Plot Holes

I'm rubbish

2007-06-23T21:20:00.000+01:00

Dragged Best Friend up to plot today ("Come for a day in Cambridge! We'll do lovely outdoors things. The Backs? Well, the back of somewhere.") I'm rubbish. My garlic and onions have bolted, slugs are devouring the runner beans, accidentally planted dwarf beans around my bean pole pyramid, so will now have to replace them, and my lawn is four foot tall.

On the upside, fed Best Friend raspberries, strawberries, raw peas, raw broad beans, redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries. Then went to see my friends' plot, which is what mine should have looked like, and discovered a public cherry tree that we foraged from (looked like monkeys). So I may be rubbish, but BF thinks I'm great.

Not exactly produce...

2007-06-06T16:15:00.000+01:00

...as one would have to have proof that one had produced the produce and used it for a meal. Whereas what happened is that I went up to the allotment on Sunday for a couple of hours and ate strawberries until I felt sick.

Am now attempting to replicate my achievement with strawberry flavoured mushroom shaped pick and mix, which I think may contain cocaine as there's no other explanation for my inability to stop scarfing them. I'm a pig.

At last! But not exactly well laid out.

2007-05-29T22:37:00.000+01:00

Many many photos (okay, four) of exactly the same thing. In the foreground, earth moving, for the planting of potatoes and of asparagus. In the background, shent. In the middle, leeks. Oh, and a wheelbarrow that doesn't belong to me.

Note the attractive arrangement of black plastic with stupid holes cut in it, and in the lower right hand corner of the picture, the Big French Tool.

A close up on some leeks here, with my daft red coat hanging off a bush.

My particular favourite here, focusing in on a pile of discarded perennial roots. If you want to use this in Couch Grass Quarterly, please apply for rights.

Lack of achievement

2007-05-29T22:05:00.000+01:00

I have achieved nothing, except to cover the table in the spare room with tomato plants (can no longer remember if I remembered to label them) and chilli plants that I should have potted on four weeks ago, hence not leaving them the time to grow to full maturity and thus entirely negating the purpose of planting them. It's been one of those months. Should I achieve anything, anything at all, even vaguely related to the allotment, I'll post it here immediately. I might even upload a photo if bloody Blogger will bloody let me.

And no, it won't. Gah.

Glub. Glub. Glub.

2007-05-28T20:53:00.000+01:00

It has been raining for ninety three million years and I've forgotten where my allotment is. I managed to plant some runner beans in the sucking mud last week and will have to swim up after work this week and see if the plot is still there. Only I can't, because I've taken on some freelance work that I've left till the very last minute and will have to do after work on Tuesday and Wednesday, then on Thursday I have to travel to the joy that is Luton in order to get up at ouch o'clock on Friday to clean out lemur cages, which, would you believe it, was my Christmas present from the Eejit. Then on Saturday I'm working the beer tent at Strawberry Fair which is the worst day of my year and I never, ever, can remember why I say yes every year. So I'm praying for rain. Which makes no sense at all.

Apologies for the brief hiatus...

2007-04-29T22:07:00.000+01:00

...and here is proof that I haven't been completely hopeless and spent the whole of the last year reading hecklerspray and counting down to Eurovision (only around 20%).

Or at least there would be proof but Blogger won't let me upload any photos. So you'll have to take my word for it. Imagine, if you will, the end result of all that lovely manure: All rotted down and full of worms. So I've spent the last month digging trenches and putting manure in them to plant spuds. Gentle reader: Never, ever, shovel manure wearing sandals.

Let that be the lesson for today.

Pixies and plans

2006-04-04T11:11:00.000+01:00

God, has it been that long? In my defence I've actually been at the plot! No sign of eejits next door, though Mysterious Markers have appeared that leave me no possible conclusion other than a secret army of pixies have been recruited to plant things at 5am when nobody's looking. Or someone turned up one evening in the week and bunged some shallots in so that they could spend the weekend in the pub. But that's far less likely.

I have: Dug and raked and planted 3 types of leeks and 2 types of spring onions, all of which have failed to sprung.

Killed my sweet peas.

Had help! K from across the road, veteran of many a shared gin-soaked evening, gave up his afternoon in the Grapes to spend his hangover digging with me. He dug lots, I dug less. I was very pleased and grateful.

Discovered that K (a) is a big fat girl who couldn't get out of bed the next day because, I quote, his "spine is broken"; (b) is still at the denial stage of root removal as I was last year - i.e. if it isn't a foot long it isn't really there; (c) that it's catching. I really couldn't be arsed to properly go over the entire bed-and-a-half that K had dug, so dug a couple of trenches, shoved some new potatoes in, and made vague promises to myself about sifting the soil as I earth up. Yeah, right.

Dug another bed, also rather half arsedly, and slung some hardy peas in there. Doubt they'll even germinate, but it gave me a sense of achievement, and I have got another 4 varieties at home.

Dug out path on what eventually will be my brassica seedbed. Gave up. Dug out a few bramble roots. Gave up. Began compost heap and turf stack. You know what's coming. Refuse to feel bad about all the giving up, as at least I was there and did a bit. Two hours each day for four days is better in a way than eight hours over two, because at least I can move in the morning. Wonder if K will be up for more digging at the weekend? Will put him on bramble duty, hee hee.

Shent is really threatening the Mary Poppins thing in all the high winds. (Ceratonia - remember her umbrella? Afraid I'm going to go into the shed for shelter and land in a London street full of chirpy chimney sweeps). Can't do bugger all about it though.

Drew up complicated rotation plan for crops on allotment that would allow me to harvest year-round and try out all the seeds I have including the odd experimental ones. Went to plot. Realised plot half the size of the plot in my head that I've planned for. Oop. Alliums (i.e. onions, garlic, leeks) taking up far more than the 1/4 plot I've allowed for them because they were more or less all I could plant through the winter. Hmmm...

Pile of Shite

2006-03-21T22:28:00.000Z

Yes, I know I've been lax about updating but for the love of God what can anyone say about digging? You dig, you stop for a fag. You dig. You notice that it's been snowing for ten minutes and you're the only person on site. You say to yourself, ah to hell with it, another half an hour won't hurt.

Actually it was worth it last Saturday as the manure man cometh. He is a tiny chimpanzee in a checked shirt and a marked fen accent, and he approached me because I was the only one on site. (Digression - this reminds me of They Think It's All Over's description of Wayne Rooney: "It's as if someone shaved a monkey and kicked it through a sports shop".

Anyhoo, as of this Sunday just gone I am the proud possessor of a great big steaming pile of horse shite. As I was shovelling it onto a tarpaulin my landlord turned up along with one of the eejits and god love him the lovely Irish eejit gave me a hand. The landlord was also attempting to volunteer, despite gout, a bad back and a lack of forks, because apparently he used to win prizes for the neatness of his mounds back in the day. The things you find out about people.

Covered manure with tarpaulin. Also replaced tarpaulin on shent as it was having a whole Mary Poppins thing going on. Went home, stripped off in front of washing machine and dived into bath. Still hurt two days later. Weather forecast predicts nice mild rainy weather. We're doomed! We're all doomed.

2006-03-06T11:50:00.000Z

Saturday. Dug another food trench, planted broad beans in bog rolls and sweet peas. Then thought 'I'll attack the really difficult bit with the solid clumps of weed root, that'll be fun'. Five hours later I'd cleared six foot by two.

Sunday. Couldn't get out of bed. D'oh.

Still, only 20 days till the clocks go back, and I can do this every day. Yay!

Food trenches

2006-02-27T22:27:00.000Z

This post is actually a week late because last week my thumbs hurt too much from digging to type. Eight hours over two days. Even the memory hurts.

This last weekend I buggered off to Sheffield for the weekend and grinned happily as the weather raged at us because it meant that even if I'd been home I couldn't have gone up to the plot. It's strange how your priorities change. No news on eejits next door as I haven't been to the pub yet (that particular pub - don't be daft).

Have repotted tomatoes, which are looking very healthy, and given one to my dad, who is looking very scared, as is the tomato. Sweet peas have appeared and seem to be growing an inch a day, which I don't think is right. Going to have to get them out fairly sharpish. Dug food trench for broad beans so I could put them next to that (no sign of broad beans at all. Bugger).

Nb: Food trench: Dig bed. Get rid of weeds. Rake bed flat. Dig trench. Think 'that was a waste of time'. Stick kitchen waste that has been lurking in flat for six weeks at bottom of trench. Gag from smell. Cover over with compost. Consider burying kitchen caddy rather than putting it back in rucksack to take home. Consider burying self rather than putting rucksack on bike and cycling home. Cover compost with soil. Go home. Head to bed. Do u-turn, take shower. Go to bed.

Potato Day and Chimpanzee Gardening

2006-02-12T13:38:00.000Z

Potato Day.

Suffolk doesn't agree with me. From the moment I got up on Saturday morning with an outrageous hangover (see previous posts about new job round the corner from House of Danger) the odds of getting to Stonham Aspal were lengthening. None of the eejits from next door could be reached, my eejit wouldn't get out of bed and then had to work, but the monumental guilt that accompanies my hangovers drove me to the bus stop, then the train station. Imagined in my innocence that one could probably get a bus to Stonham Barns, given that it houses the East Anglian Showgrounds. Indeed one can. On Thursdays.

Two taxi rides and a cold hour-long wait on the platform at Stowmarket station later, I am the proud possessor of sixty seed potatoes. Taxi driver loved that. Ten different varieties. Got home just as it got dark. Woke up this morning, bucketing down. So I have potatoes, but nothing dug on the allotment. Am going to spend rest of afternoon caring for my potatoes, making little homes for them in egg boxes, and praying that eejits and nice man off A4A will take some of them or I'm going to be planting the bloody things in public parks. Not guerilla gardening so much as chimpanzee gardening. Ah well.

Parsnips still a no-show. Accidentally thinned all but two giant cauliflower beanstalks by trying to carefully snip off weakest seedlings first thing in the morning. Oop.

Parsnips and the Russian Front

2006-02-07T19:47:00.000Z

I have dug half of the bed in which my broad beans will eventually rest, should I ever get round to actually planting them in the toilet rolls currently making my bathroom look like the set from Blue Peter. When I say dug, I mean that I managed to hoik out some of the massed ranks of perennials, but like the bloody Russian front there's more of them than of me and it's winter. (Cue visions of fending off the red hordes with a pair of my mother's secateurs). Could not face returning on Sunday to do the rest of it. Covered stuff with black plastic and decided that what the eye can't see the mind will shortly be distracted from with visions of dancing juniper berries.

On the up side, my grandfather's three-legged table (it had four legs until I came into possession of it) is now languishing under the leggiest seedlings since the little-known Miss Six-Foot Swedish Seedling competition. The tomatoes aren't too bad, but the cauliflowers appear to have taken the story of Jack and the Cauliflower Stalk a little too much to heart (What? Prince Charles talks to his plants. So I have no life?). The basil, which I thought was hard to germinate, appears to be planning to take over the world, while the parsnips are sitting with their little seedy arms folded saying "I told you we wouldn't germinate, you and your daft newspaper pots".

I should get out more.

Just started new temping job which starts at some ungodly hour of the morning but, hurrah, finishes at five and apparently at four on Fridays. Which is almost like being given an extra day. The cunning plan is to leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a tightly coiled spring, bound onto my bicycle, pedal furiously to the plot and enjoy the lengthening evenings (oh, all right, afternoons).

But. (There's always a but). The new job is precisely 27 seconds walk from door to door from the home of a friend of mine, who also gets up early and finishes early and who has a penchant for the odd after-work gin and tonic. I've been good, I've tried to protect myself, I haven't answered his texts for ages and I haven't told him where I'm working, but you know what's going to happen. I will leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a lethargic chimpanzee, bound onto my bicycle, fall off my bicycle, swear at my bicycle, realise said bicycle has two flat tyres (each of which has an inner tube of a different era so you need two separate pumps, neither of which I carry to work), one handlebar, and three gears of which only the top is deciding to function. Remember said bicycle also makes a noise like a wounded Spitfire. Think 'sod this, I'm covered in oil and wearing a brand new suit, where could I possibly wash my hands?'. This is not a plan, you understand, just a case of 'know thine enemy', which in my case is inevitably me.

And the damned parsnips, of course. Driving me to gin. Mutter mutter growl growl twitch.

Ye Gods this hurts...

2006-01-31T18:56:00.000Z

How not to approach preparing your allotment for spring planting:

1. Make sure that five energetic blokes are digging and clearing the plot next to you. This will make you feel jealous, motivated and deeply guilty at the same time. Make sure if possible that you also have someone working on the plot on the other side with a big French tool and that all other plots on the site as far as the eye can see were double dug in Autumn.

2. Don't undertake any physical activity for anything up to fifteen years. Don't even run for the bus. Get someone to hold cups of tea to your mouth if possible.

3. Instead of doing an hour at a time, like the five energetic blokes on the plot next to you who are running a sort of shift system, try to stay up at the plot for as long as there's anyone else there.

4. If you can, use a big French tool that you are relatively unfamiliar with, weighs a considerable amount, and causes you to use muscles in your arms, hands, shoulders and back that are almost entirely undeveloped in human beings that don't belong to the Eastern European Shotput and Hammer Federation.

5. Occasionally transfer to a fork, spade, and grass hook to ensure no muscle group misses its punishment.

6. Get up on Sunday and do it again.

7. Then go to work in a kitchen.

End result: (a) Very little actually cleared because it's too damned cold to stick your bare hands in the soil to get the perennial roots; (b) it looks even worse because the buggers on the other plot (including an archaeologist, natch, and an Australian who grew up on a farm, double natch) have done so much more than you; (c) your hands hurt when you try to grip a pen.

8. Get drunk. It's the only way forward. You know it. I know it. Gin solves everything.

Beer Garden

2006-01-17T00:02:00.000Z

So the boys from the pub have taken the plot next to mine - the Champion of the Thames PH finally has a beer garden, albeit 20 minutes bike ride from the actual pub. This is going to be fun. Roughly two of them have gardening knowledge and experience. There seem to be up to ten people involved, and a Jack Russell. I won't seem so stupid! And I might finally get the damn shed fixed.

Managed to break neighbour's fork handle hoiking out bramble stumps (cleared about 1 sq metre. There's just 35 sq metres to go. Wheee!) and had to leave very contrite note, written, of course, in bloody fountain pen as that was all I had and so will be blue blob by the time he reads it. Bought plastic handled piece of crap for a fiver from Lottie store. However, caught lucky break as neighbour was passing the Live and Let Live PH on Sunday night as I was leaving after finishing work (and heading to the Champ to drink gin, yes, obviously). Found out his name! Very excited but I'm not going to share it with you as he is still My Neighbour With The Big French Tool to me.

Planted stuff in newspaper pots. Updates as soon as nothing whatsoever happens.

Big French Tool

2006-01-14T21:19:00.000Z

I got my hands on a big French tool! And bloody useful it was as well. It's like a six pronged garden fork, bent at a right angle, with a huge long handle, so you sort of sling it at the ground, then stand it on end and wiggle it, and it just clears the ground for you. So much faster than forking it over. Still will have to do the whole forking forking bit (hee. Did you spot what I did there?) but it doesn't look nearly as bad now. Well, at least the bits of earth that you can see through the mat of perennial roots. Weedfest.

And I found potatoes! Don't know if I mentioned that all my spuds went belly up, but they did. One week there were plants, the next stalks, then just couch grass. It looked like ten tiny grassy graves. Of varying heights, as that was my stupid triangular bed experiment. Sort of like the seven dwarves had various industrial accidents. Anyhoo, I was forking one of them over and found tiny dinky spuds in the earth - only a couple of handfuls, but enough for dinner with a few leeks. And half a cow that I accidentally bought in the Grafton centre when picking up a wheelbarrow. I got one of those canvas jobbies, the EasyWheel Lite or some such arse, on the grounds that a) I'd be able to get it up to the plot and b) it was cheap (£40 from Argos). Lite my backside. Still, it's supposed to be able to take 70kg, which is more than the weight of a dead dwarf, so fair enough really. Won't half feel daft on the bus, mind. (No it won't fit on the bike. I'm not even trying. Don't be silly).

And the pub mob is arriving tomorrow to look at the neighbouring plot. Even the landlord (also my landlord) who has grown nothing but toenails in his life and wouldn't know a growing plant if you stapled it to his head. Oh, dear God, what have I done...

How Sad Am I?

2006-01-11T12:14:00.000Z

Spent Monday night making pots out of old newspapers. http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/. How sad am I? Then realised I only had enough compost left to fill one of them, so they're sitting in the kitchen as a testament to my pitiful social life. Sent off heritage seeds order and accidentally ordered more stuff from Seeds of Italy http://www.seedsofitaly.sagenet.co.uk/default.htm although luckily read through order first as many of their packets can contain up to 10,000 seeds which is a bit over the top even by my "must order thousands of seeds that I will never plant" standards. So east Cambridge is looking good in case of famine as well. Yay!

Also found elderly seed sprouter belonging to mother with instructions in German, so if the worst comes to the worst I can eat the damned things in a very Teutonic and efficent manner.

Christmas is finally over...

2006-01-09T20:18:00.000Z

...and I have absolutely no excuse for not going to the allotment. Or for not writing this blog. Damnation. Went up to collect seed order on Sunday, which was rather embarrassing, as I have enough seeds to feed north Cambridge should I actually manage to get any of them to work. Work, grow, you know what I mean. Astonishingly, found that hurriedly-shoved garlic and onions were actually starting to sprout! Green stuff! I'm growing something!

Pulled a leekling that looked most like a leek and took it home to eat. Very proud moment. Followed by several very gritty moments as I hadn't washed it properly. Glad now that I didn't put manure on that bed. Not that I have any manure, but the principle holds.

Sunday evening after work (I try to kill people with my cooking a couple of times a week- it has actually succeeded once, but that's another story that I probably shouldn't publish) I wandered down to my local. Think I might have mentioned that my neighbour who has a large french tool (really) and the guy across from me who is on the committee both occasionally drink in my local, even though it's not actually local to any of us, as they are actually neighbours. That wasn't one of my better-constructed sentences. That was a shent of a sentence. Anyway, it turns out that a group of the lurking regulars had conferred over Christmas and the idea is being bandied about of getting a pub allotment. So I mentioned that the one next to me (it used to be a double plot) was free and already had fruit trees, bushes, growy stuff etc.

My cunning plan is that the boys (ha!) will take on the plot and I will have a constant supply of conversation, labour and probably beer. Cunning, no? So will press the issue and possibly execute a fait accompli by taking the plot for the outrageous twenty quid involved and presenting them with the title. Though that may not be quite such a good plan as I'm likely to end up with twice as much utterly unmanageable land to grow slugs in. Still, it could be fun?

Came home after work tonight and filled in my heritage seeds order form just in case I have to feed southern Cambridge as well. Hope they like slug stew.

Shent

2005-11-25T16:48:00.000Z

Yes, blog has been moribund, but then, so have I. Too damned cold to do a damned thing and all I've managed for weeks is to dig stuff and shove in some garlic and onions. Spuds have been destroyed by slugs and frost has probably killed off what's left.

On the upside the halfashed is now temporarily roofed with a tarpaulin and some milk bottles filled with stagnant water from the elderly water butts. So now it's half shed, half tent. A shent, if you will.

Christmas comes early

2005-10-05T10:48:00.000+01:00

Yay! Onion sets! Haven't a bed prepared for them, but will have to do so now or they'll go to waste. Also Nemaslug, which has to be used by end of October - wasn't going to bother but I'll have to now or they'll go to waste.

Slightly confused, however, as have two parcels which have been at post office since Saturday and which I assumed were onion sets and Nemaslug. Hmm.

Nemaslug, incidentally, is weird powdery stuff that apparently contains thousands of tiny tiny nematodes that are absorbed by slugs and then kill them. Moo haa haa haa....

2005-09-27T15:14:00.000+01:00

Finally finished amazing weedy seedy shady bed. I can't believe now that I was ever moaning about weeds before. This bloody thing wasn't just weedy, it was a perennial weed convention. The only things missing were the alcohol and the nametags. How does an eight foot root get in a six foot by four foot bed? And that was where I was so carefully nursing my seedlings (bindweed). No wonder the poor little sods didn't grow. Well, the bindweed did.

Realised three quarters of the way through that half what I was pulling out belonged to the apple tree. Not enjoying creaking noises from above.

Have begun another bed, for hunions, which are languishing at the post office because I was too hungover, again, to go and get my bike this morning. Stayed up late drinking beer and looking at cactus photos. Honest to god. This bed is also incredibly weedy which I don't really understand as the others I've dug have been OK. Or maybe I was weedblind? And now I can see them, like the way people say that if you're trying for a kid everyone's pregnant. Not my best analogy.

Pulled a bit of plastic off to rough dig another bed and there is nothing on it but bindweed. How? Not another weed to be seen. And yet the bits I've left uncovered have hardly any bindweed; mostly what I'm fervently praying is the rye grass I sowed. I can't imagine it's been crowded out; judging by these last two beds it's a bloody miracle anthing else gets a look in. Apart from the crouch, of course, with which my paths are riddled. Note good grammar. I am proud of my small successes.

Should go up tonight but it's just beginning to rain. Yay! Crap TV and Horlicks for me.

Another photo! (singular, again, I'm not pushing my luck)

2005-09-23T19:19:00.000+01:00

Yay! A second photo. My plot, before I did anything daft to it, like attempt to grow something. Halfashed at end, note artistic positioning of clouds. Good, innit?

Actually what it is is bloody huge. Will try to remember to take camera up tomorrow to show evidence of attempts to grow stuff and the way the black plastic sheeting accentuates the vast swathes of weeds that I now have growing in what would be the foreground of this picture.

Photo! (singular)

2005-09-23T18:48:00.000+01:00

Finally some photos! This is the before picture of the brambles, complete with halfashed. Impressive, isn't it? I think it's a testament to my hurricane-sized ignorance that this seemed like the perfect plot to me. La-di-da, hello brambles, hello sky, I can't really see you lalala, you're actually a lawn with a pond and some cast-iron furniture, tra-la-la.

Ok, one photo. But it's a start. I never suggested that I was any better at blogging than I am at gardening.

Well, it looks better than it did

2005-09-20T17:33:00.000+01:00

Now have two beds netted. However, should a sparrow with half a brain venture along, he need just lean gently against it to either bring the whole lot down, or bounce close enough to my three cauliflowerlings that remain to scarf the lot.

I say three; of course I haven't gone up tonight yet. Am expecting Slugstock 2005; mud and excess and general celebration from all except the great big fascist Man, which would be me of course. Am going to take Nixon-era steps and consider outright warfare against these long-haired layabouts (add the hair yourselves, use your imagination).

Should perhaps bring you up to date on a couple of bullet points I threw at the blog a week or so ago. Remember weedy seedy shady bed? Where I was carefully nurturing spinach, cress and rocket?

Nuh-uh. Bindweed.

Ahem. Moving swiftly on. Have liberated garden fork from uncultivated next door allotment BUT with permission! Ah hah hah hah! Turns out bloke who rents it drinks in my local; one of the boys on the committee is his neighbour, happened to be out for a drink with him the evening after I'd asked if the plot was rented, and of all the bars they could have walked into, they had to walk into the one with the best and cheapest gin and tonics and hence me. Bargain.

Must go, want to spend money at Homebase because I can.

Of cabbages and things

2005-09-19T13:50:00.000+01:00

How not to prepare brassicas for overwintering:

(i) Make sure you're not in when the Dobies plug plants arrive, so the friendly helpful people in the bookies downstairs take them in for you and keep them for a couple of days until they see you.

(ii) Upon eventual receipt of plug plants, leave them sitting in box for two days because work's really busy and you keep turning up late and thus staying late. Notice on Thursday evening that the box says 'Open Immediately'. Bugger.

(iii) Open box.

(iv) At least 24 hours after (iii), try to close box in order to shove into rucksack. Turn it sideways so it fits. Ish. Take plants up to plot. Realise that, at most, you have enough beds prepared for two-fifths of plug plants. Also notice that they're turning yellow. Muse aloud that yellow is probably not the colour they ought to be. Get strange looks.

(v) Spend the whole of Saturday digging frantically and trying to hoik out perennial roots. Make sure you don't allow enough time for this, as there's nothing like a half-arsed job to ensure that you get to repeat it all ad nauseum on a weekly basis. Shove plug plants in. Take care to plant them in such a way that any future rotations of vegetables will require the advice of a chess grandmaster. Fill shoes full of mud (not necessary, but you do get bonus points).

(vi) Return Sunday, much later than planned, to find plants already nibbled, yellowing, and in some cases broken off at stems. Decide, with no time nor forward planning, to string netting across cauliflowerlings to protect them. Choose piece of netting that's far too small. End up with layer of netting just the right size for birds to rest themselves while leaning through holes and helping themselves. Run out of time so that'll have to do. Trip over netting, fall in mud, narrowly missing leeklings. Curse (this should be taking place at regular intervals). Trip over bike, causing chain to come off and necessitating a light covering of bicycle oil to go with mud. Curse some more. Cycle home like lunatic to get washed and changed for work.

On the upside my spuds have finally come up. Things seem to grow as long as I leave them the hell alone. Odd.

Recovery

2005-09-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

Am in long, slow recovery from week of debauchery. What I need is soothing embrace of couch grass and bindweed to remind me that actually, by comparison, hangovers are my friends. Will get round to posting photos tonight, honest, guv.

How Crap Am I?

2005-09-06T17:01:00.000+01:00

Just a very brief post to apologise for not posting since this time last week. Actually found myself having to do some work in the past week, very unusual occurence. Many apologies to all four of my readers.

Brief plot news teasers which I will elaborate upon later:

- Neighbouring plot from whence I have been scrumping/pilfering tools is occupied
- I can't tell the difference between a plant and a weed
- Related to above, I have now been forced to prepare beds properly
- I know someone that isn't bored by me wittering on about allotments
- I have photos of amazing bramble patch

In other news, still haven't picked up free tools. Or recieved Dobies' brassicas. Just in case you were holding your breath...

Of mice and men (and yet more bloody couch grass)

2005-08-30T15:39:00.000+01:00

Plan: Spend three half days over glorious bank holiday weekend on allotment, healthy fresh air yada yada, get loads done, feel virtuous if sunburnt.

Outcome: Spent vast amounts of money killing off liver, spent every morning in bed waiting to feel better, spent all of three hours on plot doing useful virtuous things. Am crap.

Did however get round to buying tarpaulin (still in plastic, sitting inside shed without a roof). Weeded amazing shady bed which I may as well call my couch grass bed as that's all that's growing in it. Thought about weeding leeks. Couldn't be arsed. Pinched hoe from next door's shed - it had actual cobwebs on it, so I reckoned I was safe, though I'll return it when I eventually get tools of my own - which are waiting for me in a friend's shed (his sister gardened, went off to New Zealand, left tools) only of course I haven't got round to going to fetch them let alone hoik them up to the plot. (hoik is an excellent word and my new favourite word of the week).

Also trapped a 16-year-old assistant in Homebase to measure out weed suppressant fabric, that was great fun ("Twelve metres? Are you sure?" "Actually I want at least 18 but I'm not sure if it'll fit in a rucksack. How much fits in a rucksack?"). Got to plot. Raked over a third of it (basically I'm combing the couch grass) and scattered green manure seeds, phacelia, rye grass and red clover, and raked part of it over again. I don't know if it'll grow, and I don't know if it'll beat the couch grass or just lie down defeated as I am tempted to do.

Made interesting L shape with weed suppressant fabric (twelve metres is not a lot on an allotment, and has the added bonus of making all the land that you haven't covered look twice as huge and unmanageable). Weighted down with bricks and a pallet I'd fished out of next door's compost bin. Tried manfully (womanfully?) not to squeal like a girl every time I found a slug. Where has this squeamishness come from? Will I start liking pink and take hours to get ready? That's what eejit is for.

Avoided digging beds. Avoided clearing brambles (did I mention I found an entire apple tree in there?). I must have done something else. No sign of spinach, I think I weeded it, or spuds. Spinach seedlings on windowsill going great guns, perhaps I'll dig over the theoretically spinachy bit of the amazing shady weedy bed and start again? I'll have lost three weeks, but I've got the windowsill ones. I could even do a whole bed and sow both varieties I've got and try that successional sowing stuff. Leeks are leeking. They don't appear to be dead, but neither do they appear to be particularly alive. There aren't any tests that I know of, so I'll just ignore them and let them grow when I'm not looking, if that's the way they want to play it.

Still no sign of brassicas, which is probably a good thing, as apparently they like firm ground, and I haven't got any. I've got couch grass, and rotavated soil, and that's pretty much it.

Came into work today and checked on A4A. First post I read moaned about weed suppressant fabrics from garden centres being crap. Arse.

Should go up to plot tonight in glorious sunshine and fix shed. Want to sit at home nursing hangover and eating pie.

I know less than the potatoes

2005-08-25T16:21:00.000+01:00

So how do seeds know which way to sprout when they're in the soil? Is it gravity? They can't see the light, surely. What is it that a potato knows that I don't?

Answers on thirteen sides of A4 paper please, single spaced.

Made stock and apple pie. Have tasted neither, so I can pretend they're both a success. Achieved absolutely nothing else. Incidentally there is nowhere in this city where one can purchase a pair of regal wellies after 6pm. Disgraceful. I wish to make a complaint.

Couch Grass. Just Couch Grass.

2005-08-24T16:32:00.000+01:00

Couch grass is all I can see. My amazing shady bed is finally sprouting spinach seedlings (the ones I didn't pull out as weeds) but unfortunately is also sprouting vast quantities of couch grass, and something else that is suspiciously similar to the rocket and the cress so I can't pull it out until the others have got bigger and distinguishable. But mostly grass. Lesson number 1: prepare, prepare, prepare. Must stop being so damned lazy. I've spent twice as much time weeding the damned bed already than it would have taken me to roughly dig it over. I am a pillock. What am I?

So approaching the bed I had vaguely set aside for spring onions, I decided to give it bollocks and actually dig it over. Turns out digging is really really hard work when you come across a patch that hasn't been rotavated twice in the previous month. Full, and I mean full, of couch grass roots; there were spadefuls that seemed to be more couch than soil. Am going to have to go through it all if I'm going to try to grow spring onions, although the overwintering onion sets might tough it out. Listen to me, like I have a clue what I'm talking about. Three weeks ago you could have told me onions grew on a bush.

And I keep buying damned seeds and making myself more work! I think the only way forward may be to get organized. Bloody miserable weather here today (again); perhaps I should try to buy myself a daft exercise book and plan out the plot. I could draw pretty coloured lines to mark out where various seeds are and where they're supposed to go. Drawback to cunning plan is of course that lots of seeds, ie the ones for sowing shortly, are in half a shed wrapped in a binbag, and I'm damned if I'm going up to the plot in the rain to wallow around in the mud just to write down a list of seeds. Must stop overusing 'damned', as well.

Aha! Cunning plan #2: print out receipts from email - or better still, cut and paste the seeds into a new document!

Which would have worked if I'd kept the receipts, I'm sure. However, I never throw a piece of paper away if it can lurk in the flat and annoy eejit features, so I may well have kept the slips that come with the seeds and tell you what you've wasted money on. So this may yet work... At any rate, it'll kill an hour or so and satisfy my inner chartered accountant (the dark part of my soul that leads me to list even my close family, ie dad and siblings, under their surname in my address book).

I also may make an apple pie. I have no idea how to make an apple pie, but how hard can it be? I own scrumped apples (I am such a girl about creepy crawlies these days. Gone are the halcyon times when I could chase people round playgrounds with earthworms. Luckily, as that would be a bit weird at my age. Ew. Anyway, apples: Kept shuddering at apples with holes, bearing spiders etc. What's that all about? I am choosing, of my own accord, to spend hours every week in a mudhole - squeamishness is really picking a stupid time to make its introductions). Back on topic. I own flour, and two types of sugar, and butter, and some odd cinnamon that's been sitting in a Past Times Tudor Spice Box for about forty years since my mother bought it and ignored it. If there are other things that go in apple pies, I don't want to know about them. I also have half-made chicken stock to finish, and chicken to stuff in pitta bread with spinach and tomato, and a steak I bought last night and didn't eat because I went to the pub to read the paper instead. No reason whatsoever to leave nice warm flat for cold damp allotment. (If I had nothing to do at home I would feel guilty for abandoning cold damp allotment as soon as it got cold and damp). Buying weed suppressant fabric and wellies can wait until tomorrow, when the sun is shining, and I feel ridiculous doing so.

Of course Robert Sayles is open late tonight, and I do have a brand new credit card, so I could see if they sell wellies. I bet they do. I bet they sell green ones like the Queen wears. Will sneak in on the way home and have a look. Welly update tomorrow. I'm sure you're all bating your breath like nobody's business.

Water, water everywhere...

2005-08-23T13:14:00.000+01:00

Spent large parts of the weekend wandering Suffolk like a bewildered turnip on a bicycle; knees no longer work. Nobody told me Suffolk had hills. Ate lots and lots of food, and got back just in time to put in a couple of hours on the lottie.

Chucked in rest of spuds, although increasingly convinced I'm doing it all wrong. Keep on reading things where they say plant 4" deep - even standing on my dibber I can't get a hole more than 3" and half the bloody seed spuds are that big anyway. So have just thrown a bit of earth over them. Best get up there tonight and throw a bit more.

Weeded salad bed - more grass than salad, really should have prepared that one properly. However, despite amazing shadyness, have rocketlings and what I hope is cress. No sign of spinach whatsoever. Took home a seed tray and a plastic bag of potting compost to try to germinate it on the windowsill but no sign of spinach there either. Don't know if I'm being too impatient, sowed seeds all wrong, or accidentally weeded it all up. Arse. Only thing I really, really, really want to grow as I can happily get through a fiver's worth of spinach in a week and it would be nice to cut that bill a bit (also have visions of grazing spinach bed in cattlish manner, which would make me laugh, if nobody else).

Leeks don't seem to be dead yet, but how do you tell? They just sit there and leek at you. Haven't the first idea about the celeriac, including what it is (big root.. er that's it). Finally, wondering where the hell brassica plants are, and do they really need firm soil? Because if they do, I'm stuffed, as I haven't got any. It's all been rotavated, and I've dug one of the beds I was going to put them in. Isn't it amazing how strange and obsessed you can get over something in a relatively short time, yet still have this boundless ignorance? I really don't have a clue. Not a one. Nor a shed roof, which is another worry as cannier wildlife who watch the BBC weather reports seem to be pairing off.

Ordered more stupid seeds. Got to find a gardening corner type arrangement to put everything in before it takes over whole flat and I can never find anything ever again. Maybe tonight when I get back from plot. (ha!)

Daft shape for a bed

2005-08-19T15:54:00.000+01:00

Planted Mr Fothergill's spuds out in daft shaped triangular bed, or at least half of them, as I didn't know if they needed chitting. General consensus on A4A board seems to be no, so I'll try the other half tonight, assuming the rain ever stops. Read somewhere that they should be planted north to south to prevent too much shade, so I'll have a go at that too. If anyone new to gardening is reading this board, triangular beds are bloody ridiculous. Though that doesn't mean I'm not marking out a load more. They do say you don't learn unless you make mistakes, so I figure you may as well make big huuuge mistakes.

Met the chap across from me last night. For the last couple of weeks he's been up every night spending a good two hours watering and never saying a word or meeting my eye; I thought he was going to be one of those people who just prefer their own world and have enough friends, thank you. Nooooo. Made brief eye contact with Trevor last night. Was given yet more leeklings and a fifteen minute tour of his plot plus found out about history of mine - used to be a double plot looked after by a couple in their eighties, until she got too short-sighted to drive. That explains all the mature fruit, anyway.

Discovered that there is a shed on the other bordering plot with functioning tools inside. However this makes me think it's still being cultivated and I should probably stop scrumping. Or scrump diplomatically at any rate. If the rain ever stops (there's a whole Noah's ark thing going on today) I'll go check the diagram of lottie plots in the store tonight. Might have to go via homebase for some wellies.

Lastly, and pathetically, completely failed to get polythene on roof of half a shed. Ended up with artistically draped bit of sheeting over shelf, which should nicely channel the rain in. I just don't know how I'm going to do this without a stepladder, another person and a car to collect bloody great bits of wood. Eejit is off to pastures new for the weekend, so I might see if I can fit his mini stepladder in my rucksack along with his hammer (top tip - you can't hammer in felt nails with half a brick) and have another go. Bit down as I really wanted to get the shed semi-waterproof before today's biblical downpour, and instead I'm liable to open the door and watch my rather pathetic collection of tools float gently down Histon Road to the Cam. I'm off tomorrow as well, to try to get to a friend's house in rural Suffolk without resorting to a car, so that just leaves Sunday. Do I invest in a heavy duty bit of polythene that I'm going to wreck by hammering great holes through? Or do I continue farting about with scraps of crap plastic? And how in God's name am I ever going to get the wood up to the allotment to build a roof in time for winter?

Perhaps several large golf umbrellas?

On a happier note exchanged Trevor's leeklings for some celeriac this morning. Haven't a clue what celeriac tastes like or how to grow it. Happy days.

Hungover

2005-08-18T15:50:00.000+01:00

Argh. Too many gin and tonics. Bored friends to tears by wittering on about allotment but they were too scared to stop me as waving scythe about. Hee.

Got seed pots through post today! Yay! Going to plant them tonight, am skipping off work early as it's going to piss down tomorrow according to the BBC. A few hours hard work tonight followed by a hot bath and a crap film sounds spot on.

Until I get my own photos developed and scanned in, here's a couple of pictures from our local allotment site, http://www.allotments.net/ . Cool store building, isn't it? My plot's just out of the shot above on the right - you can see the store again in the distance.

So it turns out that digging is hard work...

2005-08-17T17:27:00.000+01:00

Panicky digging over of bed ahead of guilt-inspired brassica order. Gosh, that's hard work. Got bits that hadn't been fully rotavated, with big lumps of couch grass roots and rocks, and several earthworms that must have been driven deeper in the bed that had been gone over properly. Still, it looks great now, even if I end up with a lovely couch crop.

Also marked out a potato bed, attractively and possibly stupidly triangular. Also faffed about for a bit. Didn't feel like I'd achieved a lot, but was in a good mood anyway - worked out how to use hand pump for water (yes, I lack common sense), and also heard that some money I'm owed is due in the bank on Friday. Woo hoo! Went home and drank beer after watering leeklings and my amazing shady bed where, strangely enough, still nothing has germinated.

Celebrated money I don't have yet today by joining HDRA, including the heritage seed library (like I'm ever going to use it) and ordering some green manure from the Organic Gardening Catalogue plus some peculiar asparagus lettuce. Oh, and some onion sets that won't be delivered till September by which time I'll have forgotten about them. And found peculiar hardware store thanks to a post on A4A - am now proud owner of a hand fork, a grass hook and a cast iron chicken door stop. Don't have door. Must buy door. Tonight I'm being forced to abandon the plot in order to see best friend and baby plus drink lots of gin at a friend's house which, knowing him, will be ridiculously old and luxurious. The house, not the gin or the friend. Can't believe I'm resenting the time away! Definitely need the gin....

Plums and Right Angles

2005-08-16T22:55:00.000+01:00

Last night was a warm summer evening and I managed to weasel out of work a little early, so went up to the plot to potter. Marked out two new beds; realised that I'm crap at right angles; worked out that if I continue marking out as I'm doing so far, I'm going to end up cultivating someone else's backyard. So might have to rethink that one. Very satisfying while not actually involving any work.

Watered Keith's leeklings, and my amazing shady bed, where funnily enough nothing has germinated. Strange. Stopped to have a chat to Keith, who came over later with two more huge cucumbers and a bag of tomatoes; it's amazing how much produce I'm coming home with given that I've only had the plot ten days! Ate all the plums off my tree. Shouldn't have left them so long as they were gloriously sweet but most of them had fallen off. Will have to learn how to prune in time for next year. However, Keith spotted a plum tree in next door's (uncultivated) allotment, and suddenly I had the urge to clear brambles. Got a path to the plum tree - loads of fruit, though not quite ripe - then realised I'd nearly cleared the lot. I reckon just a couple more days with the secateurs and I'll have a plot, albeit one with foot high bramble stalks lurking over a third of it.

This morning I rang Dobies about my seed potatoes which they claimed no knowledge of. Getting a bit narky after I put the phone down until I had one of those cold moments... rang Fothergills. They're sending them out today. Oop. Ordered brassicas from Dobies as a sort of penance. Don't I feel a twerp.

So now I've got 50 brassica plants coming as well as the seed potatoes, and I had planned to get some onion and garlic sets in as well as the spring onions and some peas. Suddenly I'm having to think about crop rotation and stuff, and I haven't even got any beds dug. This could be a fun weekend. I'll go up tonight and make myself dig at least one bed for the brassicas and mark out one for the spuds (thought I might get all artistic and triangular, á la my tiny plot). Then if I have any time left (and energy) I'll have a go at some more of the brambles.

I'm getting there. At least I would be if I could stop ordering bloody seeds. Have asked about on allotments4all if anyone knows the best place to get bulbs, for planting under the apple tree (and probably in the amazing shady bed when I eventually give that up as a bad job). So that's something else to occupy the long autumn days when I'm trying to look after what I've already done as well as digging over 250 sq m of plot. Still, as long as I'm not bored...

Still don't know what redcurrant jelly is.

Allotment Virgin

2005-08-16T01:45:00.000+01:00

So it's been exactly one week since I got my first allotment. The very nice site secretary (Mike) has rotavated it twice this week, so even if I now have twelve million teeny tiny evil bits of couch grass root, at least it looks like a plot, not a wilderness. Well, the two thirds of it that he's rotavated, anyway.

When I first went to look at plots I was going to take one that had been totally cleared (though I hadn't expected that any would have been cleared at all). However, when Mike showed me round a few more of them, I sort of fell for this one. As well as Cambridge's annual crop of crouch grass, it had an overgrown row of redcurrants, a plum tree, and nearly a shed, with brambles growing through the broken windows and out through the half a roof. So Mike has cleared the two-thirds up to the redcurrants, and the rest is down to me.

Over the course of the week I've managed to get up to the plot most evenings for an hour or two. I've cleared about half the brambles, but it turns out it was the easy half; I've still got about 6 sq m to go and I swear to God some of the tendrils lurking near the (now visible) motherlode are as thick as my wrist. On the upside I can see my nearly shed and have discovered some waterbutts, though I still can't reach them.

One of the strange things about the site I'm on is that there's never anyone there. At least not while I'm there. It's huge - 202 plots - yet I've never seen more than maybe ten people there at once. Maybe they're all crack of dawn people and are wondering whether I exist as I tend to turn up at 6.30 pm and make lots of mess. I have met a very nice chap called Keith who has given me a cucumber and 70 (70!) baby leek plants which I have done my best to plant out using what I think is a dibber (found in nearlyshed) having dug a bed (second hand spade for £8 from lottie store) and raked it over (rake found in nearlyshed). I raked over another bed, also 6 foot by 4 foot, and planted cress and rocket and stuff; I figure they're idiot proof, which they're going to need to be, as this particular idiot planned the bed under the shade of next door's apple tree. Neither of the plots either side of me are being cultivated, so I've scrumped some apples and taken them home with some of my endless harvest of blackberries and made a crumble.

This is an embarrassingly crude plan of my plot so far:

In my defence I did it in two minutes (oh, all right, ten minutes) while I was supposed to be writing about obscure Lebanese politicians.

Tonight's plan: If it stays sunny, I'll dig over another bed and get good and muddy. If it clouds over, I'll attack the evil brambles (moo ha haa!). Either way I probably ought to find out what to do with my spring onion seeds (I shouldn't be allowed near seed catalogues; spent £20 before I even knew I'd got an allotment) and if there's anything else I ought to be planting. Oh, and harvest the redcurrants to make redcurrant jelly. And find out how to make redcurrant jelly. And what redcurrant jelly is.