Allotment year 2, post 5 ish

So this year I planted 9 courgettes because I wanted to see if they would survive from such small and measly seedlings and that was 4 too many. Five is the correct number of courgette plants and if one of them dies you still get plenty of courgettes. I took a good many large courgettes to my club. I didn't waste any. I made soup, and I made marrow and ginger jam. A. made chutney. I made courgette cake.

I was completely bullied by the huge number of beans. I planted about 18 plants and one died. That is about twice as many as I needed. I cut up and froze the beans in small portions. If you freeze them in large bags you never use them. I also gave them away by putting a bag of them on the green with a "help yourself" sign.

I planted three types of potatoes and this time I didn't mix them up. I planted one row of Charlottes and harvested them as soon as they flowered; they were nice, apart from the ones that were a bit scabby. But we ate them all while they were young, but most of them had to be peeled.
One row of Desiree was enough, they have done well apart from some scabby ones, and they should mash well.  I also planted some Roosters because the packet of seed potatoes was reduced (roots growing through the mesh. These are lovely round potatoes which hold their shape well when you boil them. They were lates because I planted them as an afterthought.
So apart from the potatoes, courgettes and the beans things didn't go too well. The mange tout did nothing (soil too poor?) So I just pulled them up and eventually I planted leeks in that place. These are growing quite well. When I planted the leeks I also planted two rows of beets. We ate a lot of the young leaves as salad. I eventually pulled up some - they didn't take long to grow. I have never cooked these before but today I roasted some and they were nice. We also had home-grown potatoes and beans (from the freezer).

The raspberry canes produced a decent number of berries but we need a few more so we can collect a couple of bowls full at a time. At present, I am still eating them on the hoof (and very nice they are!)

The strawberries gave us one crop (about 10 bowls) and then put out loads of runners. I have been planting up new plants from the runners but they aren't taking very well.  I need to dig out the whole bed and get rid of the original plants, which are getting too old. That bed is very weedy too and needs feeding which I am going to do.

The rhubarb plants went completely mad and after the thirsty spell, which tested them severely in June, they grew incredibly. We should have a good lot next spring. You shouldn't eat the stems after July because they contain chemicals which give you arthritis and gout!

The other thing that needs doing is the construction of a compost bin, from pallets. A. has collected two good corner posts and some pallets and dumped them behind the shed. He is too busy to do any more. The rubbish heap may have some good stuff in it but I am going to have to burn a lot of it because I haven't the container for making compost.

(Home compost is going well - lots of thin pink worms - if it was a nicer day today I would be out putting the compost around the shrubs.)

On the Committee part 1

I was asked to be on the allotment committee and take the minutes by our Chairman, Marie. Marie comes from Ohio or somewhere like that, and is a very petite American lady with a patient, but energetic personality. When I was having a bonfire two days after the end of bonfire season she did come past my plot and tell me not to. I was rather surprised as I thought we had discussed, and passed, a motion to extend the bonfire season by a month, at the Annual General Meeting the previous week, but she said, no. I pondered the fact that it is very important to write things down that happen at meetings or nothing is remembered accurately.

Having agreed to be Minutes secretary, I was approached by the Treasurer of our organisation. He comes into the allotment shop on both Saturday and Sunday to pick up the takings. He is a very reliable man of advancing years. He told me that it is very important to hold meeting regularly and to stop our Chairman, Marie, from overspending, as we need to hold a reserve for fighting legal battles (from property developers). He noted that over the last year Marie had organised 3 expensive rubbish collections instead of the usual 2, and he felt that this had not been agreed by the committee. I agreed to try to get meetings organised and in diaries as soon as possible.

Marie suddenly called a meeting the following week. We had this meeting standing up in the allotment shop. All to the good in a way as nobody was tempted to linger. At the meeting one of our number, whom I will call Vera, volunteered to be the Plot Steward. Apparently she has long told Marie that Marie cannot be both Chairman and Plot Steward, and that she, Vera, is always at the allotments and would be able to take care of everything on a regular basis. Marie said that she had asked Busy Dee (who stocks the shop) to be Plot Steward, and that Busy Dee had agreed to do it. But Vera said that Dee was far too busy to be Plot Steward and put herself forward most vehemently.

After the meeting Marie told the rest of the committee that Vera cannot be Plot Steward because she has an uncontrollable temper and screams and shouts at people, and that she, Marie, cannot work with her. No. Under no circumstances. So Marie said she would get in touch with Busy Dee and tell her to say that she is Plot Steward and Volatile Vera can understudy her when she is not there.

This was very difficult to minute because I had minuted that Dee and Vera were to share the job but Marie did not want me to suggest that that had been agreed.

Then Marie got back to me, about the minutes, about the allegation that there had not been meetings last year, and said that all the meetings had indeed been held, and that she thinks Michael has forgotten that we did have meetings. She thinks he didn't attend/ has memory problems? I asked her to forward me the minutes of previous meetings. This she has not done and she seems to have gone away on a break.

At the weekend I was working in the shop with Busy Dee when Volatile Vera came in and told Busy Dee she wanted to be Plot Steward. The odd thing was that Busy Dee, who should have been primed to say clearly and emphatically, yes, I am the Plot Steward, did no such thing. She said neither yes nor no. It was all very difficult.

Not a holiday

Today I want to catch up with myself. I have been reading too much and doing too much and now I feel unsteady, so to hold on to the railings of my life I will enumerate what I have done this week.
1. Went skiffing on Monday and Wednesday.
2. Had bonfire at allotment, 2nd April finished the digging out of the compost bin, spread about the soil from the compost heap (not rich enough to call it compost), and garnished it with manure to give it some body. The manure was still wet from the field (I had stored it in plastic bags) but quickly dried in the sun. It has been a dry, bright, breezy week. We now have a compost heap of manageable size but no fence around it. Husband is too busy to construct this out of the usual pallets.
3. Bean poles. These are up and there are beans in the ground.
4. I had planted seeds in modules of which only the tomatoes germinated. don't know why. Too hot maybe, when I left the heater on by accident? I have potted on 12 tomato seedlings, tried again with beans and mangetout. Pots all over the conservatory floor (a tiny room where I work). Courgettes next.
5. I read a very good book called Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Claire Morrall.
6. I went on to His Bloody Project which I had to read very fast, for book club.
7. Coxed Husband and Helena, Wednesday evening.
8. Went to book club last night and discussed the book. A very good discussion, although, as usual, the old people digress madly, and the most compos mentis people speak less than those without filters. We had a new member much younger than the rest of us, and not at all shy, which was lovely.
9. Spike came round for lunch yesterday (salmon salad) and we talked about the regatta software. Spike is 62, he has looked after his mum for many years and in February his mum died. He said he feels like an 18-year-old because he is free again. I think he might like a girlfriend. Jane???
10. On Tuesday husband surprised me by remembering our wedding anniversary, and we had a sudden whim to go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, as I had never been there and he was willing to drive. There was a Vanessa Bell exhibition on. Will post pictures separately. We had a fab lunch in Rocco's Italian restaurant in Dulwich village, which is charming and really the most desirable area to live in London, I should think. Then we walked through a park to another area to see the Horniman Museum, because it was not far away and again, I had never been there. There was a huge display of musical instruments from around the world. This interested us far more than the stuffed animals, although I thought they did very well to make the stuffed animals relevant and interesting.

Active for the Greens - and allotment, year 2, post 1

On Saturday I was active for the Greens - leafleting in Redhill West. As I have missed loads of meetings recently I was very keen to get out and help. That was a lot of walking on Saturday but I did walk with Liz - whom I liked very much and I met a super guy called Derek who sorted out our leafleting routes. We had lunch in a pub together. Ended up all walked out, exhausted!

On Sunday I was active in the allotment shop, and then, went home with some compost and did my own garden, which involved moving some self-seeded forget-me-knots and some campanula, also self-seeded, to places where I hope they will look lovely.

On Monday it was pouring down and I didn't do much except suffer with my bad cold and buy food at Sainsbury's.

Today I went to the allotment and dug up the last of the potatoes - quite a lot of them - and a few were rotten because the frost must have caught them, but a lot of them were buried deeply so they were fine. I gave some to Bill.  I moved one of the gooseberry bushes so we can put a fence around them and protect the fruit from the birds and the rats. Anne came up and told me that after storm Doris she and Bill had collected our black compost bin from where it had blown to and showed me the sheds that had blown down. Our shed was fine and its roofing felt was fine too, hallelujah. I put some rubbish out for the collection on Friday but I could do with putting out more. I put out a rusty old incinerator. Some of my stuff would be good to burn but we never get a good, calm, dry day!! So I think I will just put it out for rubbish collection.

Allotment Part 8: report on growing season.

Watering the allotment is a real chore but I have done it so nothing has died - although the courgettes got mildew while we were away, and were also almost overwhelmed with weeds, and are just recovering and are just coming back into production again.

Courgette plants having recovered from mildew.

I think we were slow to realise how regularly we had to respond to the plants. That every day something else comes into readiness to eat. And this was particularly the case with the beans. Runner beans need picking every day. They get hard and fibrous if you leave them too long in the sun. Likewise our first courgettes were enormous just because we thought the small ones needed a few more days, when in fact one more day makes all the difference. Respect to the plants, they work hard to produce their fruits in short time.

Only a few more runner beans to come - we have had loads

If you can't water every day then you must come every other day and really soak the earth. With this pattern we have kept everything in production.

The potatoes are over now, and have been beautiful and very productive. I am glad I prepared the soil so well. Where we went wrong was mixing up two kinds of seed potatoes. I am pretty sure that when I asked for Maris Piper and Charlottes I wanted them in two separate bags and I was too inexperienced to insist, so I got them all in one bag and we planted them in three mixed rows. But the Charlottes should have been harvested earlier than the Maris Pipers because they are meant to be earlies. As it was, we let all the potatoes stay in the soil for too long. The haulms have stopped growing and they are now dead so we will have to get the potatoes out soon. You have to be careful when you cook them because overcooking makes them all fall apart. You actually have to stand over them and pull each chunk out when it is cooked through because a moment later the potatoes are all disintegrated. This is true of both kinds of potato. Of the two, the Maris Piper is the better. Some of the Charlottes became too big and are hard inside. The small ones are really tasty though.

The strawberries didn't produce many fruit, and likewise the raspberry canes were hopeless, half of them dead, and they were from the RHS. Nul points for the RHS. Here are some autumn fruiters that did not come from the RHS,

 

Haven't watered these as they were in the ground over winter.

 

Tomato plants - these were all cherry tomatoes and very very productive. You have to pick them as soon as they are turning faintly red. Not the whole truss, just individuals.



Nick gave me a few lettuces to plant amongst the strawberry plants. The netting protects from birds.
 

We have planted three rows of beetroot seedlings, and here they are covered with environmesh to protect them from birds.

Also planted some leeks but I honestly don't think they'll be any good because they are so dry.

This pic shows the lovely red apples on the little tree, and the rows of parsnips behind the courgette plants.

Poor leeks.

The rhubarb has done really well, we have not picked any because it's the first year but next year it should be very productive.

Virginia Water, Allotment part 7, and Half-term

This week I have been doing a number of things about the house and the allotment, and I have also begun a new writing project so I am less disposed to write anything here; I have some notebooks on the go.

I have a new favourite book: Why be happy when you could be normal? which is something Jeanette Winterson's mother actually said to her. Somehow, it made me feel as though I could be more happy and less normal, so I have given in my notice again at my job, and feel as though I will go dancing and skipping into the future ...

...until I suddenly feel worried that I will actually start to feel very introverted when I don't actually have to go and meet people; I worry I will become a miserable recluse - and perhaps worse than unhappy. But I can write my scripts. Which is something I've been putting off for a long time.

It's very hot today. We have just been to the allotment to cover the strawberries with a net. The net went onto a hooped structure which Ashley constructed this week. He was happy that he had built something. It's a light structure that you can move around easily made of blue plastic piping.

The main disappointment at the allotment is that there are six completely dead raspberry canes and about the same number that are very weak. Another is that the strawberry that looked a bit ripe turned out to be mouldy, and Anne said this was because we had watered it, and she told us that we could water not too often.  She also said not to water the parsnips because these could stretch down into the earth to get their water and should be encouraged to do so. What a mine of information.

Unfortunately she also mentioned tomato blight which sounds a miserable thing and said she had planted hers a metre apart, and I realised that I had made a mistake and planted mine too close together so that they are all sure to cop it if one does, and apparently the allotments do usually get the tomato blight. So I am glad I've got six growing at home as well.

May is the best month at Virginia Water because of the azaleas and the rhododendrons, and here is a selection of pictures of the month's delights. I am now so well acquainted with the place that I can roam around all the unmarked ways - it's much more interesting than plodding around the lake, although that's OK sometimes.

 

 

 

 

Allotment news (part 6)

We have lost nothing at the allotment (touch wood; and there may yet be frost); we covered the beans and pea shoots with netting to protect them from the birds. The sun and the rain (it’s pouring down here) should do the plants no end of good. I have got some courgette seedlings in pots (8 of them) and a few more runner beans as I don’t have that many in the ground, and tomato plants ready to pot on. I have a really bad record with mange tout – not many seedlings have appeared, even though I soaked the seeds in half an aspirin solution.

A man called Brian in the next plot but one gave me some strawberry plants because he had too many; I planted 14 of them. I now have more fruit than I intended with the rhubarb already up (but it isn't doing very much).

The potatoes are just beginning to show their shoots, but that part of the ground harbours the roots of ground bindweed which is sprouting madly, but I hope we will eradicate them this year.

Bramley Apple tree that is fragile



Beans, mange tout and sweet peas

Other Apple tree very covered in blossom
In the background there s a row of parsnips (in the wrong place).

Allotment part 5, the AGM and Jim Buttress

The allotments are owned by the Land Charity, and the idea is that the poor of the parish will be able to grow produce - or at least benefit from the produce of the allotments. We have nine acres in the middle of Weybridge, and if the Charity decided to sell the land they would have a huge lump of capital to invest and give the proceeds to the charitable causes. So we are in danger because:

the allotmenteers love growing fruit and veg, but we are, on average, quite old, and on average, quite well off. You know the price of carrots? Well, it costs more to grow them, on the whole. We are not the people for whom the Land Charity exists.

The trustees of the Land Charity visited last June and gave a list of recommendations to the Committee, along the lines of:

1, We must grow mainly vegetables and not just fruit trees.
2. If you have a shed it must be small and in good repair.
3 You are not supposed to have a greenhouse, but if you have one it must be small and in good repair.
4. If your blackberries are growing in an unsightly clump they will be cut down.
5. You must get rid of your rubbish.
6-8 I can't remember.

In short: housekeeping. But the allotmenteers were quite cross about the shed warnings: some of them have been served notice that their dilapidated sheds will be forcibly taken away unless they do something about them.

Eventually, after some discussion, we all understood that we would be crazy to pick a quarrel with the trustees of the Land Charity.

After the meeting we had a guest speaker, who gave prizes to the keepers of the best allotments, and then gave a long talk. This was a great garden personality called Jim Buttress. He is a traditional gardener and erstwhile keeper of the Royal Parks. Now he is a judge for the RHS flower shows, and invented the method of judging, which used to be done by titled gardeners who really knew nothing about growing, and who all followed each other's lead, and which is now entirely transparent and "scientific".

Jim in bowler hat, judging apples.

So he told us about filming the Great Allotment Challenge (a BBC reality show not unlike the Great British Bake-off), and going for the audition at the BBC. He told us he refused to be the Nasty Judge because he likes to encourage everyone to have a go at gardening. He told us what he thought of the production and the people.

He told us about his other big project, in which he helps his friend Tom Hart Dyke.

Tom first became famous when he was held prisoner in Columbia by kidnappers while he was looking for (I seem to remember) orchids. He was a very keen plant-hunter, anyway, and he was held prisoner, with another enthusiast, for years in the jungle with some very dangerous men. He hit upon the idea of a world garden, and he has made been making this, in his garden at Lullingstone Castle, Kent. Jim Buttress told us about his first meeting with Tom and how he thought he was mad, and indeed, Tom first opened his garden when he had nothing to show but weeds.
Guardian news on tom's world garden

This project sounds fascinating and we shall have to go.

He told us about being one of the first promoters for London in Bloom and Britain in Bloom. This is, apparently, our largest voluntary undertaking as a country. Jim has retired from his former position in this organisation but still judges the south-east region.

Jim actually talked for hours and had some great stories to tell.

 Jim interviewing the winner of the Allotment challenge

Allotment part 4 - testing the soil

Although we planted some young brassica in the autumn, these have produced only a few small and stunted plants, so I decided to send off a sample of the soil to the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) for testing. This involves collecting earth from 10 places and not from the very top of the soil, and when you have dug your ten holes here and there and put your sample from each in the bag, you have got far too much for a sample. so you shake it all up and divide it by half, and send it off to the RHS with a request for a report on its suitability for growing  veg and a cheque for £25.

In return, they send you a report and some recommendations. It turns out my soil is alkaline! Too alkaline for growing veg (which is what I had suspected). What to do? Apparently I have to add sulphur! So I went to the trading hut at the allotments and I discover they sell sulphate of ammonia and two other kinds of sulphur, so I go to the garden centre to see what is most suitable for my needs. I read the packets. At the allotment the goods are sold in transparent plastic bags without any instructions, so this is why I have to go to the garden centre, not to buy the goods, but to read the packets. I find that I need sulphate of iron. I go back to allotment hut and buy 3 large bags. I go to the internet and find out from the RHS website how to put on the white powder. I take the scales, the yardstick and a small dish and I go to the allotment to start distributing the acidifying powder.

I think I shouldn't overdo it because my soil is sandy and not clay. however, I suspect I am underdoing it. I tell myself I can always apply more, but I can't apply less.

I have plenty of phosphorus in my soil but not much potassium. I have enough magnesium.

I have also instructions to apply Growmore. It turns out that Growmore is also sold in plastic bags in the hut. I am not sure when to apply the Growmore and the Sulphate of potash (I also have to do this) because I am supposed to do the sulphur thing first.. It turns out that growing vegetables turns you into a bit of a chemist. I have never done anything like this before. It's all very interesting.

Allotment part 3

Progress

Planted: 4 rhubarb crowns of different kinds (came from RHS)
Planted: 17 Raspberry canes: 2 rows, posts in place, wires to come! Pending wirecutters.
Planted: 2 rows onion seedlings - not much growth although they've been in for months - and onion sets, 2 rows.

Dug over: 3/4 of the present planting area. This was amazingly easy because we covered the ground with cardboard (which was given to us by the incredibly helpful Nick) and with the woven black fabric over winter, and found that the turfs had pretty much rotted away. Loads of worms in the soil, lovely; but sadly, many couch grass roots and ground bindweed roots.

Mulched with bought peat-free compost: the lettuce and courgette area.

Pending: a bonfire in an incinerator - maybe today?

Bought: seed potatoes - went for Charlottes and Maris Piper - very conservative.
Bought: lots of seeds, including annual flowers to encourage bees. I shall sow in some trays today.

We haven't seen Nick so much lately, which is good because his advice can be overwhelming. He is very pedagogical: a real teacher, but if you make a mistake he gets very cast down, while the other old bloke says vaguely encouraging things and takes an interest rather than getting too involved.

Allotment part 2

The idea we have with the allotment is to divide it into 4 quarters, use 3 of them for crop rotation and 1 for a permanent crop. However, one of the apple trees that came with the plot is in the wrong place and will have to stay with a succession of other crops. The other apple tree has started off the fruit quarter and we have also put in 2 gooseberry bushes, and 2 raspberry canes. We want to put in some rhubarb crowns next.

Most of the ground is still covered with grass which is covered with black sheeting to kill it off. We have inherited a bench so we will place it in the area with the proper turf (the previous occupant put down some turf for his children to play on).

We have cleared enough earth in one quarter to grow curly kale, cauliflower and (out of their place) onion seedlings. Apparently, we are not supposed to grow onion seedlings; we are supposed to grow onions from sets. (But we bought the seedlings in trays because we were away in Australia and couldn't grow from seed.) The "supposed to" ideas come from our fellow allotmenteers, who are very forward in giving advice. Anne tells us what "we all" do, inferring we should do the same, e.g. build compost heaps out of pallets.... Anne has 2 half plots near the back of her house and keeps an eye on the allotments all the time and knows who everyone is.

We also get lots of advice from Nick, who used to be a professional gardener and has a very full allotment with lots of cloches and things. He gave me some gorgeous french beans last week. All the allotmenteers make comments about each other's doings, e.g. Anne thinks Nick has used the wrong material to cover his lettuce cloche and that he will find the foxes tear it.  Nick saved lots of big cardboard boxes for us to cover our ground with under the black sheeting, so that the grass dies back over the winter. He is really kind.

Today I went with a hoe to cut down some grass seedlings that were coming through around the fruit bushes and encouraged by Anne, I also cut back an enormous overgrown rosemary bush, which I will cut back side after side so as not to kill it. She thinks I should dig the whole thing out, especially as there are grass weeds and bindweed roots growing between its roots. But I kind of like it as a hedge between us and the main path.

Other allotmenteers introduce themselves from time to time; the American lady gave me marigold seeds when I admired her marigolds, deaf Anne came to introduce herself and tell me that she had disturbed a lot of mice in her shed and put her hand down to pick up what appeared to be a piece of wire and turned out to be a mouse's tail! A live one, thank God.

Today I was listening to Dezzy Disks on my headphones and didn't hear Anne shouting at me. I didn't water as rain is forecast for tomorrow. We have had such an amazing fine spell. I have been for 3 5 mile walks this week, two of them with Amanda (my friend and neighbour) to Virginia Water. It was incredibly beautiful but I did not take my phone so I sadly didn't take any pictures.

Allotment, episode 1

We started at the allotment this weekend by cutting the long grass with a strimmer, and in order to get at the soil we find digging with the fork is best. (A spade makes no impact through the roots of the grass.) (You will notice that we still have just the one fork because it was such an expensive purchase, although I would really like to buy another. 

We have to shake the earth off the clods, turn them upside down and spread them out to dry and rot. This is according to advice from a combination of Bob and Nick. Nick is a bit of a guru, who has a very tidy and productive allotment across the path from ours. He has white hair and a white beard and could be a retired academic; he knows exactly what we should do. In order to save our twin young apple trees, which were planted only a couple of years ago by the previous cultivators, he said we should dig a kind of moat around them to water the roots. If we water from the top the roots will come up to the surface. So we did that on Sunday and today it rained a bit, though clearly you can water your apple trees as much as  you like, even when it rains. 

Nick suggests I get some compost from a garden centre and mulch the two trees, then put cardboard over the earth and a black membrane before we leave to go to Australia. I wonder if we can do all that? He has also given me some spinach plants and a lettuce to eat. 

In the garden I have a tub of potatoes but I planted them quite late – they have big tops but haven't flowered yet – should I leave them till we get back (end August) or should I dig them before we go?    

This is exam week

This is the exam week and I went into it thinking - hoorah! no preparation. But to my astonishment after being in the LRC for about half an hour looking at nothing much, I suddenly feel absolutely quaking with nerves for my students. How to manage stress? Well, I intend to spend Wednesday morning digging up the allotment. Nothing could be better for dealing with pointless stress. And after that I've got the exam marking. Actually, it was the thought of the marking that suddenly had me quaking.

Tomorrow I have a speaking exam to assess and then my own candidates to administer - no teaching.

Look at my allotment! I could dig it forever without making much impression!