Wordless Wed. - Expectation

Wordless Wednesday 13 April 2011

Wordless Wednesday 6 April 2011

Persevering with Peas & Nice Neighbours!

I started this weekend’s allotment List on Saturday, & went back this evening to finish off.

On Saturday, I started off by planting the last of the POTATOES (pink fir apple) which I bought in Wilko the other day – they haven’t chatted for more than a week, but they’ll just have to get on with it.

By the potato beds, the front of the plot is starting to look really good - the wallflowers which I bought at the King's Heath Gardeners' Show last September have just started to flower and are really bushy & sturdy.

I also wanted to do some planting out & sowing, but first I had to attend to the pea wigwam where I’d planted out the PEAS (Robinson) last week – they have not grasped (literally!) the principal of climbing, as yet, & were doing some forlorn waving about mostly on the ground – no good at all – so I hunkered down to ground level & started to tie up the plants to the string to give them a start.

What a fiddly, backbreaking job. Half way through Rhubarb Brian came over to see what I was up to. “Tying the bloody peas to the bloody string”, I scowled.

“Well it’s looking good” he grinned, & looking over my shoulder to the gap by the shed said, “I see you’ve moved your compost heap – what’s going there instead?”

I stood up, pushed the loose rail back towards the shed roof from where it hangs & I told him that I’d thought to put the competition pumpkin there, “although I must nail this back to the shed roof first before it falls off completely!”

He went on his way, & I finished my fiddly tying up job & called it a day.

Back to the Hill tonight with renewed vigour & I discover that I have a new Worst Job in the World which is spiralling the string round the wigwams ready for planting out the peas.

Rhubarb Brian stopped by again, to make sure that I was happy with the shed repair. Seeing me looking blank, he pointed at the now solidly attached roof rail on the shed. “Blimey, did you do that? I didn’t see it – thank you so much!” I beamed “That’s brilliant!” I must remember to drop a bottle of parsnip wine to him at the weekend as a thank you.

With the middle two wigwams strings attached, I planted out the PEAS (kent blue) & sweetpeas – they do look rather good, & hopefully plants will appreciate my extra efforts with the string hoops closer together & get climbing. Then I popped the BROAD BEANS in along the edge of the bed.

As the light was fading I whacked in a couple of rows of PARSNIP (hollow crown), RADISH (rainbow mixed) & CARROT (early nantes 5), & came home with a sense of satisfaction that not only had I done all the jobs on the List, but that there is only one more bloody wigwam to string up…