The sweet smell of success (or ‘you stink of Jeyes fluid’)

An unexpected window of sunshine allowed a couple of hours digging this afternoon. But, I gave in around 5.30 and collapsed into the bath.

Not that I wasn’t busy in the morning. Jeyes fluid made another appearance as I disinfected a whole load of small pots in preparation for sowing seeds. Late sowing, this was.

We are well behind on greenhouse crops. Not that this leaves us worried. There have been enough disappointments in the past: see above. So, waiting until late April to sow tomatoes and cucumbers is not such a big deal.

I hope.

Tomatoes have never been our strong suit. And, I think it’s down to not understanding which shoots to prick out; too many plants craving too little sun; too much or too little water. Whatever it is, I’m determined that we do better this year. A little light reading in the evenings from my extensive, yet hardly touched, gardening library should put us right.

From this disastrous experience, we plumped for a couple of varieties that any idiot should be able to grow.

Moeymaker: just the name inspires confidence. ‘Well known for reliably producing heavy crops.’ Er, not in our experience, but we’ll give it another go. It is a medium sized fruit on large trusses, so a bit of scaffolding might be required.

Gardener’s delight: it sure should be. ‘Bite sized fruits…sweet flavour. Heavy crops…’ Can’t go wrong! (Note: The tray also contains some parsley I sowed.)

One of last year’s surprises was some success at cucumbers. We’d not tried them before and because we crammed the greenhouse full of tomatoes, the cukes wound up outside. Three plants ended up under a cold frame and half a dozen or so lived in one of the few sheltered spots in the garden on the greenhouse staging.

Not the greatest yields, I’m sure. The leaves got a bit brown and powdery, a sign, of some horrid bug. Nevertheless, we got a steady stream of 10-15 cm or so fruits through until September. I love cucumber, so a bit of a bonus.

Let’s see how Green Fingers -’early cropping, high yielding baby cucumber…powdery mildew (ha!) resistant’ – do.

Let’s go for it!

As a coda, I popped in one of my maincrop potatoes – Desiree – into a pot to sit in the greenhouse next to my thriving first earlies.

Later on, I trundled up to the allotment for some back torture. The trip did yield something tasty: some lovely purple sprouting broccoli and spinach, courtesy of Barry (not his real name, of course).

I benefited from scone and tea around 4.30.

The late planted onions are starting to produce green shoots. I felt the earth yesterday and it has definitely warmed up, so no excuses now you boys!

Another four potato plants have poked above the soil. Another three of four spots show cracks in the soil, so the shoots are about to reach daylight. (Eight weeks from planting to digging: six weeks to go then.)

Bathed before dinner – including purple sprouting – but I still smell of Jeyes.

Cheerio, cock!

Bill told me this afternoon that he has sold the cockerel currently on my allotment. The cock and two elderly hens have been companions on my half-allotment for several months.

Truthfully, the chickens have not done a particularly good job of clearing the site. Yes, they have pecked at the weeds. But, that has done little to get to the root of the problem. The root, of course, is the root.

Still, I have been happy to see Mr Cock and his misses there on every visit. I shall miss him when he goes off to his new home. He is off to service 25 wives!

Yep. There’s a potato or three sprouting. Good news after a close examination this morning.

In other news, I’m told that there is an ‘inspection’ by the parish council on 14 May. No idea who is to lead this event. No guesses which allotment that will come under intense scrutiny. Oh, by the way, my weed infested lump was previously occupied by … a parish councillor.

Good bye, cocks!

You say potato, I say firm white tuber

My control potato has sprouted.

Up at the allotment, my first earlies (of which control potato is the leftover) look as lifeless as ever. Wet and generally cool weather has not been conducive for sprouting. Probably another few days to go judging by the control potato. Remember, the control spud was planted a couple of days after sowing the outdoor crop. But, what it lacked in time in the soil has more than been made up for in heat and protection from the elements.

All of the above are first earlies, Lady Christl. I don’t know a huge amount about potato varieties. This year is going to be an experiment (and so will next year and the one after that). We more or less picked these out of a hat. We knew we wanted an early. According to the catalogue, these are “an excellent first early variety that can be dug around around 8 weeks from planting.”

Heck, that’s early!

Good boilers: that’s more of the blurb. Anyway, they look cracking in the accompanying photo.

No idea about the variety of the competition pot. But, I hope you will agree, a fine specimen.

For the main crop, we chose Desiree. We were a bit torn on this one. The little runner wanted good ol’ King Edwards, a great versatile spud. But, I was a bit hesitant when reading: ‘needs good soil’. If it had said ‘needs heavy clay and weed ridden clumps’ then I would have jumped at it.

Valor was another option, primarily because of disease resistance. On the other hand, it is a late maturing spud. Whether it would survive the blight, about which we only learnt after ordering, is touch and go.

It’s all a bit of a punt or lottery or something you can’t really predict. Except, if we get another wet summer, I’m betting we could be limited to what’s growing now in the greenhouse.

Spare a thought for George. He’s planted three rows of first earlies. Second earlies go in soon and he’s planning a main crop too! Chips all round (first served in the USA in 1801)!

Time to bake bread

Perhaps a time to step back and look at the wider picture. And, I don’t mean comparing my growing efforts to Bill or Eamon or George or even my siblings.

It has probably not escaped your notice that the news is rather lousy at the moment.

Be it the credit crunch – every expert saw that one coming – or global warming – which has been around long enough to become boring and the subject of a treatise by a worse chancellor than Alistair Darling – or turrsm, it looks bleak. Hey, we have forgotten about AIDS and SARS and what about the threatened flu pandemic?

There’s a new one today: not only are petrol prices still on the rise, but we are facing a fuel shortage thanks to good old industrial action.

It was a standing joke in my family that whenever things got bad you should start baking bread.

The story originated in the mid 1970s when New York, where my family then lived, was facing the mother of all snow storms. ‘We’ve started baking our own bread’ said the tv weatherman to explain how cataclysmic the snowfall would be.

Point being that with the transport chaos and power failures, there would be no bread in the shops. So, the weather team had made their own preparations.

Well, it looks like even homemade bread is going to cost a lot more:

Families who have been hit by rising energy and petrol prices and, in some cases, higher mortgage costs, are also facing a 15% rise in the cost of many basic foodstuffs, according to website Mysupermarket.co.uk.

…

Many staple items have been hit by the rising price of wheat.

It’s all the fault of the two year Australian drought and land used for biofuels rather than edible crops.

What on earth does this have to do with allotmenteering? Am I going to start growing wheat?

Figures from garden centres and seed producers suggest that rising shop costs and a growing interest in the provenance of food is leading more families to try producing their own food.

Vegetable seed sales are reportedly up 60% on this time last year.

Well, you knew that anyway (funny, I thought seed sales where up 6%?). That’s why a lot of you out there cannot get an allotment.

Maybe some of you are also starting to bake your own bread.

We already do.

And if you want a bag of my potatoes when the food crisis gets worse, the bidding starts at £50 a kilo.

Playing hooky

Honest, boss.

My gut was aching all night. This morning, I swear, I called god on the big white phone. Stomach virus, that’s it. I had a stomach virus.

No, my face isn’t red because I was sunning myself up at the allotment. It was all that retching that gave me the glowing face.

Yes, I feel better now, but I’m not sure when the vomiting and nausea and diarrhea and stuff will come back. Could happen any time and, no, it’s not related to the weather… though, come to think of it…

(Well, it sounds a better story than I booked a day off at the last moment to go digging, doesn’t it.)

P.S. – sorry for the awful picture. It was the stomach cramps.

Herbs ‘n’ sh!t

Monday evening offers a short breather and a chance to catch up on growing back at home as well as the opportunity for another gratuitous photo of horse sh!t.

Blue overalls’ tower of turd was dumped just inside the path this past Saturday morning. It caused inconvenience and some mirth.

It was half-an-hour or so after the steaming muck was deposited, blocking my rickety wheelbarrow and its bits and pieces, before the owner showed his face. It was a slightly red face. Not only had the muck stuffed up the path, but also was encroaching on Alex’s rhubarb.

He’s not the most chatty of allotmenteers is blue overalls. But, he did offer the odd comment or two as he spent the next 6 hours (with an hour for lunch) clearing the path and dumping the poo on his perfectly manicured plot.

There were jokes about reporting the poor fellow to the chairman of the new allotment association – motto: ‘down the pub with the members subscriptions’. (I kid.)

Herb-wise, the basil is making a valiant effort. Poor blighters look like they have suffered the usual fate in this house: over watering. I gave them a feed this morning and maybe they will perk up in the promised sunshine.

On the other hand, just check out the marjoram. One of the more fickle of herbs, these specimens have positively thirved (or is it thriven) on the east facing window sill. I will think about re-potting in a week or so. But, it is still too cold to put them in the greenhouse.

Hooray! The chillis have poked their little heads out of the damp soil. I have got four out of twelve visible. Again, the promised warmth and sun of the next few days should help.

A hard afternoon’s dig merits a cup of tea and a scone. Thanks to my little runner.

Gardening: old skool

“Glad to see you doing it by the book” commented Bill as he watched Barry and I struggle digging out the confused and coagulated weed roots.

Digging, old skool.

Well, as I explained to Eamon yesterday, it’s a modified version of the single dig. Dig a trench; collect the spoil; fill the trench from behind; fill the last trench with your original spoil.

Except, in my version, I’m digging out the trench spade-by-spade (actually fork-by-fork) into my barrow and spending several minutes picking out the roots and chopping up the soil. After filling the barrow, the spoil is tipped back in the trench.

It’s bloody hard work. But, it could save forever picking out ground elder and doc weeds. And, as I see it, it’s giving the soil some good structure.

Digging, old skool.

Compare: some of the neighbours.

Blue overalls at number 7: rotovating and mechanical tilling; fake looking soil though you have to admire his horse poo.

George, the newcomer: more rotovating by a helper, no less; benefited from the previous tenant’s plastic covering; fake soil, might as well be astroturf; no callouses from digging, no back ache or pins and needles down the arms.

Give me proper, man-powered digging.

Gardening, old skool.

Just ask my ‘helper’.

Clubbed to death

As part of my weekend round-up, I should have mentioned that a group of allotment holders are planning to get together to form an association. L’incident de polytunnel and the formal tenancy agreements has galvanised some of us into some sort of action.

We need a voice and we need to be formally recognised by the parish council in order to talk like civilised people about terms, conditions, rules and regulations.

However, I am often in the agreement with Groucho Marx:

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

There will now be as many committees in the village as there are in Westminster.

Meanwhile, the allotmenteers of South Hams are manning the barricades in support of more allotments.

Vive La Revolution!

The fiftieth potato

My control pot.

The first earlies are in; late earlies. A little creativity with spacing was required to fit in all the seeds. Another little mistake with calculating the bed size.

So, instead of 30cm spacing it was more like 25cm. Rather than 60cm between rows, I measured out 45cm.

We are going to get enough potatoes out of 50 seeds without worrying about heavy croppers.

And, so. The fiftieth potato. I held one back to act as my “control”. Of course, I was so tired by the time I struggled home this evening – more digging – that I forgot to plant it.

The control will go in a pot to sit in the greenhouse.

Seems like a plan.

Horsesh!t

Shovelled, pushed and bagged  a load of horse manure out in Ilfracombe this morning.

A bag went on potato bed 1. More digging. More aches. More pains.

More alcohol.