New Year Garlic

For my first trip to the Hill of the new year, I had the modest aim of digging over one of the un-dug-over beds, and planting out the garlic.  Yes, I know that in other years I have popped the cloves in the ground somewhere at the end of October, but in other years it hasn't rained so comprehensively, has it?

It was a mild, overcast afternoon - Richard from three plots down was busy digging over his plot when I arrived, but apart from him I had the site to myself.

The soil is very wet and claggy still and digging is a bit heavy going, but with my beds and paths at least I can get to the soil to dig easily.  Mind you, the soil was a good enough consistency for pulling up dandelions, and by the time I'd spent an hour with the fork, I had a nicely turned over bed along with a good half-bucket full of foot-long dandelion roots.  Most satisfying.

I need to beef up the chippings on the paths again - I took the Christmas tree to the park to add to the heap for recycling, and must check when they plan to turn the trees into chippings so I can load up and restock the paths.

It's soon dusk at this time of the year, and so once the three garlic bulbs had been split and planted out, it was time to call it a day and come home for a hot bath.

John Badger - A Life Celebrated

And although the Winter is a quiet time for your average gardener, I have done a few things since mid November.

But the most monumental news - and by far the saddest - is that John Badger from the bottom has passed away.  His health has not been great for some time, but when I saw him at the AGM he was still in fine form, if less robust than previously.

What a institution he has been at the Hill!

His ability to get on with absolutely anyone has benefited the Allotment Society enormously - from being the star of the show when we had a class of children from one of our junior schools visiting the site to talking any funding body he could find to winkle funds out for our various maintenance jobs, with huge success.

He was a fiendish Aston Villa fan, and if I was on the plot on Saturday lunchtime I would often be stuck head first into some weeding to be hailed with a cheery 'hello, gorgeous!' as he drove off to go to the match.

Famed for his barbecues at the bottom end of the plot, he was passionate about bringing the plotholders together - he loved the Annual Show, and of course, served on the committee.

And my best memory?  Before my first show in 2007 when I told him I was going to enter the 'home made marble cake - recipe supplied' category, he surprised me when he said, 'do you want a tip?'.  I couldn't think what tip he might offer me on baking a cake, but he said, 'I was in the catering corps for years - if you dip your knuckle in milk then smooth the top surface with the back of your hand, you'll get a cake to bake without cracking.'  Absolutely right!

Quite a chap, all in all - I think Chris (who has the plot next to his) has it right when she says that JB was a 'rare individual'.  Indeed, indeed.

A Series of Understatements

• It has been a little bit quiet on the blogging front.  That is, I have not updated for three months.  Three months!  I have been at the Hill, just not saying much anything about it.
• It wasn't very Summery, even in Summer.  That is, unless you were in the south east where someone was looking down on the Olympics; the wonderful weather adding to a phenomenal event. everywhere else it was wet, and cool.  Very.

• It hasn't been the best year for potatoes.  That is, this half bucket is all that I have of the maris piper main crop.
• We didn't do too badly in the Show.  That is, between mum, big sister Helen and me, we made a good dent in the prize money for the classes involving potatoes, beans, peas, rhubarb, fruit cake, chutney and sponge cake

• Allotment holders are quite nice people.  That is, in recent weeks I've had Reg-next-plot offer to dig the potatoes for me (thank goodness I turned him down, I would never have lived down the tiny crop); woodchippings Paul offer to put some bags of manure to one side on the plot for me when the it is next delivered as I'm not often there when it arrives, and it is soon snapped up; Nick and Pat from down the bottom giving me a huge bag of winter squash after I said that my squash plant had been done for by the slugs, and the replacement seeds didn't germinate.
• I managed to pick a few courgettes.  That is, the two plants I put in this year cropped heavily and continuously from mid August to last weekend, when a frost knocked the last few on the head

• The plot could do with a bit of a tidy up.  That is, the Winter digging and clearing still awaits.
• Change happens. That is, the annual round of musical chairs has just happened with allotment holders either upsizing, downsizing or moving plots.  The most notable in terms of my near neighbours is that Jody has handed over to his mate Shaun (who has been helping out for the last couple of years), so that he can concentrate on his fundraising activities for Birmingham Children's Hospital.

Show Prep

It's the Hill Show this weekend.  I have been pretty gloomy about this due to the fact that don't have much in the way of things to enter, with it having been such a difficult growing year to date.

Normally at this point I would have a good choice of what to enter, but not, I didn't think, for this year.  Thank goodness there are domestic classes so at least I can enter a cake or two.

However, things may not be that bleak for two reasons.

Firstly - and this is something to hold onto extremely firmly - everyone else is in the same boat.  If my beans have all been eaten by slugs and have taken three sowings to get anything going at all, then so will everyone else's.

Secondly, when I was at the Hill last night, I saw that the courgettes might just make it - the first little courgettes are on the plants, three inches or so long.

I dug up the first and second early potatoes.  A small crop, but enough to enter in the show, perhaps.  And I also dug up the shallots.  They are a right faff to prepare, but if I have ten the same size, why not?

And if I can't find enough sweet peas to make a vase of nine, that would be poor form.  Then there is the garlic crop strung up in the garage - the bulbs aren't huge this year, but they might be ok.

The fruit cake I made at the weekend looks fine, and smells even better.  I have a couple of jars of green tomato chutney that I made last autumn and I'm baking a lemon drizzle cake tomorrow night.

The peas are magnificent.

And I did pick the first runner beans the other day - they aren't exactly show-bench straight, but maybe I can find enough that look about the same.

The rhubarb is a good standby.

Hmm.

Might be ok, after all...

Falling In Love Again

Anyone from Mars who happened across a whole bunch of gardeners' blogs this Spring will have wondered why on earth any of us in the UK continue with a so-called pleasure giving hobby, due to the fact that there is not one amongst us, I don't think, who hasn't found the weather this Spring extremely trying.

Even the hardy hobbit who pretty much lives outside in the elements has sounded less than enthusiastic - and who can blame her with well over a foot of rain falling on her Cumbrian idyll this year so far?

Any trips that I have had to the Hill over the past three months have been either in the rain; or not in the rain until I've been there for two minutes when it has started.  The enthusiasm is dented because the days have not been warm, the nights less so.  Anything that I have planted out has been eaten by slugs or snails (I'm on my fifth try at carrots, the third of french beans); the only things to thrive have been the weeds (and teh peas, oddly).

And yet.

It has been dry since Friday, sunny over the weekend - and glorious today.  The tomatoes in the courtyard have put on three inches in as many days; and at the Hill, the courgettes are finally big enough to withstand slug attack, the re-sown french beans are up, and the peas are going wild.

Last week I'd heard that there was a lovely pile of chippings up by the store shed.  I'd love to thank the unknown donor as these are exactly what I want to refresh the paths (although I might argue that I would have been saved a great deal of effort and a number of hours yesterday pushing the damn wheelbarrow up and down the Hill if they had been dropped off somewhat nearer the plot).

So the paths look fabulous, the beds are weeded, a start has been made on the 'messy corner', and I ate a punnet full of raspberries tonight (after some rudimentary carpentry to mend the collapsing frame); and came home the first of the peas; some wonderful broad beans and new potatoes, warm from the soil.


That's why I do it.

Reasons to be Cheerful

With the weather continuing to be very wet - heavy showers several times a day - but warm, there is no getting away from the fact that this is not shaping up to be a great veg growing year, but I'm trying to look on the sunny side, and there are a number of plus points to bring home with me from the Hill today

Broad beans - although the plants are still sorely tried by blackfly, they are also swarming with ladybirds, and  these tiny first pickings have come home with me to be steamed to go with dinner.

Raspberries- wild growth of the summer raspberries has broken the support, so I've had to perform a temporary fix, meanwhile the fruit is ripening, and tasting delicious.   Must take a box to collect them in next visit, or I will just scoff the lot there and then, like I did today.




Courgettes & Cucumbers - both doubled in size since last weekend, and surrounded by snail graveyard.  Yuk.  At least the pellets are doing their job.

Peas -  these are astonishingly good.  A great jungle of foliage and more tiny pods than you can shake a stick at.  I've deliberately grown more tried and tested 'eating' peas (as opposed to mange tout or marrowfat) so that I will have plenty to freeze.  Just as well given that the poor old beans are not going to be great this year, I fear.


Mind you, it is tricky to see what on earth I'm going to be able to enter for the Show this year - just five weeks away, with the Schedule & entry form was published this week....

Losing The Battle But Not The War

Yes, I know that all gardeners grumble about the weather and we always qualify each success or failure with 'well, it really has been a bit of a funny year, hasn't it?' - well this year I do think that we might have a point.  It's been a warm and dry March followed but a cold and very, very wet second quarter, and there is a distinct lack of 'Summer' going on, even though it is July.

I was very gloomy after arriving at the Hill today as I went round counting up the casualties - looking at the beans losing the battle against the damn slugs, and seeing that the carrots have still not done anything at all, and - worst of all, and despite the slug pellets - seeing the SNAIL GRAVEYARD where my planted out uchiki kuri (red onion) squash plant was.

Past tense.

Eaten.

The broad beans have got blackfly, the calabrese seedlings under their netting are looking skeletal (no idea what's causing that particular one).

However, the courgettes have made it through, as have two out of three of the cucumbers; the peas are looking terrific; and I did bring home rhubarb, the first of the new potatoes and dug up a row of garlic - smaller than I would have hoped, but ok nonetheless.

I weeded like fury and left a sea of blue slug pellets in my wake.  I know, I don't like it either - but I do want to eat beans.  And squash.  And cucumbers.  And calabrese. And carrots - although I am not entirely sure that the slugs are the culprits in this instance.

On the plus side too, underneath the incredible mass of growth on the red and black currant bushes there are jewel like strings of currants very nearly ready to pick.

I was just about to come away when the muck delivery arrived, so I pitched in to help unload, and then did my community bit by emptying about a third of the bags in to the manure skip.  I took half a dozen bags to put on the squash bed - it's far too fresh and hot, really, but I'll clear a space to plant out a new squash and it should have calmed down a bit by the time the squash grows over it.

Then home to sow a couple of replacement squash, a second batch of leek seeds, and some kale for some winter fresh veg.

And then a much needed bath.