonfire, and today was - finally - that day. I got the incinerator (well, rusty old oil-drum left behind by the previous incumbent) going, started feeding in the ex-hedge and whooomf, nearly lost my eyebrows! The combination of papery bark and oily leaves made for a nice clean burn with very little smoke, but it did have serious speed & heat.

I appear to have taken up fire-worship

A (very) little weeding and planting aside, actual work on the allotment was at a minimum today, but hey, I got to spend four hours basking in the glorious spring sunshine instead of holed up in the flat!

Seeds in the post

All spring, the Daily Telegraph, among others, has been running "free" plant offers - you know the sort of thing, pay (a little over the odds) for postage, get the headline plant for free. My allotment has become well-stocked with these freebies over the last year - my Victoria plum came from Grow Your Own magazine, pinks were from Good Housekeeping, Clematis from a copy of the Daily Mail found in the canteen at work, and the Telegraph has contributed more Clematis, more pinks, snowdrops. Today my latest batch arrived, an enormous envelope full of seeds.

If I recall correctly, this offer was published in the Telegraph on one of the first really good spring days, early this month. I spent the whole day at the allotment, and only saw the paper because I'd popped to Sainsbury's-at-Jacksons (or whatever they're calling themselves this week) for lunch after a hard morning's digging - much as it is my intention to be self-sufficient in veg this year, unfortunately North Yorkshire allotments aren't terribly rich in immediately consumable produce in early March, so a slightly dodgy cheese pasty & a chocolate bar it had to be. The prospect of a "free*" raised bed kit, and the seeds to plant in it, tempted me to a paper to read over lunch. I duly sent off my cheque, and apparently - for I promptly forgot entirely - ordered two seed collections as well, for now I have 17 varieties of vegetables and herbs, and eight of cottage garden flowers (though no raised bed kit yet, I assume that'll arrive soon.) Where I'm going to plant them all I do not know, perhaps I'll take up guerrilla gardening.

• Broccoli (early purple sprouting)
• Cabbage (Golden acre)
• Carrot (Nantes 2)
• Spring onion (white Lisbon)
• Beetroot (Detroit)
• Lettuce (Marvel of four seasons)
• Tomato (red cherry)
• Swiss chard (ruby)
• Sweet pepper (California wonder)
• Salad (California mixed)
• Aubergine (F1 mixed)
• Butternut squash
• Chili pepper (Jalapeno)
• Pumpkin (Atlantic giant)
• Parsley (Italian giant)
• Basil (sweet Genovese)
• Rocket
• Lavender (dwarf Munstead)
  
• Pinks (cottage garden)
• Nicotiana (Roulette F2 mixed)
• Candytuft (Amara)
• Brachycome (swan river daisy)
• Night-scented stock
• Sweet William (Indian carpet)
• Wallflower (my fair lady)

I am now going to hide the catalogue that, naturally,arrived with the seeds, so I can't buy any more until next winter!


*I can only assume the suppliers make their money by tempting you into buying more, either there & then or later, when a new catalogue of "special offers" drops through the letterbox each month.

A week's worth of groceries

It's the last Friday of the month, which means it's Farmer's Market. And that means it's Chicken Day!

Today's FM haul consists of French tarragon & wild garlic plants for the allotment, about a pound and a half of Vintage Lincolnshire Poacher cheese (Tom's favourite, though a bit strong for my taste), our CSA chicken (plus one for Rina, to go in the freezer til she's back from Italy) and a pack of Swillington's bacon to try for breakfast on Sunday, and ta-dah! the first Purple Sprouting Broccoli I've seen this year!

Friday is also veg box day, so I've also got (toddles off to investigate box...) spuds, carrots & onions as always, plus curly kale, swede, and ooh, exciting, mushrooms! And they're all grown within 10 miles of home - though obviously the fruit bag contents travel a little further: global warming or no, no-one's growing bananas in Yorkshire just yet!

Which means, I now have a menu for the week:

Tonight: Potato cakes (last night's leftover mash), poached eggs & lovely purple sprouting to dip in the yolks.

Tomorrow: Mashed potato pizza (yes, I made a lot of mash last night.) Sounds weird but really very tasty!

Sunday: Roast chicken with all the trimmings - carrot & swede mash, steamed kale, roast potatoes, onion gravy, probably some mushroomy stuffing, too.

Monday: I'm working late so it'll be chicken sandwiches when I get in.

Tuesday: Chicken curry, with as many veggies as I can get into it.

Wednesday: Another late one for me, so risotto with the chicken stock, prepped in morning & finished when I get in

Thursday: Using-up-the-veg-box night - probably soup

Spring is... springing

This morning my allotment was basking in the (not terribly warm) spring sunshine. I was shivering in not-quite-enough layers and

• Planting a tree ("Serbian Gold" Quince, Cydonia oblonga)
• Watching the birds crashing about in the hedge, and a magpie trying to use the tiny feeder designed for robins and sparrows
  
• Checking on my seedlings - red drumhead cabbage, pak choi, and boltardy beetroot are all showing their faces, and the onion sets are starting to sprout
  
• Finding more & more things springing to life. Very pleased that my rose-scented geranium has survived the winter. The hazel tree has leaves all of a sudden, the gooseberry has tiny flower buds, more tulips are coming into flower every time I visit, and three of the four fruit trees I planted over winter are budding (the fourth is a Victoria plum, which I believe/ hope is slower to start than apples, pears & cherries.)

I came home to the wonderful news that we've got a (provisional) completion date for our house purchase - and it's only about three weeks away! So, this year's project list:

1. Rewire, decorate & move in to new house (hopefully in that order)
2. Plant & maintain allotment to provide a steady stream of veggies, fruit & flowers for the whole year, and especially flowers for Laura & Nick's wedding in May
   
3. Plan & plant new garden, perhaps to include space for a chicken run
4. Keep trying to conceive