Well Sunday was glorious, the sun was hot enough for June or August and the sky was even blue at times. So down to the plot with a flask of coffee in the afternoon.
When I got there, there was a few people on the site but not as many as I expected. Perhaps it was too hot for some!
My first task was to take a cut off the comfrey patch on plot 5. This one goes on the compost heaps to act as an activator and add valuable minerals to the final compost. Both bins ended up full by the end of the day, but that’s OK. When they’ve rotted down to about half the volume, I’ll turn one in the same bin and then add the contents of the other to it.
It’s funny, each year I grow Wilkinson’s cheap generic butternut squash and another variety, this year Hercules, but it’s always the Wilko one that comes through! Normally I go on about buying decent seeds and that it’s worth paying for better varieties but this is the exception that proves the rule.
The fruits have come home to cure as one year I racked them up on the table by the shed on the plot and they got pinched! I’m afraid our local scallywags aren’t the brightest chisels in the box and don’t know the difference between a Halloween pumpkin and a squash – or a marrow for that matter!
The only problem I had doing the comfrey and squashes was I was dripping with sweat and couldn’t see through my specs half the time. Still, better than shivering. As the afternoon moved into the early evening, it cooled down and Val arrived to pick some beans and a pull a few carrots to go with dinner.
We shared a few minutes just sitting on the bench, whilst I had a coffee and then it was back to the grind as Val headed home to admire her new kettle. The old one was leaking so I said she could have her Christmas present early. Generous to a tee, me! Before I lose every female reader, this text has been approved by my darling wife and it was a joke.
After Val went, I moved onto plot 29 which gets the sun for longer in the evening and so was warmer as it was going really cool now. I started by hoeing off the bit I left on Friday as I suspected a wasp’s nest. I don’t know what was going on then but there was no sign of the wasps today. Perhaps they’re like kids, arranging to meet up at the rec for a big scrap.
Anyway, goodbye weeds. The patch by the greenhouse was next. The weeds there made me burst into song – “the weeds are as high as an elephant’s eye!” So off they came. As I got to the end, it was actually going quite dark and I felt cream crackered and aching, but a nice satisfied ache.
Headed home and treated myself to a snack. I like goat’s cheese, especially the tube shaped ones. Now I’ve had goat’s cheese with honey, which is good but I’ve found the best combination. Goats cheese with a dollop of chilli jam. The sweetness works well with the cheese and the chilli adds that after zing. The recipe’s in her book, by the way.
hi
I have had my allottment now for 3 years. When I first started to rent it, it had not been used for about 30 years
so it has been hard work getting it to how I wanted it. I am new to growing vegetables but am enjoying learning. I have a question to ask I have grown different veriaties of tomato in my greenhouse but I am having difficulty in getting them to grow into decent size tomato’s this year I put them into plastic pots the flower shops used I made holes in the bottom for drainage as well as putting stones in filled them up with tomatorite grow baqs watered them regularly and fed them with tomatorite food. Is there anything else I can do so that next year I can get some decent size tomato’s
You may find these pages helpful: Growing Tomatoes