Mission theoretically possible

I'm on a mission.

My allotment is going to be good this year.

Every year I say this, and most of these years, I fail!  But this year is going to be different.....  I've made a good start with the  half plot - it looks so spick and span that it appears that Dave the Tidy Man has taken it over.  But no, it is the work of ME!  That messy-round-the-edges, slightly chaotic gardener who has the shaggy patch of currant bushes and ankle breaking potholes next door.

I'm even on the way to eliminating the bear traps which masquerade as paths - they're a legacy of when my children used to have a penchant for digging to Australia on the plot - and while a bit of gentle subsidence and weathering has done a great deal to moderate their handiwork over the years, the literal pitfalls of allotment life, remained in evidence.    In my new incarnation as virtuous creator of tidy plots, I'm making it my mission this month to get paths that go right across the two plots, from one side to the other, to make life easier with my wheelbarrow.

This has involved digging out forests of raspberry canes that barred the way at a junction, necessitating a few sharp wiggles (tricky with a full load in the barrow!), and levelling the ground somewhat with some fairly major earthworks.

But lo - now a passable route has appeared... the only work which remains is to cover the cardboard weed-smothering layer on the newly excavated area with some of the wood chip mountain which still lurks down at the bottom of my own garden.

Another sound bit of sense which has emerged through the new path system, is that the plot is now effectively chopped into three sections - I know for the perfect crop rotation it should be four sections - but having any sort of systematic way of thinking about the plot is a new treat for me!

Perhaps I'll get a rush of blood to the head and go for the fourth section before the month is out. But then again... maybe next year.

Outside the sun is burning off the last vestiges of mist, the greenhouse needs opening to let the fresh air circulate around its residents, and more work needs to be done.  So I'd better get out of my unsartorial pyjamas, stop writing and go and actually do it!

Let's look back at the blog in 6 months time and see if the resolution has been upheld.  I set my jawline in determination at this point.  This WILL be the year.  Maybe...

I dig no dig

I dream of creeping buttercup and bindweed roots after a session at the allotment.  Even as I sleep, I know they are poking their snaky tendrils out into my newly dug soil, filling my blank canvas with exuberant growth of the wrong sort, the minute my back is turned.

So this year I'm experimenting.  Instead of trying (and failing) to deal with weeds by digging, I'm going to try Charles Dowding's 'no dig' method.  This involves covering areas with biodegradable materials (e.g. cardboard) to prevent light reaching the soil, and then topping them with a mulch of organic matter  thereby providing a rich, friable growing media which is ready for planting. Flower growers I know who've adopted it have reported that it was much more effective than traditional digging in keeping perennial weeds at bay, and in reducing the general weed population.

It all sounds like a very good plan, except that evil weeds like bramble, bindweed and dock will have to be tackled before cardboard can go down as their roots are so indestructible, that, like post-holocaust cockroaches, they'll just keep on keeping on.  But, according to Charles Dowding's website, a couple of inches of organic matter on top of the soil should be enough to see off creeping buttercup (one of my worst enemies at the allotment), and perhaps even the grass.

I've saved lots of the Christmas cardboard delivery boxes, all stomped flat, in my garage for the purpose. The next job is to ferry them down to the allotment, lay them down on the soil, and then weigh them down either with mulch or odd bricks to stop them becoming airborne in the current windy conditions.

The local garden centre is currently selling off last year's compost at a large discount, so I may go and invest in some of that to boost my home-made supply to provide a sufficient quantity of mulch.  Along with visiting horse-lodging establishments to relieve them of some of their manure…  I sense a smelly January coming on!


Have you tried gardening using similar methods?  What  were the results?

Right weeds, right place.

Serendipitous weed growth is what I like.

Hidden under netting, my little crop of peas has been coming along nicely over the past few weeks.  But each time my eyes wandered over to them as, crook-backed, I picked the laden blackcurrant bushes, I shuddered at the sight of the yellow flowers and bindweed, twining their insidious way through the black fabric of the protective net.

My horror turned to jubilation when yesterday, with blackcurrants finally and safely gathered, I was able to turn my attention to other harvests.  Peas, fat and juicy in their pods, hung from stems which ignored the twiggy sticks I'd supplied as supports.  Instead, the woody stems of the weeds which had sprouted up amongst my careful sowings did the job admirably.   I wouldn't normally be grateful for a crop of weeds, but for every plant there is a time and place: and this time, happily, I found it.


If you know the name of this yellow-flowered pea supporter, let me know for future reference!

If you know the name of this yellow-flowered pea supporter, let me know for future reference!

Growing away nicely in this year's snow free zone.

What a difference a year makes.  This time last year I was coaxing forgetmenots to flower in desperation after a foot of snow on Easter Sunday, whereas this year I'm spoilt for choice with flowers to cut for my stall!  Tulips abound in every shape, size and colour and everything is bursting into growth and filling out the garden.

I've even managed to get down to the allotment a few times - but have to remind myself to clear and plant, clear and plant…  Otherwise I find myself clearing, clearing, clearing, and then having to start again where I first began as the weeds have come back.   So far, broad beans, peas and parsnips are in. Everyone I meet at the plot seems to be in a good mood and the whole place is starting to look business-like. Even the abandoned plot next to me has been taken over - another family with children so our little corner is starting to look like the youth chapter of our allotment association.

So many veg and annual flowers still clamouring for attention in my seed box and so little room left in my greenhouse and cold frame.  Have sown some annuals direct, but I don't seem to have the best success rate that way. Generally I do much better by sowing in pots and planting out later. But needs must, so am giving it a try again.

In the garden, I'm starting to plant out stocks and sweet peas sown under cover in March - a gamble as there is still potential for frost during the next month, so hope it stays away and my gamble pays off.  Hmmm. We'll see.

Did my first stall of the year on Saturday.  So nice to be back arranging my own flowers as they are so much less uniform than those available commercially and it gives such a different feel to arrangements.  Feels a bit like coming home when I get my mitts on flowers I've raised myself.

Abundant autumn

FINALLY got down to the allotment yesterday in a window between gardening for other folk and picking up children from school.  Grass needs attacking and weeds need clearing but yesterday's mission was to pick the remaining apples, dig up the potatoes (or what the slugs have left of them by now) and to get the last dahlias cut before all are laid low by frost.

How many more buckets like these will I see in October?

Recent rains had weighed down the big bonces of my dahlias and quite a few stems were hanging low, bent double by the weight, but they still form great dabs of colour against the fading autumn backdrop of the allotment.

As ever, I did not manage to knock off all of the tasks on my to do list.  Indeed, the apples were so abundant that after filling two huge plastic bucket/trugs, cutting two buckets of dahlias and picking a kilo or so of beans, there was no time to do anything more than ferry my bounty back up the steep hill to the main gates in multiple arm-wrenching trips.  The slugs have had their potato-feasting time exteneded until the weekend it would seem.

I'm still dealing with my harvests today - in the kitchen, apple and mint jelly is straining drippy vinegariness through a jelly bag, an apple and raisin cake lies in half-demolished ruins following its joyous breakfast-time reception by my children, a gooey toffee-esque German apple cake lurks in the fridge and I have apple slices drying in a cool oven.

Despite giving away a shopping bag full of apples to a neighbour and squeezing about 2 litres of juice to put in the freezer, I still don't seem to have made a dent in my bucketloads.  Will store some in the cellar for the coming months, and will doubtless get fat on puddingising the rest - needless to say, my children love this sweet-toothed time of year.

Autumn rains

Hedge cutting in the rain today, admiring a client's tree, heavy with figs.  Seemed funny to pluck a ripe fig under grey West Midlands skies, but the sticky pulpy fruit was none the less delicious for it.  What a great summer we've had.  Sunshine, showers and more sunshine.  It might not even have gone completely yet either, just having a rest?  Let's hope we can eek it out for a little longer.  Sooooooo much better than last year's dismal effort at seasonality anyway.

A good fruit year with abundant damson crops.  Yippee!

My dahlias are still going bonkers, raspberries, apples and damsons are drooping in weighty bundles and the spires of gladioli puncuate my borders.  I guess that means it is September - and I still haven't been blackberry picking. A lack of purple jam tells its own tale so I don't think scoffing hedgerow fruits with my son on the way back from school counts as proper blackberrying.

A grabbed trip to the allotment on Monday night gifted me a carrier bag of runner and French beans, a hessian shopper full of eating apples, a collection of turnips and a to do list which includes digging up the rest of the potatoes and tying up the tomatoes properly in an attempt to help them ripen before the frosts arrive.  They are scrambling all over the floor at the moment. Bad, bad, BAD allotmenteer.

On the flowery front, I also need to get my September sowings in.  Based on last year, I'm going to sow in trays in the greenhouse, with just a couple of direct sowings in the garden as a point of comparison.  Can't believe that I've nearly completed my first year as a flower grower and have to say that I've loved it, despite the early mornings!

Allotment open day arrives on Saturday and the forecast is for more rain.  I might not get around to any cakery makery, but will be able to donate a bucket of mixed flowers and a rather wimpy gazebo to the allotment cause.  I just hope that plot inspection is not imminent - especially by an expert tomato grower...

Dahlia 'peaches'

Holiday harvests

Have just returned from a week split between Latvia and Estonia - both fantastic.  Also learned lots about mushrooming, herb tea concocting and general foraging from Ilona, our supremely hospitable and generous host.  Am quite obsessed with finding good mushrooming sites now that I'm home.  Forest floors beware!

I also loved Ilona's outdoor walk-in larder - a bricklined earth mound, resplendent with shelves, hanging rails and ancient hooks from which hams once hung.  Made me think that I should press my cellar into service as a jam and preserves store, not that jams and preserves hang around for very long in this house...

Ilona's garden was also steeped in family history, with plants dating back to her grandmother's pre-Soviet garden, and a gnarly, sprawly apple tree grafted with several different varieties by her great-grandfather which still bears fruit today.  Talking plants with her was fascinating, and we found that we have quite a lot of flowers, and a shared taste in unfussy gardening in common.  However, some things that I love, like verbena bonariensis, while fine in an Estonian summer (and seen in swathes planted in Latvia's capital, Riga) would not take kindly to -30 degrees in winter, so have to be viewed as annuals only. Her golden rod, astilbes, phlox, peonies, echinacea (which I've always found a bit tricky) and sedums are obviously tough plants as they have persisted over generations through such incredibly harsh winters.  They deserve more than an RHS award of garden merit for showing such staying power!

Her generous garden is so different to my own - wrapping all around her gorgeous long, low wooden house, overlooking a beautiful, forest fringed lake.  In my own garden, my planting is often to screen neighbouring houses and to create a feeling of privacy, whilst in hers, tall bulky planting would be the last thing needed as it would block out that amazing view.  Oooh, such a lovely challenge though!

Returning home to Birmingham, it was straight to work with the cutting scissors in order to stop my productive flowers setting seed and giving up the ghost.  Swathes of sweet peas were therefore stuffed into any receptacle of a suitable height, and the forests of dahlias were felled and put into vases.

Cut cut cut!

At the allotment, badgers seem to have enjoyed all the broad beans which I didn't get time to pick before going away, stripping all the previously laden plants clean of pods.  They had left me runner beans and french beans though and do not seem to have any appetite for courgettes or chard, so I didn't leave the plot empty handed.  The first, early apples are crisp, sweet and ready to pick, so I'd better dust off the juicer, the tarte tatin recipe and get ready to extend all my waistbands in readiness for apple cake season.  The rhubarb also seems to be getting its second wind - wonder what it tastes like juiced with apples? Too sour?  Will have to try it to see.

'Charlotte' potatoes just half and hour old provided a treat for tea and I'm impressed with their yields this year.  'Rooster' doesn't seem to have produced many tubers though, so don't think I'll buy that one again next year. A pity as it is a really tasty variety - and that's saying something as I am not generally a potato fan.

A bountiful day, all in all.  The only thing missing is mushrooms... and a lake view....

Guzzgoggery and other tales

Where does the expression 'playing gooseberry' come from?  Why should a spare part at a date be compared with a small, hard, hairy fruit?  Is it because they lurk in obscurity beneath the leaves and spitefully scratch as you try to detach them from their friends?  Or is it because they're rather sour and very prickly?

Whatever the reason, the guzzgogs picked today have now had their nature sweetened with three pounds of sugar and are now resting as 6 warm jars of delicious jam.

Summer pudding, made with redcurrants, strawberries, raspberries and the first ripenings of my best ever cherry crop (i.e. more than 6 fruits), is chilling in the fridge, and my vases are overflowing with sweet peas.

I had a new 'wow' today as I had my first sighting of blooms on a new dahlia 'Witteman's Best' - a lovely deep red on a long, strong stem.  Am willing them to produce lots more for cutting over the next few weeks.

Blackcurrants are also fast a-ripening in the abundant heat, and I'm hoping to be able to pick them in the next week or so. Found a recipe for making creme de cassis, so will add this to my boozy repertoire this year, along with more litres of damson gin.

My blog silence is testament, I suppose, to the amount of gardening that needs doing at the moment (both for myself and others) - seem to have little time to write as I'm either gardening, picking flowers or fruit, or dealing with the aftermath of these various activities.

Three weeks of glorious sunshine, unbroken by rain.  When was the last time we had that?  Welcome back summer - we've missed you!

Post prandial grass massacres

Lighter nights mean that I can fit in trips to the allotment after tea in emergencies.  Emergencies like the knee high grass (which gracefully adorned my bunches at my recent stall, so thank you grass, but now it's time for a trim...).

As a new convert to the world of petrol mowers, with a mustard keen mower of a child, I was virtually frogmarched to the plot to engage in some after dinner grass removal.  Mowing delegated to offspring, that left me free to plant out the hundredweight pumpkin and winter squash 'cha cha', kind donations from a neighbouring plot holder,  into manure rich spots. Sweet peas also got hoisted into position by new loops of friendly string.

It's amazing how much difference a haircut makes to allotments - they go from looking semi-derelict to almost well tended in one grumble of a petrol engine....  Which reminds me, I must try to phone the hairdresser tomorrow to get my own locks strimmed.

T-shirts and taters

Stop press - was gardening in a short sleeved t-shirt today - can't remember the last time I did that - even if it did end up on the radiator after getting soaked in a downpour.  Fantastic to be out without various layers of swaddling and hats.

Had a multi-site day of digging today - a trip to the allotment to get spuds in, and ground elder attacks and weeding at home. So at the plot I now have a row and a half of Charlotte potatoes, and a row and a half of Rooster main crops in situ, along with a dressing of muck.  Can't wait to see what that does for them.  Forgot to take the raspberry canes which my dad recently donated,  so there is a useful reason to get back down there later in the week.  Checked on my peas, but no signs of life there yet - even under the tunnel cloche.

In the garden at home, things are looking a bit more cheerful as there are actually green things growing in the borders where I have planted my strong seedlings.  Makes such a difference.  A few circuits of the gardener's prowl also reveal that brunnera, astrantia, peonies, veronica and various other perennials are starting to sprout too.  There are even tiny buds on the spirea.   Lurking down at soil level, cowslip buds and grape hyacinth flowers are forming, so am praying for warmth and a growth spurt in time for next weekend's flower stall. Clematis 'Markham's Pink' has big fat buds waiting to pop, and that makes a surprisingly good cut flower, so it would be brilliant if that comes out in the next few days.

This time last year, all these boys were out - none at this stage yet, but buds are finally showing on the cowslips and pink clematis at least.

Primulas are looking cheery, a few daffs are now out, and honesty is threatening to develop its flower spikes.  Allium and tulips are looking leafy and strong too. Come on you lot, get a shift on!

Any of my neighbours peering into my garden would have spotted me doing various jigs of delight today.  The first one prompted by me finally managing to up-end and remove the rambling rose stump after letting the winter frosts do their work (in combination with my loppers, fork and jumping up and down with my not insignificant weight on the stump for half and hour or so).  The second was when I finally got round to chopping down a straggly, half dead viburnum which I've been meaning to tackle for months.  Light can now get into the border beneath it, and it opens up a whole load of planting space, hence jig number 2.

Off to do all the neglected household chores now - if the weather keeps improving, the house is going to get a whole lot dustier and dirtier....

Hi ho, hi ho

It's off to work I go at the allotment.  The children decided they wanted to try an activity day so I have from 10 til  4.30 to make inroads into the vast amount of work that still needs doing at the plot.

There's still a chill wind blowing today, so shall take lots of layers and a flask of tea with me as protection.  I'm also going to take my recently purchased fleece tunnel from Aldi to perform a similar job for my freshly soaked pea seeds which are going to taste soil today.  I don't usually soak them, but I think that as the soil is quite dry at the moment and barely warming, they're going to need all the help they can get. My dad swears by soaking them, so I am going to give it a whirl, as he is A Man Who Knows where veg are concerned.

The broad beans that I sowed in the cold greenhouse two weeks ago still haven't formed any real shoots, though they have obviously swollen and are starting to show signs of life.  So if that is the state of play under glass, it is clearly still wintery....  Might start off the crimson flowering ones for the garden indoors, just to give them a kick start.

Crimson flowered broad beans make a pretty, edible addition to the flower border

I'm going to delay planting my potatoes for another couple of weeks as conditions are supposed to be improving gradually, a trend which I hope will continue.  We have had a couple of (relatively) warm days recently, which gives me hope that spring will really arrive soon, although the easterly breeze is making that hope recede again today.

I have now managed to plant out about half of my September sown flower seedlings which have proved their sturdiness credentials by making it through the bitter winter, so at least I have little oases of green leafiness appearing in the still naked borders.  It also means I have a bit more space in my cold frame at last, can't wait to get the rest in.

I'm writing this whilst trying to defrost some chicken fillets which sat on an apparently chilly worktop last night and didn't quite make it out of hibernation - wanted to put the slow cooker on before I went to the allotment, but am being held up by the fact that they are stubbornly resisting all gentle efforts to thaw out the last ice crystals.  Feels rather like a metaphor for spring this year.

Pruning the allotment swamp

A quick drizzly trip to the allotment revealed just how far from cultivation things still are - very claggy underfoot, still too wet to dig.  When you get clod-platforms from walking across the paths, you know that you should NOT be venturing into the growing areas...

Dragged down there by my children (interesting role reversal) who wanted to continue their treehouse building exploits, I had my second visit in a week yesterday.

No digging to be done as we squelched around the edges of the plot, so I continued clearing the path down the side, cutting back the hedge and digging out brambles.

Also tackled the list below:

Jobs for February

Cut down autumn fruiting raspberries to the base as they fruit on this year's growth - cut them down to get lots of new fruiting canes.

Prune roses - cut back hybrid teas to 4 or five growing points per stem.  Cut back English shrub roses  by about a third.

Prune blackcurrants - take out older wood (darkest colour) with few sideshoots, keep two year old wood (tea coloured) with plenty of sideshoots as these will bear this year's fruit.

Buy seed potatoes and stand the tubers in egg cartons, or a box, in frost free place to start sprouting those little knobbly shoots (long whizzers mean there's not enough light in the place where you've put them - keep them somewhere cool, frost-free and light).

Still to do this month

Prune apple and pear trees
Prune gooseberries
Prune redcurrants

If (as if!) dry enough, prepare planting areas.


Looks like I'll have to keep my secateurs sharp for the rest of the month and keep on chopping in the absence of other heavy duty tasks.

Have to keep myself busy to resist the urge to sow too many new seeds as it is still a bit too early really - trying to force myself to hang on for another few weeks.

Allotment reality: the good, the bad and the ugly

Waiting lists for allotments are overflowing throughout the UK - it seems everyone wants a bit of land to grow things on these days, or at least they like the idea of doing so. But having an allotment is a big commitment and requires a fair bit of input if you want to come anywhere near reaping the rewards of self sufficiency.

I'm a gardening obsessive with a large (urban) garden at home, I do the garden at a local infant school and have a full plot at a nearby allotment.  Sounds perfect... but... the reality is, I also have family commitments, want to go away for the odd weekend and generally have competing demands on my available labouring time.  Which means, in inevitable reality, that I don't get down to the allotment as often as I should, or would like to.

Which means this:

Top section of the plot

It will not remain this way!  Having given up the day job, I now have more time available to  attack such scenes of criminal couch grass and will allocate a minimum of a day a week to tackle my plot.

But it is important to know that this is what happens if you can't get to the allotment regularly - this was all cleared this time last year and is not the result of complete and utter neglect.  But neither is it a shining example of how to manage your allotment...

When you apply for a plot, be realistic about the time you have to work it - would a half or full plot be the best size? How much help will you get from friends, family to work it or will you be doing it alone?  What condition is the plot in when you get it?

I took on a neglected plot in 2006.  If you can clear the ground and keep it in cultivation, things get steadily better:

Regular work will take it from this to....

...this. Not perfect, but getting there.

The work needed to keep the ground usable gets less as each time you remove a crop, you also dig over the soil and take the weeds out, thus reducing the amount of work you need to do for planting the next crop.  If you inherit a neglected plot as I did, adopt a strategy of clear and plant, clear and plant - don't try to clear the whole plot in one go as it will become an exercise in futility - when you eventually finish clearing the whole thing, the first bit you did will be overgrown again!  Mentally divide the plot into sections and target specific areas to bring into cultivation each year.  You may even manage to get further than you expect!

If like me, you get a whole plot and need some helping hands, keep an ear to the ground for word of people you know on waiting lists - choose likeminded suspects and encourage them to get involved on your plot whilst they are waiting.  You could decide to allocate them a bit of plot which needs bringing into cultivation which you haven't yet tackled, or treat it as a shared enterprise and all just muck in together.  The latter approach has worked for me, but even with another family of plot-sloggers in tow, the shared issue of limited time, and the prolonged spell of wet weather has resulted in the sad scene in the first photo.

I aspire to this level of tidiness and organisation in 2013! 

Don't get me wrong,  I LOVE my plot and the site is a a fantastic place to escape and for the children to poke around, build dens, snaffle blackberries from the hedgerows and to pick fruit straight from the trees (only on my plot of course). The idyll which makes allotments so alluring is not without foundation - they are indeed magical places full of great character (and characters).  But they also require regular hours and effort so make sure you're in it for the long haul, or have a very understanding committee!

Wordless Wednesday - today at the allotment

Parsnip bread and winter digging

Had a quick foray down to the allotment yesterday to do a spot of tidying.

If only creeping buttercup was one of my desired crops, I would be reporting a bumper harvest.  It seems to be the main thing I need to clear out of the beds.  It was good to make a start on the long route to pristine planting spaces. Had to make sure I stood on a plank when digging the beds in order to avoid compacting the soil, rather than turning it.  More regular trips like this and the plot might even start to look more presentable.

Uprooted most of the remaining parsnips in order to make parsnip bread, which was, bizarrely, added to my youngest's recent birthday list.  Never fail to deliver vegetables when they are requested by your children!!    The recipe is based on Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall's and is more like a scone than a bread. It IS completely delicious:


Parsnip Bread.

1 onion, sliced
175g SR Flour
1 tsp thyme leaves
1 tablespoon oil
50g grated strong flavoured cheese (parmesan or cheddar are good)
175g grated parsnip
1 medium egg, beaten
2-3 tablespoons milk
Pepper

Fry the onions gently in the oil for about ten minutes. When they are soft and slightly coloured, remove them from the heat and let them cool a little.

Mix flour, thyme, salt, cheese, parsnip and pepper.  Add the onion, then the egg and milk.  Mix to make a soft dough.  If it is too stiff, add a little extra milk.  Be careful not to over mix.  Shape the loaf and put it on an oiled baking tray.

Bake in oven at 180 deg C/Gas Mk4 for 40-45 minutes until golden. To check if the loaf is cooked, tap the underside - if it sounds hollow, it is ready.

Serve warm with soup and slabs of butter.

Swap shop at the plot

Five gardening days in a row are a sign that it has been slightly less rainy of late here in Birmingham.

The last couple of days have been spent on much needed visits to my allotment - digging couch grass and creeping buttercup out of the paths and beds - a marathon task which is only just starting to show visible results.

Found a pile of slabs up at the top gate, and now I've finally got round to re-inflating my wheelbarrow tyre, it means I have the wherewithall to transport them down the hill to my plot.  Had to follow a very interesting groove incised into the muddy path, and met its maker pushing a very narrow-wheeled barrow back up the slope in his quest to transport a muck heap.

Got chatting to this near-neighbour and ended up trading a promise of globe artichoke offsets in spring for 7 barrow loads of surplus manure (and the labour involved in transporting it) - result!

So now I have some new slab paths,  some fertiliser for my plants, and a new allotment acquaintance.  Most splendid.

Bloody badgers ate my sweetcorn

A scene of devastation in the sweetcorn patch today.  All laid low, chewed and strewn all over the place - not that there was, as yet, a great deal to them as the cobs were only just starting to fill out.  My dreams of home grown corn will now have to wait until 2013.

Looks like my main crop this year will be... parsnips.  Still doing well - at least something is.

The autumn raspberries are having a final hurrah so I managed to pick enough to make a couple of jars of jam - better than the poke in the eye with a sharp stalk I collected yesterday whilst tending the border - no harm done, luckily.

Faffing with currants

Picked all the blackcurrants and goosegogs today - what a palaver to harvest these tiny globs of juice!  Doesn't help that the whole currant patch is being invaded by scratchy cleavers and the outriders for imminent invasion of blackberries as well.  My arms are a mass of scratches and cuts but at least I have some jam to show for my troubles.  Tastes rich and delicious - dark purple rhubarb and blackcurrant, and ruby red raspberry. Yum yum yum.  The children have scoured out the jam pans with slices of bread, so I'll take that as a vote of confidence in my preserves.

I had intended to go down to the allotment on a weeding mission, as this is the only fine day forecast in a while, but instead ended up picking and harvesting.  Time consuming objects all these soft fruits.  Didn't get much done in the way of tidying, so the plot still looks like a gardening disgrace.  Must try to get down there of an evening over the coming week whenever the rain holds off (which will probably put paid to ANY evening weeding looking at the weather forecast).

One day I will get it all under control - but it seems a way off as yet.

Parsnips are starting to look promising but not much else in evidence.

"The allotment has an afro!"

Such was the cry of my co-labourer on responding to my "Weed emergency" text which begged for assistance at the plot.  Grass frolicked, mockingly knee high, amongst the seedlings clinging onto life in the sodden soil.  Shears soon meant it was much less perky.

 The clear patch which sported spuds last year, now sports a magnificently prolific head of cleavers (aka "sticky weed" - weapon of choice in all weed slinging wars amongst our children).  It is still there in the vain hope that it may suppress anything even more insidious until it can be dealt with.

Adopted a policy of clear and plant as I tackled the designated area for this season's sweet corn.  That's the problem with allotments - it's no good clearing areas one week unless you can get the ground into cultivation pretty rapidly.  It just becomes a vicious circle of weeding for no reward otherwise.

Sadly,  things are sparse so far on the harvesting front - a few rows of parsnips are through, and the beetroot, turnips and perpetual spinach are hanging in there against the pigeon onslaughts. Other feeble beginnings include: one solitary French bean (so it seems the pot sown ones have won the contest against their direct sown opponents to date), a few slug munched semi-ripe strawberries, and the beginnings of red currants.

More successful are the gooseberries which seem to have avoided sawfly attack this year - but I've read that denuding of bushes by these evil beasties usually occurs the first year after planting with recovery thereafter.  Seems to be true on the present evidence.

Must sit down with my seeds and try to get the last vestiges of this year's planting done before the end of the month - otherwise will not see much benefit from our labours.

The race is on.

I've set my dwarf French beans a challenge this year.  Which ones will do better - the ones started off in pots in the propagator, or the ones direct sown at the allotment today?  I guess it will depend on the weather.  The soil at the plot seems to be pretty good for sowing at the moment, and sunshine is forecast next week, so hope that will get everything going.

The peas that I set the other week are still not showing through, but the parsnips, beetroot and perpetual spinach seem to be on the move now, as are the weeds....

The plot is much more respectable these days - it's amazing what getting the bottom third into cultivation has done for its appearance.  Still got to get plenty of bindweed out of it, but at least we're heading in the right direction.  Extra hands make a huge difference - the difference between perpetually weeding, and being able to plant the ground you've managed to clear.

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Things have greened up no end and I love the view as you walk down the path with all the lollipop shaped trees.