Forking Hell

I keep forgetting my camera, which is making this blog too wordy and means I'm unable to prove a) a chicken egg found in one of the carrot boxes, and b) my neighbour's amazonian strength when using a gardening fork.

The chicken egg was weighted, and clearly dead, so we didn't want to look inside. It was obviously nicked and buried by a cheeky creature who thought we wouldn't notice.

My neighbour stuck her gardening fork in the ground to dig a patch for our dormant goosebob bushes to move into. Our plot is very stony, and after she'd dug up half a small cottage worth of stones, she got one caught in the tines. After pulling on the fork, she brought it out of the ground to reveal it pointing with one finger, as if to say 'that was you, that was.' Ooh we did laff.

Being the hardy young lass that she is (guffaw), she carried on with the bent fork regardless, and we got the job done.

The sun was out today, but it was hard work. It wasn't just my arthritic knee. I'm quite young (guffaw) to have such a thing wrong with me, but it was the fact that I'd only had two slices of toast for breakfast, and we were out there till 3pm with no lunch. My neighbour is a slave driver.

We also planted some bulbs today, to lift our spirits come next Spring. I tried to plant them in the letters of my daughter's name but some stones got stuck in the third letter. I'm not going to mention it to anyone.

Summer over. Over Winter.

We've learned a few lessons this year, and that's without the benefit of a gardening course. As far as learning curves go, this one is long, but never dull. It is still good however, to be working this plot with my neighbour, as it means the plot is always an enjoyable job to be done, rather than another discarded hobby, left to the weeds of demotivation. It makes finding a pristine, unbroken full sized bath at the top of our allotment a fun discovery instead of just a practical one. I would always recommend sharing a plot now.

The second installment of my gardening course at Meersbrook park had a more promising turnout, but it poured it down all day, so we stayed under cover and discussed the merits of artificial compost. I still don't know what the benefits of artificial composting are, as apparently I can't buy the raw ingredients (Coir anyone?) nearby anyway. I can order it online though. I need to look into this, because it is used as an alternative to peat, but I haven't yet researched how much peat there is in the bags of compost you can buy anywhere.

I also now know, that if I'm going to make some up, I'll need sand, especially in the newly acquired carrot bath. Our carrots are lovely (albeit small) this year, grown in home-made and reclaimed boxes (due to clay soil and carrot fly larvae), but they were grown in small receptacles, so we could get a larger crop next year.

We've sown mustard and rye, and will sow field beans for our green manure. We've now put our alliums in, for over wintering. Our red onions failed last year. We think we planted them too deep, but we also reckon the packets come with different instructions every time (that's our excuse). Our courgettes are finished now, but were one of our great successes along with the potatoes. The peas were great too. The brassicas are coming along, and as by all accounts the squashes must come out now, we might have to pick our small fist sized ones, even though it's still a healthy looking plant with lots of flowers still on it. Any advice?

'Secret' Gardens

One way to increase your gardening knowledge is to go on a course, which I have done. Today. 'Practical Gardening in the Walled Garden, Meersbrook Park' for its full title. Six of us have joined up. We need another four for it to run. If you are reading this and interested, sign up now!
If it doesn't, then I have learned some things already from today. I may struggle to write them down however, as my 20 month old daughter has been inserting her tiny fingers in the keyboard of the laptop, and the 'a' key is dodgy. I'm typing very carefully but the the key keeps falling off, or not working.

I never knew that aspirin came from the Willow, or that you could treat bruises with Comfrey. I feel a bit daft admitting to that, as I'm old enough to know. I just thought it was a nitrogen fixer.

We'll be planning a herbacious border, doing a winter pruning, taking hand wood cuttings and naming grden plants using scientific names (it says here). I'm interested in veg and herbs primarily but this is all transferable knowledge.

So we'll be learning about composting and herbs, a bit of veg and studying weeds - otherwise known as 'plants you don't want just there.' Didn't know that did you?

Meersbrook Walled garden is run by volunteers, who took it over just four years ago after it was lain to waste. Hard to believe when you look at it now. The Japanese Garden is wonderful, and when you ask anyone there about it, you can feel the love that has been put into it.

After a bit of weeding, I was allowed to take home with me, an Astrantia, for my allotment. I shall sit it by the Lemon Balm on the border tomorrow.



Astrantias are superb perennials for under trees, on a streambank or in a moist border.

While botanical Latin tells us a great deal about a plant, few varietal names are as illuminating. The outstanding Astrantia major subsp involucrata 'Shaggy' is an exception. Instead of displaying the usual crisp symmetry and sharp points, the bracts are pinched in the middle and much cut, drawing out into wide green and white stars. Shaggy perfectly describes its unkempt look and rascally charm.

Carol Klein in the Telegraph, where they say you can buy one plant for about £7. I just got mine for nowt!

R.I.P Tomatoes

I couldn't agree more, M. As I was digging the black stalky remains of the tomatoes out to be burned I felt gutted. 'Every silver lining has a cloud', as M would say. We have agreed that planting in pots or bags is the way to go for next time.

However, the last of the summer sunshine has lifted our spirits and provided us with a crop of potatoes to last the rest of the year. Baked on the barbecue, less than a minute out of the ground, they were the best I've ever tasted.

There is still a lot of hard work ahead, but I'm looking forward to it.

Blight and Barbecues - An Existential Quandary

Nearing the end of today's spell on the plot, watching quicksilver droplets running over brassica leaves after their leap from the watering can's rose, I can't help it when my mind begins to ponder the allotment cycle from the point-of-view of the plants.

Does the blighted tomato really feel any different about its ultimate fate than the potato, the corn cob or the courgette? For each they have the same destiny, ripped from the ground and tossed onto the fire. Does it matter whether it is the Pink Fir Apple, given a jacket of tinfoil and placed on the barbecue next to a fine pork sausage? Or whether it is the blight-ridden tomato, its still green skin bubbling and blistering in the fierce flames of the brazier?

Ahem ... hem ... it really has been hot today and I forgot my hat.

No way, hose.

Now I've been inspired to post again, I'm pleased to be able to offer an (un)guided tour of the plot for comparison with the very first photo on here. It's pretty astounding, and motivating, to see how frightening this plot looked.
This is only the second post in a year, two days apart. I'm so chuffed at what we've achieved I can't wait to show off about it. But I'm aware that I need to check myself before I start peacocking about. What I see as amazing, other plot holders will see a laughable lack of reading and experience. That may be so, but considering this is our very first year of proper production, we've been lucky.




The first bed is an extended root bed, which we (thought we'd) put parsnips in. We had oriental poppies instead. After they'd finished, we took them out, saved the heads and found five sweet potatoes there! Don't ask. So we staked them and are now waiting to see what happens. The upper half of that had chioggias and golden beets, some of which were a nice size, and fascinating. Why don't they sell these in the shops? The others, including the golden variety, have been a bit small. Further up the swedes have come on nicely despite only one thinning in a small area.

Then there are the Lady Balfours and Pink Fir Apples. They are looking tired now and are ready for picking. The first two I dug up were great.

The onions, garlic and shallots have gone and I've put mustard on as a green manure/mulch.

Some sunflowers, flanked by boxed carrots. We've been told that Sheffield soil does not support carrots - and we believed them. In between are redcurrants and goose berries.

Then the brassicas. I'm holding my breath for them.

Followed by peas, beans (of different varieties - my neighbour and I chose them during a heavy wine session and I forget which), with sweetcorn mixed in. On the edges is courgette. What is this white stuff on it?

Under the make-shift poly tunnel are the chillies, which look OK. Then there are the tomatoes. Oh dear, what happened? They were looking very good last week and now they have some kind of blight or rot. Can any of the fruit be saved?

Beyond that is where the shed of doom once stood.

Our last bounty has just been increased by one courgette, a floating potato and another fist sized swede, illustrated here. The huge marrow isn't ours. We don't like marrow. It was given to us by a friend, who doesn't like marrow.

The garlic is our first attempt at plaiting.

Plotting not publishing!

I know, it's been a long time since writing. But since my neighbour boldly agreed to take this on with me and M, we have come a long way with the allotment - and just because we haven't been writing, doesn't mean we haven't been working!

It's hard to know where to begin again. We were literally wading through weeds that were taller (and thicker) than we were. I still have a lot to read, and learn about gardening.

We (according to the allotment office) are still only cultivating about 30% of the plot. Since the last post, we have, believe it or not, still been in the process of clearing and digging and removing vast swathes of carpet. I wrote to them, after their second letter saying it was 'generally unkempt, etc etc) politely detailing our hard work and albeit minor successes. I sometimes don't know what they want. I know at the moment there is a high demand for plots, but surely, addressing this doesn't mean lavishing negative attention on people who have had a plot for a mere few years. Our plot had been left for years and years, according to our allotment neighbours before we got it.

Every week since our last post, through wind, hail, rain and bleakly sunny days until this summer, me and my neighbour have toiled, sometimes with our babies strapped to our backs, to get this plot into shape.

I never would have thought, that this plot would change my life so much. For a start, having a baby made me more, not less determined to make this work. Maybe if E hadn't have come along, it might just have been another failed project. M of course, couldn't do a week day as he works full time, and we just seemed too tired for anything at the weekend.

My neighbour H has made all the difference to that scenario, and her son has been company for E. At first, when they were only about four months old, they wouldn't get out of their buggies at all. If we were lucky, we could park them side by side and they would sleep a good two or three hours. That's how we did all the hard work. We did six hour shifts up there, from 10am till 4pm, stopping for picnic lunches, and taking it in turns to babysit while the other pottered and plotted the schedule for next time.

Now, we can't keep them in the buggies at all. But now, there is a path! Now, there are beets and brassicas, potatoes and peas, courgettes and carrots, tomatoes and er, swedes.

We have had failures - oriental poppies grew where we planted parsnips. How did that happen?

The peas have had a bit of pea moth. Not enough though, to stop my little E from picking and eating a pea straight from the pod. How happy am I, knowing that my child actually knows where peas come from?

And the other day, I gave her a blackberry. She popped it in her mouth and said 'lovely', for the first time.