I'm rubbish

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...

...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.

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

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.

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...

...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

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

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.