Slow Growing in Scotland

Getting tiresome

2012-01-29T21:09:00.003Z

The fourth break-in at the shed. This is really getting tiresome. A notice at the entrance to the site alerted me that there had been break-ins on the night of 12 January. As before, metal cutters had been used to break the hasp. The still-locked padlock was lying on the grass in front of the door. You can see in the photo how the cut ends have rusted since 12 January.

Nothing seemed to have been stolen, however. We had taken the strimmer motor back to the house before Christmas, making the strimmer head alone a much less attractive prospect. Our forks and spades were grimy with dried mud, which I had fretted about slightly but which turned out to be a blessing.

Time seems to be passing strangely during January. I could have sworn that I had been to the plot since the 12th. It seems like months rather than weeks since Christmas. Perhaps it's the short, dark, busy days that create this effect. But just in the past few days it's been noticeably lighter by the end of the afternoon. With the growing light has come frost, which is often the case in Scotland, so no digging just yet. Still, I feel the first stirrings of Spring interest in the plot. It's been a long, fallow winter with many other preoccupations.

Wish they were mine

2012-01-08T22:00:00.007Z

Healthy new raspberry canes, with a sprinkling of sulphate of potash lightly forked in around them. How I wish they were mine, but following our persistent raspberry failure syndrome we're not rushing to try again. For the moment I can practise on my Dad's raspberries.

Perhaps it's our soil. Although the soil in these photos looks dark, that's only because of recent rain. Forking in the potash, I was struck by the difference. Here, it's light, slightly sandy, former farmland, river plain soil. At our Edinburgh allotment the soil is black, heavy, shot through with clay.

You can see my usual hit or miss approach when it comes to quantities. How much IS 25g per square metre, anyway? Perhaps this shot will be interesting to look back on in the summer. Will the third cane from the right turn out to be a poor, weak specimen? Will the one at the right with the generous application be a super-cane? Or will I have killed it with kindness?

Looking back - and forward

2012-01-01T21:14:00.003Z

Looking back - at my overly optimistic promise of a post before Christmas and lots of blog-visiting. Where did the autumn go? Weekends were swallowed up, and for the most part the plot has been unvisited. A question of out of sight rather than out of mind: I've been very conscious of it just 10 minutes walk away, hibernating under its (patchy) covering of green manure. It will be quite a reunion when we do get along after the New Year.

Looking back also at these retro illustrations. They almost have the look of engravings from a Victorian gardening treatise.

In fact they're from the Reader's Digest 'The Gardening Year', 1968. Don't you love it? "rewarding but seldom grown vegetables". Courgettes, seldom grown??? But who grew courgettes in 1968, at least in Scotland? I remember my first taste of green pepper - in 1977. Incredibly exotic. I remember the first time my mother and I ventured to use garlic in a recipe, circa 1976. We asked the greengrocer (NB greengrocer) for two cloves of garlic, being wholly ignorant that garlic was sold in bulbs.

I've been sorting through boxes of books in my Dad's loft this week, and have been enthralled by the discovery of The Gardening Year. A first edition too. Perhaps it'll be really valuable in about 200 years time.

Among the lurid-hued photos of bedding plants and flowering shrubs, the instructions for pruning newly planted floribunda roses, and the never-ending list of 'general tasks' for each month, was this little global warming prickle of anxiety.

This December's temperatures have seldom dipped below 4 degrees, it seems. And taking as a yardstick the year of my son's birth, 21 years ago, I remember watching for the first spikes of crocus and daffodils in February. For the past few years, despite frigid December temperatures, the spikes have been showing before Christmas.

But the looking forward I'm doing just now is to carving out a bit of time for the allotment. Perhaps I'll use The Gardening Year as my guide. So, for January: "The coldest month is the time to plan ahead with seedsmen's (sic) catalogues and to send mowers and other equipment for servicing." And "General Tasks: order seeds, gladioli, onion sets and shallots, and garden sundries such as tree stakes, pea sticks, bean poles, string, canes, insecticides, fertilisers and weedkillers." How many different kinds of stakes and sticks and poles and canes were there in 1968?

Getting the garlic in

2011-12-06T13:45:00.003Z

Just in time too, before the frost and snow came this week. I was even later than usual in ordering garlic this year. Somehow I was trying to avoid my order arriving too early and starting to sprout before I could plant it. Too early turned into too late, and my supplier of preference, the Scottish Really Garlicky Company, had sold out. I did the rounds of the Organic Gardening Catalogue, Suttons, Thompson & Morgan, and finally found some at D T Brown's.

Above, my first foray into elephant garlic. And if you look closely, you can see a little triangular shard of glass just to the left of the bulbs. Where does it all come from?

Below, Tuscany Wight, a softneck grown on the Isle of Wight and said to store well. I hope it stores better than the bulbs I was sent, one of which was soft and rotting. Of course I should have sent it back, but life was far too busy for frills like that, so I popped in the good cloves and will hope for the best.

The Chesnock Wight bulbs below were in much better condition. A hardneck bulb, meant to have a distinctive, strong flavour.

I meant to take a photo of the green manure, but it took all the time I had available to dig over the bed where the garlic was to go. Not much change really - the phacelia and white mustard were growing strongly, the grazing rye most definitely was not, and the alfalfa was being taken over by a vigorous crop of shepherd's purse, which seemed to relish its bed of alfalfa seed.

Soon I expect to feel the first stirrings of winter planning fever, when gardening books and catalogues will suddenly become compulsive reading. It hasn't stirred yet, however. Perhaps it's because of our exceptionally mild autumn. Now that the cold has arrived, I'm relishing it, and want to enjoy the season rather than gloss over it and look ahead to Spring. It feels like a physical lifting of the spirits to have frost and snow. A bit of balance has come back into the world.

Greening up

2011-10-29T08:10:00.004+01:00

How can it be nearly two months since I've last posted here? Our visits to the plot have been almost as rare, with just a couple of kitchen waste runs and a strimming session. Life has got in the way with a vengeance, including that novelty for us of weekends away. But I don't like the separation of life and growing/gardening. We're planning a foray to the plot this morning so that rain forecast for the weekend doesn't get in the way. I actually feel nervous about what we'll find. What will have been the outcome of Weeds v. Green Manure?

The shots here were mostly taken at the beginning of October. Above, my unique green manure patchwork. From the top, phacelia, alfalfa, grazing rye. Below, a close-up of the phacelia and alfalfa. The latter was slow to come through and germinated sparsely. It was probably sowed too late. The light in late August/early September is really waning, so another year I would sow in July.

My medieval peasant seed-broadcasting technique wasn't up to much in the case of the rye, below. Or perhaps the pigeons got the best of it. The seeds are large and although I raked them in they still seemed to shout 'eat me!'

Most successful of all has been the strip of white mustard. Was that because of early sowing, or the fact that this small strip has the best soil of the whole plot, a rich, leaf-mouldy loam due to the annual dump of leaves from the nearby sycamore trees?

Or at least that was the state of play at the start of the month. Who knows what awaits us today?

As well as posting an update this side of Christmas, I really hope to get round some other allotment blogs. I have a lot of catching to do.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - September 2011

2011-09-19T07:42:00.006+01:00

Not a huge amount of change in my garden since the August Bloom Day. Still, the season is moving on, and Autumn is definitely here. There was a day last week when everything that was growing seemed to shrink back slightly. The light is declining, with sunrise nearly at 7 am, and sunset by 7.30 pm. The equinox approaches.

Above, a marigold droops in the rain. Marigolds are a cottage garden favourite that I can't get enough of in Autumn. The sowing I did this year seemed to take reluctantly, and so the blooms are very sparse and all the more precious as a result. I don't know what happened to germination of my seeds this year, either in the garden or at the allotment. I'm going to read up about biodynamics over the winter, although I can't quite get my head round the preparations such a horn silica.

Below, autumn colours are beginning to appear on my blueberry bush.

Still a few fruits appearing on the woodland strawberries, and strangely the slugs don't seem to have found them.

Below, red clover which I sowed in a border as a mini patch of green manure, but which has also failed to germinate well.

Roses are making a brave second showing, although I doubt if the profusion of buds will all flower unless we get a very balmy spell now.

A bit of confusion here: a Spring-flowering polyanthus has decided to bloom, behind the seed pods of 'Love-in-a-Mist'.

A climbing fuchsia is doing well, but has a long way to go before rivalling the hedges we saw in Skye this summer.

Visit Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming this month.

Shades of green

2011-09-05T21:42:00.003+01:00

Some things are flourishing this year. The 56 leeks, minus 2 or 3, are looking more leek-like by the week. Grass seems to be our best crop, helped along by a stream of busy weekends and darker evenings. Even the emerging green manure, to the left of the lush central path, can't compete.

Grass apart, however, this has been a mean summer. Of my first sowing of lettuce, chard and beetroot, only a few seedlings emerged. The second sowing made a couple of weeks ago is marked by the faint lines of sawdust in the shot below. There are some healthy weeds, but not much else.

The close-up below reveals what might be some carrots pushing through. 'Grudging' is the best description I can come up with for this season. In my more fanciful moments I imagine that the plot knows that our attention has been elsewhere.

We have to face the fact that we are likely to be just as busy through the next year, and so we've been making plans for an ongoing regime of green manure that will take us through this winter, then next spring and summer. We'll keep smaller areas under cultivation but we won't try to be productive on a scale that we can't maintain. In the end the soil will benefit, and we'll arrive at this point next year with both children away at university and the plot serving as therapy for the empty nest syndrome that we can see looming.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2011

2011-08-15T09:41:00.009+01:00

This summer hasn't been the kindest for flowers. Plentiful rain, yes, but grudging sun and even more grudging temperatures. So it was a surprise when I set about taking photos for this month's GBBD to find just how much was in bloom.

Above, my container clematis, Anna-Louise. Below, a nameless fuchsia that I nurtured from a sad, dried out stick of a plant thrust at me by a friend.

Cheerful daisies beside the front door.

This fuchsia did have a name, but of course I've forgotten it. It came as part of an order of 12 mini plug plants from Thompson and Morgan, in a plastic container with letters beside each plant, and a key to the letters in the accompanying instructions. Mail order plants always arrive when I have minimal time to deal with them, so inevitably after the initial potting up and then the potting on and finally the planting out the identity of 'A' or 'F' has long been mislaid.

A sweetly scented sweet pea beside the front door. The packet was a freebie from Gardeners' World, about four years ago, and I took a chance that the seeds would germinate.

My stalwart hydrangea, nameless of course, but I do remember that I got it from Burncoose Nurseries in Cornwall. Quite a transition to make, from the south western tip of Britain to the east coast of Scotland, but it's hung on through the worst of our winter weather.

This year's surprise: a self-seeded hollyhock.

Cheerful violas, somewhat eaten round the edges by our ever-present snails.

For real snail damage, this is what remains of some busy lizzies. They were untouched until a couple of weeks ago, when overnight they were reduced to bare stems.

Below, the crocosmia is still blooming - the latest it's been in flower since I planted it in 2004.

Climbing courgette 'Black Hawk' is doing well in a flower border, producing just enough but not yet at glut stage.

Jasmine 'Clotted Cream' has had its flush of blooms. With the light declining now I doubt there will be a second flush, but it has been a lovely addition to the patio.

Chives are still blooming and appreciated by the bees. In the background is what has turned out to be a total thug - lemon balm. It has taken over a border to the extent that I may take it out in the autumn.

Finally, two more nameless mail order beauties.

More blooms, many of them with names, are at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Garden.

Marking time

2011-08-14T20:58:00.003+01:00

A summer of marking time and clearing the decks at the allotment. We're having the raised beds debate, and so to give us a blank canvas we've opted not to fill up ground as it's vacated by crops. We're using the opportunity to improve the soil structure by sowing swathes of green manure. Above is the first sowing, of alfalfa. Last weekend I sowed phacelia in the empty area at the top of this large bed, and white mustard in a strip beside the blackcurrants at the other side.

We've also been concentrating energies elsewhere, enjoying the company of our children, one home from university, the other going into her last year at home before university, visitors, holidays, home improvements. Sometimes when I've gone along to the plot I've done half an hour's work and then sat and taken in the way the light falls on the plot and the bliss of being outside in summer. I should feel some Calvinist guilt, but I don't. It's been good to have a pause.

Meantime the fox has been enjoying marching through the alfalfa.

24 raspberries or 56 leeks?

2011-07-08T07:15:00.005+01:00

Not 24 raspberry canes, but 24 raspberry berries. That was the harvest from our 'one more chance' canes this week, so the decision was made that they'd had their chance and were coming out. There was bushy new growth coming from the base of some of them, but this has been the case from the beginning, and the canes then fail and die as they get taller. Most of them had died off completely. Some heavy digging by my husband was needed to get them out - they were firmly rooted despite their feebleness. Luckily this part of the plot was in shade by that point. It was the hottest weekend of the year, when Scotland was plunged into sudden, startling heat. All over the city people were getting that peculiarly Scottish type of one-sided sunburn, sitting outside bars and pubs. We chose to sweat it out at our green gym.

In place of the raspberries I planted 56 'Mussleburgh' leeks, thinking ahead as I did so to winter and realising how quickly the growing year goes round.

It was an onion family stint at the plot, as I weeded the onions and shallots. This year's crop of shallots has been disappointing - small bulbs and a sparse crop.

The weeds liked their spot between the rows of onions. The thick, strappy onion stems kept catching me unawares and jabbing into my face as I focused on the next weed. I envisaged turning up at Casualty and explaning that I was there because an onion had poked me in the eye.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - June

2011-06-19T08:13:00.006+01:00

Glimpses of blue sky are precious this year. We've had rain and low grey clouds for weeks, it seems. The weather forecast in my sidebar is reasonably upbeat for the next couple of days, tho it's drizzling at the moment rather than the perky mix of sun and fluffy cloud that it's meant to be. Then we take a mid-week dive into rain and cool(er) temperatures, and then just cool temperatures. I have started a regime of Vitamin D tablets for myself and my daughter, to compensate for this summer's lack of sunshine. The male members of the family either don't believe in this nonsense, or are currently lying in the sun in the Canary Islands.

So even if it's a weed, if there's blue sky behind it - it merits a photo. This is our charming garden weed - red valerian. It's entirely self-seeded. My Reader's Digest 'Guide to Creative Gardening' describes it as being easy to grow, and that 'the fierce red flowers of this valerian brighten ancient walls and cliff faces all over the south of England.' I'm gratified that the wall at the back of our garden, which is all that remains of a old railway siding wall (late 19th century/early 20th?), could be classified as ancient. The Reader's Digest goes on to say 'its seedlings shoot up all over the place, though usually not in sufficient numbers to be a nuisance'. Well, it seems to love our cool, damp climate. From its lofty perch it rains down seeds which sprout merrily all over our garden. I would classify it as a lovable nuisance. And here it's got blue sky behind it.

My fragrant Alba rose is blooming, although not in such profusion as past years. The hard winter gave it quite a knock, and it's been slow to pull away in this grudging weather of the past 6 weeks.

The honeysuckle by contrast is rampant. The frosts seem to have killed off the aphids which normally plague it, clustering blackly round the emerging flower spurs and sucking the life out of them. It's busy with bees from early morning until late into the evenings.

I do have a few more blooms - just a few, however. This year I've decided to take stock and think about what will really thrive in our difficult back garden, and to dig wider beds and enrich the soil with green manure. So I'm off to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for inspiration from around the gardening world.

Gadget time

2011-06-08T06:21:00.004+01:00

Will it work? Or is it just another gadget promising the earth (forgive the pun) from a piece of plastic? Eventually, I got my French beans planted out at the weekend. The slight saving grace is that with the delay I missed the tearing winds that have stripped leaves from trees. Still, they haven't been happy beans lately, constrained even in their root-trainer modules. And they're my precious French French beans, brought back from last summer's holiday.

The idea is that molluscs' tiny brains and impressive gmynastic powers will be flummoxed by having to turn that sharp corner underneath the rim. I suspect that big snails might find it too much, but that slugs will just pop up happily in the middle of the ring and munch away, but I'll find out if we manage to get to the plot one evening this week.

And they're expensive pieces of plastic, so of course I have more beans than barriers. These defenceless beans will just have to take their chances. I'm trying to look on it as a controlled experiment, but I feel a pang at having abandoned this lot at the end of the row.

One lot of plants in, another lot earmarked for coming out. We have to face it that the raspberries have had it. Even though new canes came through in the spring and began to put out leaves, they're withering. Fruit that has already formed is just shrivelling up. The canes have been fed, watered, mulched and watered again, but we have to face reality. I don't know if they have a disease, or if they just don't like their location, but I don't have time and energy to embark on a research and treatment programme. I am puzzled, because I come from a family for whom raspberries are an annual surfeit, to be given away to passers-by. My father has a rota of friends whom he invites to pick his berries, and happily receives home baking and jam in return. I thought raspberries just grew, so it's quite a blow to discover that I haven't inherited the family raspberry gene.

Still life or real life

2011-05-29T21:25:00.003+01:00

How do you prefer your foxes? As art, or the real thing?

Whoever painted the fox in the picture below has obviously had a real life encounter. I couldn't believe how similar it was to the photo I'd taken a few days earlier at the allotment.

As we arrived at the plot today the fox was trotting up the far side, just a bed's width away. It seemed to be grinning. I felt a bit less well disposed towards it when I discovered a neat little calling card of fox's poo in the grass.

Intimate view

2011-05-14T06:51:00.003+01:00

One of the things I love most about growing things is how your vision becomes concentrated on life at ground level. That little patch of soil that you're digging or hoeing assumes an intimate topography. And it's all too easy to down tools and start taking pictures.

Since our plot is right beside the single access road in the site, and fairly near the entrance, most people pass by us on their way to their plot. I know they're saying that it's little wonder that woman still has a weedy patch to dig over and no seeds sown yet - there she is again, taking a photo of the ground, for heaven's sake, or a weed...

Social life

2011-05-11T06:39:00.003+01:00

There's life stirring at the allotment site. Not just the glorious May blossoming of cow parsley and geans, or the perky rows of onions and emerging potatoes, but community life. Many sites have a bustling social life - not so ours. Immediate neighbours chat with each other, 'hellos' are exchanged as people pass to and fro on the road in to the site, but that's about it. Now, in the climate of diminishing council spending, there are stirrings of self-help: discussions about the communal strimmer; should we build communal compost bins for weeds, since the council won't; what about painting the site toilet. And as an off-shoot, if you'll pardon the pun, making time to get to know each other a bit and enjoy our common haven.

We had a get together at the very end of April. What better than to sit in the sunshine, serenaded by a blackbird, and make plans? And eat some cake. A few decisions were made, but that wasn't so much the point as to start getting people together.

And there's something particularly cheerful for me about the Union Jack fluttering from the site hut. I'm fiercely proud to be Scottish, but I'm also British and would like to remain so. Still, who knows - if Scotland were to become independent, perhaps Sir Sean Connery, that ardent supporter of the independence cause, would return from Switzerland to live here...

New bed activity

2011-05-10T06:23:00.002+01:00

So many photos backed up, so many aching muscles from working at the plot, so few blog posts... It's the hungry gap in my blog world. Just to redeem myself quickly, here's the new bed as at Sunday, with the Anya potatoes coming through.

And just as forecast, we had frost this week, as the potato foliage shows.

A new bed

2011-04-25T09:45:00.004+01:00

A blogging silence doesn't mean that nothing is happening at the plot. Somehow I'm not managing to get the photos I take at the plot each week transferred to a blog post. But we've been busy every weekend. After the harvest of rubbish I showed in the previous post, we finally got down to bare earth in this area for the first time since taking over the plot. Above, just a few rocks left to move. The imprint of the corrugated iron can still be seen at the back of the bed. That iron took some moving - iron posts had been driven deep into the soil by the previous plotholder, and I feared for my husband's blood pressure as he hauled them out.

We planted two rows of Anya potatoes as a first step to clearing the soil. I was heartened to see how many worms there were, so it can't be as bad as we feared. Now we (just) have the massive ex-weed heap on the left still to move.

Because it's still chilly up here, with the risk of frost, I'm being canny and not rushing ahead with sowing. That's one excuse, anyway. The reality is that I'm also busy with other things just at the wrong time for forging ahead with sowing. This weekend for example we've been up in Moray visiting my Dad and attending to his garden. In fact I'm off outside now to weed a border and cut back last year's stems of an everlasting pea. Once I've put on a couple of fleeces - it's cold out there!

Spring harvest

2011-04-10T08:31:00.006+01:00

Enough of this trying-to-be poetic looking into the heart of Spring stuff. This is the other side of my Spring - getting going with tidying up at the allotment. Every week I take photos and never get round to posting them, for a variety of reasons. Aching muscles, ironing, watching Grey's Anatomy, reading (just finished The Idea of North, by Peter Davidson), trying to visit other blogs, working too late, exhaustion, making ominous lists of Things To Do In The House...

So catching up, from a few weeks back here is the first of our Spring harvest. Rubbish left behind by the previous plotholder underneath a lid of corrugated iron sheets.

This is just a small sample. The rest included old carpet, which we had to wait to shift until a nesting bees had moved on elsewhere, stones and glass.

We now have another patch of reclaimed soil, once a few remaining brambles are cut out and the corrugated iron sheets removed. The plan is to plant potatoes this year, and then next year to dig out the grass separating it from the rest of the plot. At the same time we'll try to relocate the mound of earth that's sitting to the left of the cleared space. It's the remains of a massive weed-dump that has slowly composted over the years. It's going to be a long haul, but it will extend the plot by a full bed.

Meantime I hope to visit some blogs and see what other harvests this Spring has brought.

Looking into the heart of Spring

2011-04-05T06:57:00.005+01:00

Two weeks early, my magnolia stellata is in bloom. Soft, velvet-covered buds one day, and then a froth of white, all of a sudden. My unscientific, highly personal yardstick for its early or late blooming is 'Turin time'. In 2006 we were in Turin from the 11th to the 18th of April. The magnolia was just coming into flower when we left, and when we returned it was over. Turin was worth missing its flowering for, but still, I remember the pang of disappointment at arriving home and realising that it would be another year before I would see my own tree in bloom. (And Turin has been much on my mind recently as I plan another, static blog about that experience. Coming shortly, probably to Wordpress.) The essence of Spring in Scotland is a counterpoint of blossom with echoes of Winter. This is the north, after all. Sunlit blooms against a background of slate-dark sky would be what I would long for if I were ever exiled to the South. And how can this be? Plum blossom, which my mental calendar places firmly in late April. Admittedly my little tree is planted against a high south-facing wall. It's an espalier that got away, going its own sweet way despite my attempts at pruning and training. I am counting the plums we might have this year. Last year we achieved three, and I am praying the gardener's prayer that frost won't smite the fragile blossom even in this precocious Spring.

To plastic or not to plastic?

2011-03-24T21:33:00.006Z

...isn't actually a question I ask myself. But I see so many plots swathed in plastic sheeting over the winter months that there are obviously plastic afficionados out there. I know that it keeps the weeds down. I know that it means that you don't start the spring by weeding. But I can't reconcile growing with smothering the soil for months at a time. I want to see frost sparkling on the hard earth, puddles shining in a sudden shaft of weak sun, Ted Hughes' 'attentant sleek thrushes' stabbing at worms. It seems the gardening equivalent of keeping the plastic covers on the suite in the front room.

Our winter cover this year was a mass of dead phacelia, flattened under the December snow. I feared a strenuous job of digging in wiry stems.

But the first forkful revealed a clean, bare, fine tilth. It was the tilth of seedbeds, which I have only read about but never achieved. 'I have a tilth', I kept saying to myself as I swept away more stems. No digging in, or up. Just a bit of sweeping, and underneath healthy soil which had been rained, snowed, frosted and sunned upon.

The other thing that puts me off plastic is that you have to do something with it for the rest of the year. And our shed is full already. But are there any bloggers who have answered 'yes!' to the plastic question?

Garden path

2011-03-19T07:43:00.003Z

First time I've seen polka dot slush. This was a path in my dad's garden last weekend. We travelled north on Friday evening with a weather forecast that warned of snow and gales. There was snow around the Drumochter pass and Dalwhinnie, but the roads were clear and we did the journey in a fast 3 hours. On Saturday morning it started to snow, imperceptibly at first, that fine, small snow that ushers in a blizzard. 'Leading snow', it's called where I grew up. I thought of Robert Frost's poem, 'The Onset':

"Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground"

It snowed for the whole of our visit, but wetly at our low level of 300 feet. On Sunday morning it was at the wallpaper paste stage, and my thoughts of early spring gardening had to be abandoned. Not that there was much to do - my dad's 'young' friend in his 70's had been recently and dug over all the borders and pruned the apple trees.

Instant Spring

2011-03-08T07:20:00.002Z

or 'Spring in a Box'. This little lot cost me 30 quid, but it was worth it. I NEEDED some signs of Spring, particularly around the front door to welcome us home from what are long days at work and school at the moment.

Looks like I planted them in the nick of time, because we have woken up to snow falling today. Dreary, wet snow, coming in on a raw wind. True winter seems to have been suspended since our December snowstorms. I'm hoping we don't have too much of a catch-up.

Finished

2011-03-03T08:39:00.003Z

We had to admit defeat on Sunday. During the week the broccoli and kale had been stripped bare by the pigeons. The netting had pulled free of its pegs at one side of the frame, leaving a big, inviting gap. At that point I lost heart completely and decided just to take the plants out and get the ground ready for something else.

The winter netting has been a big disappointment given the investment in a 'proper' cage and heavy duty netting. We think that the netting is too heavy for the pretty lightweight aluminium poles. It offers a good surface for the wind to catch, and it's so heavy that once it's in motion it drags out the steel pegs from the soil. On the build-a-ball cage this also knocks over the supports. On the recycled climbing frame there's no such problem, but the netting just lifts free from its moorings leaving a doorway that basically says 'pigeons: this way'.

We'll try again but with lighter netting. Meantime, any suggestions for what to do with yards of heavy-duty netting, apart from a good bonfire?

Noticeboard chromatography

2011-02-20T16:09:00.004Z

This is what winter does in Scotland. The damp seeps in everywhere, obliterating even this Ode pinned up inside the glass case of the site noticboard. It creates its own beauty, of course, but the Ode to (I presume) a Fox has been lost. Hopefully the poet will put up a fresh copy once the weather dries out.

Now the green blade rises

2011-02-15T20:23:00.002Z

At last. I'm not ready for it, but life is stirring again. Above, a green blade of garlic. Hopefully the cold winter has done it good. Below, the blackcurrant bushes are budding. I keep meaning to prune out some of the old wood, but the branches are so sturdy that I need the loppers and I keep forgetting to take them with me when I go to the plot.

But another weekend has gone by without any allotment gardening. Looking ahead on the calendar I can see that we don't have too much time in hand. I try to comfort myself by thinking of the Scandinavian and North American gardeners who have to wait until the snow melts each spring.

At home I'm planning a new border, a very small one, but I'm deep in catalogues and websites and lists of long-desired plants. What variety of clematis should I have? Can I fit in euphorbia, bergamot, astrantia, asters, rudbeckia...? Meantime I content myself with snowdrops. Every year they take me by surprise. One day there's nothing, and the next they're in full bloom.

As feared

2011-02-06T18:17:00.005Z

The aftermath of Thursday's gale, as we'd feared. The wind had whipped the heavy netting up and away from the metal pegs anchoring it to the soil, and deposited it neatly along two sides of the cage. We were surprised that any of the cage was left upright. For a minute or two we contemplated taking the whole thing down and leaving the struggling broccoli and kale to their fate. The pigeons had already been right in there.

The ground was so soft that we didn't think the uprights would last long. On the basis that the old ones are the best, we pressed the climbing frame into service. It's been overwintering beside the shed, and we'd planned to dismantle it.

I don't quite know what it reminds me of. A hovercraft? The Apollo command module?

Low ebb

2011-02-04T22:06:00.005Z

Along with the glaur, we have slime. No crisply overwintering lollo rosso for us. Just a composting-on-the-spot icky mess.

And we knew this would happen - the potatoes stored in the shed experienced sub-zero temperatures, and were bound to suffer.

Perhaps the bright side of all this decay is that the phacelia that we didn't manage to dig in during the autumn is doing its own breaking down, after being buried under the snow. But look closely and you'll see a hint of green peeking out from the leaves and dead stems.

I think we may be about to experience the return of the phacelia for another season, just where we don't want it. Snow for the month of December, followed by rain, illness, other bits of life, all have kept us away from the plot. Although I've been going along to check on the broccoli cage and empty the kitchen waste into the compost bin, I haven't done any real work since November. It feels as if I'm losing touch with it. Just standing looking doesn't make the same connection as putting spade in soil, weeding, sowing, planting, pruning.

For the past two days we've had gales and heavy rain, nothing to match the storms in the US and Canada, but I've gone to bed at night listening to the roaring wind and thinking of the fate of the broccoli cage. Last weekend I was at the plot I spent the time fitting poles back into their sockets, and that was before the gales. Ironically we have all this anti-pigeon protection in the year when the broccoli is sitting there doing nothing. I'm still hoping for a growth spurt in March, but if not it's been a long winter of cage maintenance for nothing.

Glaur

2011-02-01T21:50:00.003Z

Pronounced 'glor', as in 'for'. Scots for mud of a particularly sticky kind. If it hasn't been frosty and too hard to dig, it's been sodden and squelchy with glaur. So not a lot happening on our plot, and life is busy elsewhere into the bargain. With none of the sorting of seed packets and first sowings that I'm seeing on other blogs at the moment, I'll just have to point out my cherished green Hunter wellies. They're quite a faded green now, in fact a trendy 1950's formica green. They date from 1981, and were a serious investment for a student. But Aberdeen that year had deep snow and low temperatures to rival those of this winter, and they were my daily footwear on the snowy cobbled streets of Old Aberdeen.

And they're still coping well with the glaur.

Survival

2011-01-16T17:38:00.005Z

The snow was still lying last Sunday, so all we could do was empty the kitchen waste into the compost bin and check the broccoli cage. As well as the usual fox, cat and dog tracks in the snow, we saw some rabbit tracks for the first time.

All was fine at the plot. Beautiful, even, with this delicate tracery of fennel stems against the snow.

But winter is about survival.

No traces of fur or feather to tell what had been done to death. No rabbit prints nearby, so perhaps urban rabbit escaped to nibble more unprotected cabbages and broccoli.

After the snow

2011-01-12T21:37:00.005Z

Frost-bitten holly berries in my Dad's garden.

And windfall applies, emerged from their cold storage under the snow.

Next year's surprise crop, the grains that the birds turned up their beaks at from the gourmet bird seed mix:

Weather-worn

2010-12-31T19:20:00.004Z

Evidence of repair work to come - measurements on a pane of my Dad's greenhouse. It suffered in the heavy snow of last January, and again with December's snowfall. Because my Dad was in hospital for the first 6 months of the year and we were more concerned with him and house maintenance when we visited, the greenhouse has not been top of the priority list. Since coming home Dad has enlisted the help of a friend - a youngster in his 70s who now looks after the garden for Dad. He puts in a 6 hour day of digging, and then goes off to help build another friend's house. We're really grateful for all the work he does to help Dad.

He had just measured the panes and gaps for replacements and delivered the glass when the latest snowfall put a stop to the work. So here we are in the aftermath with an even more weather-worn greenhouse.

We're hoping that the weather doesn't turn to gales before the panes are replaced - with the missing panes there's great potential for the pressure of high winds inside the greenhouse to blow the rest of the panes out.

The taps

2010-12-29T12:05:00.004Z

Our last fall of snow in Edinburgh was so light that it was like beaten egg white. Flakes stuck to every possible surface, clinging on to the rough surface of the rubber insulation round these allotment taps. Ribbons of snow hung from twigs, like the original Christmas garlands.

The allotment taps are good value as photo subjects. Back in 2009 they provided an ice garden.

Now there's a thaw everywhere. Stepping outside this morning I could smell the earth, which made me immediately long for spring and sowing seeds and working outside. We are still up on Speyside, so there is a lot of earth around - fields of it just outside the garden. But even in Edinburgh today the scent of the earth will be there. The sky is mild and blue, and it's hard to think that we have what are usually the two worst months of the winter to get through yet.

Winter solstice

2010-12-21T21:32:00.007Z

Having finished up at work yesterday I had time for a quick dash to the allotment this afternoon, in between Christmas shopping and preparing for our annual Christmas pilgrimage to Speyside. For the past fortnight I've had a horrible cold-with-a-tinge-of-flu, and keeping plugging away at work has left me drained at weekends and only fit to take to bed so that I'm able to go to work on Monday. So no trips to the allotment at weekends, and on weekdays I leave home in the dark and get home in the dark. But with a fresh fall of snow and hard frost I wanted to see how the broccoli cage was faring.

It was mid afternoon by the time I set out, and I caught the brief glow of the solstice sunset. I was relieved to see that the cage was still standing, but it was suffering from the 'wrong' kind of snow, just as Britain's airports and railways have been suffering in the past weeks.

The snow had a woven effect, a bit like the cellular blankets which we keep in the loft for the very occasional warm summer night when duvets are too much.

All this softness was deceptive. As I knocked the snow off the netting, I dislodged one of the supporting poles, and saw that it was bent by the weight of the snow. At this point I was stuck: the ground was frozen hard, so that even if I managed to pull out the pegs holding the netting in place and get underneath to fix the pole, I wouldn't be able to push them back into the soil. So I jiggled and coaxed the pole back in to the balls at either end, and left it all balancing precariously. I fully expect to come back after New Year and find the whole lot on the ground, with pigeons sitting on top gorging on my baby kale.

The kink in the pole in the photo below shows the effect of all those feather-light snowflakes.

Same but different

2010-12-10T20:25:00.007Z

We took a quick walk round the allotment site on Sunday. Things were disconcertingly the same, but different. The fox's tracks were everywhere, and although paths and borders were hidden, in some places it had stuck to the invisible paths. In others, it had set off across raised beds.

It's been quite a while since we've done a tour of our neighbours. We saw several extremely spick and span plots which have obviously had a change of ownership. I resolved to return once the snow has gone and see exactly what they've done by way of plot improvements - and be shamed into action myself, probably.

One of the impressive features was this picnic table and seats, with the prime view of Calton Hill. A permanent seating area is the height of allotment civilisation. Sometimes I aspire to it, and at other times I think I'd rather keep it natural.

And the sheds had an Alpine chalet look.

It's all melting now. A soft west wind, and the sound of dripping and running water everywhere. City pavements are still treacherous, with a film of water over sheet ice. I'm impatient to see what's happening at the plot, but there's going to have to be some bare pavement showing before I risk the walk there.

Phew!

2010-12-06T19:10:00.003Z

After seeing the state of Mal's brassica netting at his post here, I was anxious to see how ours had fared. Perhaps we have a different type of snow over here at the other side of the city, but the cage was standing up for itself. The broccoli is pretty much buried, but it wasn't any great height to start with. Another note to self - plant it out earlier next season so that it can grow on faster before autumn sets in.

We enjoyed at allotment sunset at 2.50 p.m.

Snow, with pimples

2010-12-05T19:13:00.004Z

The strangest thing about our unsually early, heavy snowfall is that the leaves are still falling. We are used to seeing snow on top of leaves, not the other way round. I can't tell you how surprising I find this. At every turn I come across patches of leaves lying on top of the snow. Above, the allotment site this afternoon, with distinction between the roadway and adjacent plot buried under the snow.

At one point on the Water of Leith walkway the leaves under a clump of birch trees by the path light up the snow as if touched by a shaft of summer sun.

Plot in the snow

2010-12-01T20:37:00.009Z

Since this photo was taken on Sunday it has snowed, and snowed and snowed. Goodness knows what state the brassica cage is in now, even after being tightened up and the snow knocked off.

Perhaps the snow will stop whatever mollusc has been chomping on this broccoli plant.

I'm concerned about the fox in this weather. Last night we parted the living room curtains to look out at the falling snow and saw a fox trotting down the pavement a few yards from us. I don't know if it was 'our' allotment fox, but it certainly looked very thin.

First snowfall 2010

2010-11-27T17:45:00.006Z

Normally we don't expect snow until after Christmas, but this is apparently Britain's earliest snowfall for 17 years. Blizzards to the north and south of us, but Edinburgh has had a genteel dusting of snow overnight.

This is my for-the-record photo, taken this morning, of the new fence going up in our back garden. It's now finished, but it was too cold for the landscaper to build a section of brick wall - the cement wouldn't harden - so that is left over for warmer days.

I have no scenic shots of Edinburgh to show you. I WAS in town today, taken on a Christmas shopping expedition by my daughter. The castle looked beautiful in the snow, but we were too busy trying to keep our feet on the slippy, icy, untreated pavements to take photos. I imagine we'll be getting less clearing and sanding of pavements from now on as the funding cuts bite.

So all I can offer is this shot of a bus shelter roof and sign, taken from the top deck of the number 11 bus. The snow plastered on the sign shows that the snow came from the east, always our coldest quarter. The huddle of sheds beyond is the back of the Christmas market, which I can reassure you does look more attractive from the front. Beyond that, against the sky, is the outline of the castle.

My mind is less on snow just now tho than what climbers I'm going to train against my new fence. All suggestions for a small garden welcome.

See more of the white stuff at the 2010 First Snowfall Project.

French fungal delights

2010-11-21T17:52:00.004Z

Mushrooms in profusion yesterday at a Saturday morning street market in Lyon, France. I was there for a conference, and just had a short time to walk through the market. I wish now I'd taken more photos, as the local produce was heaped up in profusion. But my colleague and I were pretending that we were residents, out shopping for ingredients for the gourmet meal we were going to cook later. Snapping away with the camera would have ruined our disguise.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day November

2010-11-17T07:33:00.005Z

A little patch of colour at the allotment site, amid the prevailing dun colours of bare earth and fallen leaves. A strip of woodland borders the road in to the site. The trees are mature ash, sycamore and chestnut for the most part, with a light under-canopy where volunteers maintain little patches of flowers. The rest is left as natural habitat, complete with decaying logs and nettles and all that good stuff. Rather a blurry shot - if I can remember as far back as Sunday, after a hectic start to the week, it was breezy.

By contrast, all I could muster from my own garden yesterday morning was this stalwart fuchsia, which has now decided to bloom after sulking all summer. Normally I bring out my big camera to photograph flowers, but this shot was snatched in the brief moment I had before leaving the house for work. Rubbish exposure - I was in a tearing hurry! Since it's dark by the time I return home it was the best I could do. Note the frosty edging to the leaves.

More blooms are at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens.

Essence of November

2010-11-14T14:23:00.004Z

Since childhood this illustration has been the essence of November for me. It's the weather we woke up to this morning, and it's this dark, dripping chill of November days that would prevent me ever emigrating to year-round sunshine.

Charles Tunnicliffe's illustrations for the Ladybird series 'What to Look For' (in Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer) are a double delight for me today. They're a link with the turning seasons, from which I feel cut off in the city. They also show British farming as I remember it as a child - open tractors with metal seats, potatoes picked by hand, stooks of oats and barley dotting the fields rather than huge circular bales encased in black polythene.

(illustration copyright Ladybird Books. I requested permission from Ladybird to reproduce the illustration but haven't had a reply.)

Getting the garlic in

2010-11-14T12:42:00.006Z

I surprised myself by planting garlic within a week of its arrival from The Really Garlicky Company. Normally it lies around in the garage for a few weeks and begins to sprout. The individual cloves were plump, only four to a bulb. We'll see how they do in our soil. On the day I planted them, the soil was pretty heavy. The planting instructions did say that if you had heavy soil you should plant them in a ridge, but I was out of time for ridge construction, so just pushed them straight in.

Next on the agenda is digging in the green manure.

By this time the leaves from the ash tree nearby will all have fallen, and a good number of them will be on the green manure. Perhaps we'll end up with a leaf mould/phacelia cross.

It's raining again today, making this afternoon's planned digging session unlikely. But I think I'll go along with the household green waste, if only for the pleasure of a walk in the chill rain and fallen leaves.

12 photos - October and November 2010

2010-11-06T15:10:00.005Z

October's photo got lost in the general pace of life. The things I notice looking at it now are the lush, bright green grass, and the hazy blue of the phacelia between the blackcurrent bushes and the raspberries.

By last weekend, in the shot below, all growth is shrinking back. The phacelia has been cut back again, this time with a hand-held sickle. The raspberry canes have been thinned out to 7 canes per plant. Not much sign of growth in the broccoli and kale within the brassica cage. I planted them far too late, so all I'm hoping for is that they make it through the winter and then put on a spurt in the spring.

The one thing that doesn't seem to be shrinking is the central path. These 12 photos will be our best motivator for tackling it. Unlikely to be this weekend, tho. Another golden morning has turned into a wet afternoon. From the living room window I can see the white trunk and yellow leaves of a birch tree glowing against the dark sky. We have the lights on at 3.30, and I'm blissfully happy with one eye on Australia beating Wales at rugby, which my husband and son are watching, the latter home from university for the weekend. The path will wait.

Golden day

2010-11-03T20:46:00.004Z

Sunday made up for being the day that British Summer Time ended by putting on a glorious, golden afternoon. It was hard to tear ourselves away from the plot, but we had to get home to work in the garden - a big pruning exercise of the 'Albertine' rambling rose. By the time my husband was cutting up the last stems to fit them into the recycling bin it was dark. How quickly the golden light faded.

Saturday morning in the kitchen

2010-10-23T10:19:00.006+01:00

Finally I'm getting round to ordering for next season. On a damp, chill Saturday morning yesterday it was a comforting thing to do, especially with that leisurely weekend mug of tea at hand.

From Suttons, I've ordered onion and shallot sets. Sturon and Hercules in onions, Jermor and Delvad, both French varieties, in shallots. Although I grew overwintering onions last year and they came up well, I ended up harvesting them at the same time as the spring-sown ones. With no advantage in terms of early cropping, at least up here, I didn't want to take up ground over the winter when we plan to make headway on the central path and general structure of the plot.

And I gave in at the last minute and ordered a small bag of second early salad potatoes - Anya. We'll see how they do. I hope they'll be the waxy, nutty-tasting salad potato that they claim to be.

Since my garlic this year was a miserable failure, I've gone for Scottish-bred varieties from The Really Garlicky Company near Nairn. Various people have recommended 'Music' as doing well in Scottish conditions, so we'll give it a go.

If you're noticing the castles and thistles on my mug, it's a commemorative Emma Bridgewater design celebrating 200 years of Johnston's of Elgin woollen mill. I'll post some photos of the mill on Occasional Scotland soon.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day October

2010-10-16T22:56:00.006+01:00

Getting a bit tattered now, but still blooming in the absence of frost, the dwarf hollyhocks that were part of my bargain buy of plug plants at the beginning of the summer. It seems a very long time ago that I was cosseting them in individual pots.

The nameless hydrangea is into its dusky, burgundy phase, before turning copper and russet later in the autumn.

The second flush of roses has been very strong this year, but with very little scent.

And the Jackmanii clematis goes on blooming.

Self-seeded nasturtiums from a couple of years ago are still popping up. I leave them each year because they provide late food for the bees.

A last summery hydrangea flowerhead. All the rest are now the colour of lace dipped in tea.

In this warm October, this is what's blooming in my garden. But change is on the way, with the BBC weather map tonight showing winds straight from the Arctic by the middle of the week.

More October blooms are at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Neighbours

2010-10-08T20:40:00.004+01:00

Crisp homegrown apples. Not ours, but a present from our allotment neighbour. Thank you, Robert!

It's a good year for apples, and so far no thefts. Sadly a bumper crop sometimes attracts that dastardly breed, the allotment thief.

My weeds - glass

2010-09-28T18:04:00.003+01:00

There's enough of it in the soil to count as a weed in my book. We've dug enough up over the years to make a patchwork greenhouse. Which is probably where it came from in the first place. Plotholders with long Edinburgh memories say that the site used to be a market garden with greenhouses, pre polytunnel era. I always work in the soil in gloves, because the shards can be invisible until they're embedded in a finger. This is the biggest one to date, tho.

Drowning in onions - and comfrey

2010-09-20T07:41:00.007+01:00

While the potatoes may be a write-off, we have almost more onions than we can store. A couple of weekends ago I set up an onion processing station in the sunny corner of the plot, shucking off the loosest outside skins and the excess stalk, and dividing the crop into immediate use and storage. I haven't got as far as the shallots yet, which are also plentiful. Thank goodness some things have just got on with it this year while we've been busy elsewhere. Some crops seem to know when they don't have your full attention, but not onions.

Garlic, however, is obviously one of the prima donnas of the allotment world. Or perhaps I didn't plant it deeply enough? Or the French variety I chose didn't like our coldest winter for however many years it was.

The bulbs hardly formed, or rotted away into nothing. It can't be that they didn't have a long enough period of cold weather for bulb formation. Since garlic adapts quickly to local conditions, I'm going to plant a Scottish-bred variety this year, plant 'em deep, and see what happens.

And the green leaves to the left of the onions below?

It's the return of the dreaded comfrey, which I thought we'd got rid of but has suddenly popped up all over the place. This little lot is in its way to the compost, and shortly, just as soon as we have a moment, it's going to be Operation Seek and Destroy. The biggest mistake I've made on the plot was to believe the description of Bocking 14 comfrey in the Organic Gardening Catalogue as 'non-invasive'. Hah! It had designs on my strawberry bed from the start, and has marched straight across the width of a neighbouring bed and now into the grass path. If humanity disappeared tomorrow (I've just finished reading 'The World Without Us', a recent birthday present which satisfied my post-apocalyptic leanings) the Earth wouldn't be taken over by some tree with waxy pods imported to the US from China and currently blotting out native species, but by my comfrey.

Eeeew!

2010-09-12T08:26:00.004+01:00

is the correct horticultural term, I believe, to describe the state of my potato crop this year. Nearly every tattie dug up is like this. Wormy, rotting, weevily, cracking leathery skins. The yield per plant is small, thankfully, because I have to dispose of this lot. This is the total from three plants:

The variety is Red Duke of York. I also planted Charlotte as a waxy salad potato, which has been nothing of the sort. The potatoes boil into soup before they're fully cooked.

Right now I'm in the huff with potatoes. Last year we planted Pink Fir Apple, which turned out to be a 'never again' variety. Fine if you have the endless time of the gourmet cook to negotiate the bumps and carbuncles when peeling. Not so fine that very many were rotten at one end, but subtly, below the skin, so that when you took hold of a potato it turned to liquid between your fingers.

So I'm giving myself a potato holiday next year. There's no law of allotment life that says you have to grow potatoes. When we took on the plot we decided at once that we would liberate ourselves from what seems to be an allotment law in these parts: thou shalt grow whopping cabbages that no-one is going to want to eat. Now we're going to enjoy potato freedom for a bit.

On a less curmudgeonly note: good luck to Michelle today in the Federation of Edinburgh and District Allotments and Gardens Associations annual produce show.

Phacelia - the flowering

2010-09-08T20:46:00.003+01:00

It is beautiful, isn't it? I would love to let it all flower, and have a carpet of starry blue flowers above the grey-green frond-like leaves. But we strimmed it. Or rather, I let my husband do the dirty deed while I turned my back and dug another part of the plot, unable to watch the carnage.

I know, I need to get a grip. It's only green manure. And it may flower again. I asked for only partial carnage, just taking off most of the flowers so that we don't end up with rampant Phacelia, and leaving a few for the bees to be going on with.

A before and after shot of the whole area would have been good, but there are times when you're working so hard that you forget about anything other than the task in hand. That's what I like about having an allotment - total concentration, even to the extent of forgetting to feed the blog habit.

12 photos - September 2010

2010-09-05T22:09:00.003+01:00

Last year on my Occasional Scotland blog I took part in the 12 kuvaa/photos meme, posting a photo each month from the same spot on my walk to work. The Finnish site that hosted the meme doesn't seem to be doing it again this year, but I've been bitten by the bug of seeing the year unfold in this way. (I also extended my meagre knowledge of Finnish, adding 'kuvaa' to the existing 'kiitos' - thank you; 'pankki' - bank; 'ravintola' - restaurant.)

So here's the plot after a morning and afternoon session today. Grass strimmed, green manure strimmed, six broccoli plants set out, cage and netting transferred from the blackcurrants to the broccoli.

And from the other end of the plot, the surviving lettuce plants in the foreground (more about that shortly), the remaining potato shaws next (and more about those too), and then the brassica cage. I still have kale plants at home waiting to go in there, but they'll have to wait until next weekend. At the other side of the plot is a very untidy strawberry bed, the shorn green manure, and the blackcurrant bushes.

The main impression I have looking at these photos is that we have some growing space set in the middle of a lawn. Despite our intentions, the grass has been winning this year. That broad central path irks me more every time I look at it, but our free time has been minimal and it's been one of the things we've had to postpone.

The weather today: blowy, warm, and hazy with smoke from bonfires.

The site today: much coming and going of other plotholders, with gluts of tomatoes and plums being shown off. A sense of the last fine days slipping away and everyone enjoying being outside.

If you want to see the original 12 kuvaa/photos site, it's here:

12 kuvaa/photos

Phacelia

2010-09-03T10:45:00.004+01:00

Apart from the over-abundance of blackcurrants, our most successful crop this year has been the Phacelia green manure. This is how it looked two weeks ago.

When I go along to the plot today I'm expecting to find it in flower. Bad news. It's meant to be cut down and dug in before flowering, otherwise it sets seed liberally.

The solution, I think, will be to ask man-with-strimmer to strim the tops off. I'll then rake them up and put them into the compost. It might still be warm enough to wait and see if it will come again, but if it doesn't I'll dig it in.

I have another area that will soon be read for green manure, and I'm wondering what to try there. Perhaps one of the ryes, which can be September sown, or a vetch. The field beans I sowed last year weren't a great success. Tall, thin plants which didn't suppress weeds, seeded very freely, and had such tough stems that they were almost impossible to dig in. They were popular with the bees tho, so I suppose that's something in their favour.

Location, location, location

2010-09-02T06:12:00.003+01:00

If there is an upside to the fallow summer we've had at the allotment it's been the time to stand and stare. With less plant activity I've often been looking up and around while at the plot, instead of looking down at the area I'm digging/weeding/sowing.

So it's been striking me on every visit how this corner of the plot is just wrong. Not from the aesthetic point of view - what could be lovlier than sprawling rhubarb, a plank, and two black plastic compost bins? It's the location of these that's wrong. I took this shot around 4.30 a couple of weekends ago. The rest of the plot was in shade by this time from the big sycamore trees that border the access road. In high summer this sunny patch lasts into the early evening - ideal for relaxing in a comfortable chair, cool drink in hand, surveying the afternoon's work.

While we may not go down the patio route - I can't quite reconcile hard landscaping and allotment, but I'm open to persuasion - a grassy corner, level enough for chairs and perhaps a folding table, would bring the plot that bit closer to the Swedish colony garden idea of a green living space in the middle of the city.

I also want to make use of the edges of the plot for growing. A sturdy frame running along these two sides could support espalier plum and apple trees. At this time of year that may mean a few wasps sharing the cool drink bit, but it could be worth it for the sake of blossom in spring and fruit in autumn, plus a bit of shelter from the east wind. Comments from experienced fruit tree growers welcome!

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day August

2010-08-22T21:06:00.007+01:00

My favourite blooms this summer are on the courgette plants that are mingling with the more standard-issue container plants in the front garden. The patio at the back of the house isn't sunny enough, and the back garden is home to huge snails - a special mutant Edinburgh variety. But at the front, 3 pots of 'Black Forest' courgette are just prolific enough for our needs.

Continuing the edible theme at the front of the house, alpine strawberries Baron Solemacher. Everything I read about these before buying them said that they put out very few runners. Really? It has been my summer occupation to remove the runners.

Bargain nicotiana - just the sort of plant a Scot likes. A host of seedlings popped up between the paving stones in May. I didn't know what they were, but pulled some up and put them in pots. Et voila - self-seeded nicotiana from last summer.

Yes another plant that I've bought and forgotten what it's called. I am amazed by bloggers with vast gardens who remember the name of every plant they've ever bought. I think it may be Barbara Jackman. Anyone who knows their clematis care to put me right?

Another bonus plant - sweet little violas at the base of the clematis.

So pleased with these fragrant petunias. They were part of a bumper 50 plants for £14.99 offer. The slight drawback for me of these offers is that the plants are usually tiny plugs, and with no greenhouse it can be a bit touch and go to bring them on if we're having a cold spring.

An indication of the cool summer we've had. Normally this crocosmia has finished flowering at the start of August.

My bee-magnet, hyssop Black Adder.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for August is at May Dreams Gardens.

Vegetable tourism

2010-08-16T11:40:00.008+01:00

A beautiful little potager, on a hillside near the village of Elizaberri, in the French Basque country. Apart from the profusion of outdoor tomatoes, what caught my eye were the upturned, bottomless mineral water bottles beside each plant, to ensure that the water goes directly to the plant's roots, and the companion planting of marigolds. We passed this plot several times, but didn't see anyone working there. If we had, I would have stopped for a gardening chat.

Below, the vegetable garden at a bed and breakfast we stayed in near the Basque village of Sare. I loved the little willow fencing dividing the different sections of the plot.

More enviable tomatoes:

Below, roses and peppers. The 'rose and vegetable/fruit' theme was a common one. In the photos of vineyards I didn't take you would have seen rose bushes at the end of the rows of vines.

It doesn't show up too clearly in this shot, but the ground surface of the whole plot was heavily mulched with grass clippings. Mulching to conserve moisture! Novel concept here this summer.

Apart from the vegetable plot, this B&B had a lovely garden. In the next two shots, the patio area where we had breakfast.

And to round off this bit of agri-tourism, a blurry shot of the traditional stone fencing in this area of France.

Souvenirs

2010-08-15T11:11:00.009+01:00

The best holiday souvenirs: packets of seeds. Yellow French beans, two types of lambs' lettuce, and a curly endive. The lambs' lettuce I'll sow now, but the rest will have to wait. There's not too much heat left in the Scottish summer, and the daylight hours are declining.

Also in the precious hoard brought back from France: a French gardening magazine, some linen tea towels, boxes of herb tea, and some garden-themed napkins. Unseen, two pots of my friend Christine's plum jam, made from the plums that rain down on the terrace around her beautiful home in the Basque countryside.

Sadly, only two bottles of wine from Chateau La Galiane, thanks to the weight restrictions on Ryanair. Next time, it has been decided, we'll travel by car. We want to return to the Bordeaux area, and to be surrounded by vineyards and unable to take advantage of them would be heartbreaking. Our precious bottles survived the flight and are now resting before being brought out on a special occasion.

I can't believe that we visited a vineyard and that I didn't take photos of the vines. We had a personal tour and wine tasting at a small family vineyard, arranged for us by our hosts at La Maison de Soussans. It was so interesting, and I was concentrating so much on the process that it didn't enter my head to break into the flow by taking my camera out. I only remembered right at the end of the visit, when I took these hasty shots. Not all chateaux are vast, turreted affairs. Chateau La Galiane was a lovely house, geraniums at every window, and its size in keeping with the acreage of vines. The chateau is named after an English general who commanded his troops in this area during the English occupation of Aquitaine in the 15th century.

Tomorrow, some photos of French vegetables! Then it's back to my own, which are struggling a bit in this damp, cool summer.

Compost activity

2010-07-17T21:40:00.007+01:00

This is what happens when you leave a compost bin undisturbed for several weeks. Ants and their eggs. Boy did they move when we opened the lid. Eggs were grabbed and hurried off to safety.

We're curious to see what we'll find tomorrow when we take the compost bucket along.

And at some point we must get round to using some of the compost. It's very strange - the compost bins seem to have become self-contained entities. We add stuff, stir it around occasionally, add some more, but the connection between finished compost and spreading it on the plot seems to have got lost somewhere. Does anyone else have this experience, or all you all growing super veg as a result of your frequent compost spreading?

Edited to add that we're off on hols - exchanging damp and lush Scotland for hot and dry France. I intend to visit a few gardens while we're there. My husband doesn't know this yet.

Jam tomorrow

2010-07-11T21:27:00.006+01:00

Lucky that I laid in supplies of jam sugar when we were north last week. Moray is a great jam-making area, with raspberries and strawberries grown commercially in the Laich of Moray (the coastal plain), and many gardens with their own supplies. Jam-making is THE summer occupation, to the extent that jam sugar vanishes from the shops at peak periods. I bought up sugar to make jam from my Dad's raspberries, but then decided that it would be so long before they were ripe that I would export it back to Edinburgh.

Today was our first visit to the allotment for 2 weeks, what with having been away preparing for my Dad's return from hospital, and then being busy with other things on our return. It rained all day yesterday, and is forecast to rain from tomorrow for the rest of the week. We discovered blackcurrant bushes bowed down to the ground with the weight of ripe fruit, and luscious red berries in profusion in the strawberry bed.

If it does rain tomorrow, I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing than stirring a bubbling pot of blackcurrant jam in a warm kitchen.

Poor neglected allotment blog. Life has just got the better of me. I've taken photos every time we've visited the plot, but haven't had time to post them. But at least the plot is looking presentable, if hardly overflowing with produce. One of the reasons I started this blog was the offence I took at an article in Garden Organic's magazine asserting that it wasn't possible to maintain an allotment on a part-time basis. The author didn't represent the stance of the Garden Organic organisation, I have to say, but I was certainly offended by his views. So here we are, part-time allotmenteers with next year's jam supply coming along nicely.

Can I point out our traditional allotment recycling? The white baskets holding the strawberries once held flower arrangements (my Dad is a great sender of flowers for my birthday), and the clear plastic container was a salad drawer from our old fridge.

First Aid

2010-06-06T21:00:00.003+01:00

I'm pleased to report that in the couple of weeks since this notice was posted on the site noticeboard the fox's limp has improved considerably. We haven't seen the cubs yet, but we're hoping to if we get along to the plot one evening. That is, if the rain stops.

(SSPCA = Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

Still Growing

2010-05-28T07:30:00.007+01:00

When I get discouraged about amount of time I have to spare for the plot at the moment, it's good to look back at progress. Above, the shallots and garlic on 16 May. Below, 9 May.

2 May:

2 months ago in March, with the demised red clover waiting to be dug in.

So that's good. But then again, things are getting rather shaggy round the edges. Whoa! When did that central path take over? There's a Big Dig looming.

If you like rhubarb

2010-05-17T20:31:00.003+01:00

then you might like this recipe. I made it last week and it was a qualified success in my family of rhubarb refuseniks. It's from Lindsey Bareham's column in The Times newspaper.

Ricotta and rhubarb pie (serves 4-6)

400g rhubarb
200g ready rolled puff pastry
flour for dusting
1 egg
100g ricotta
1 juicing orange
3 tbsp caster sugar
fromage frais, creme fraiche or yoghurt to serve.

Heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Put a baking sheet on a middle shelf. Dust a work surface with flour and roll the pastry until it measures approx 30 x 20 cm. Halve vertically with one piece slightly larger than the other. Lift the smaller sheet of pastry onto a second baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Whisk the egg. Paint a 2cm border around the pastry. Thickly spread the ricotta within the border. Cut the rhubarb into 4cm lengths. Pile the rhubarb over the ricotta. Zest the orange over the top and add juice from half the orange. [Sprinkle sugar over the rhubarb if desired] Swing the reserved pastry over the top, gently lining up the edges. Run round the edge with a fork to seal. Pain the pastry with egg. Make a central hole and etch a pattern radiating out of the hole. Dredge thickly with caster sugar. Bake for 25 minutes until th epastry is flaky, golden and sugar-crusted.

Observations:

It needed - really needed - sugar on the rhubarb. We discovered this only on eating the pie.

We (my daughter and I) forgot to paint the pastry with egg before putting it in the oven. We were listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and reminiscing about when she played the theme tune at the joint Scottish/Italian Suzuki week with students from the Suzuki School of Bologna. And lots more chat besides, so it was understandable that we forgot a little thing like following the recipe. It looked okay, though. The etching was very artistic. I didn't take a photo. I thought asking my family to eat rhubarb pie was one thing, but taking a photo of it was pushing them too far.

The 'harvest' of two weeks ago. The purple sprouting broccoli is over now, alas, but the rhubarb keeps on going.

From my deckchair - May

2010-05-09T21:51:00.005+01:00

A neglected blog doesn't mean a neglected allotment. At the moment I'm TBTB (Too Busy To Blog). Work is nearly all-consuming, and the bits of life it doesn't consume take up the little that's left of the day. Today, however, on a hard-working day at the allotment, I managed to relax in a deckchair for a few minutes and enjoy looking around. Above, our neighbour's well-tended plot and a line of wallflowers beside the standpipe.

Below, gigantic flowering rhubarb.

Our potatoes are through, with all but this tallest one burnt by frost. How did it escape? Perhaps far enough on to have tougher leaves.

Looking north, which is where our weather has been coming from recently. Bright, cold days and occasional frosty nights.

I've missed what's been going on in gardens and allotments of fellow bloggers. A 3 day weekend would be good, as would another 12 hours in the day.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day April

2010-04-26T20:40:00.009+01:00

After a hard winter of snow and frost I had forgotten that the world held delights such as Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. Donna at Mamma Mia Days reminded me with her shots of her spring garden, especially the Brunnera variegata, which I now covet. So here are some of the blooms from my chilly Scottish garden. Above, a Magnolia stellata, already going past. In taking this shot I had to get right in among the blooms - I'm sure the neighbours thought I was mad - and the delicate scent was all around me.

Below, a bee enjoying my abundant Helleborus.

The red accents of Pieris something or other, below. In the foreground, some bargain tulips from B&Q, which have outlasted all the more precious (and expensive) bulbs I bought some years ago from specialist suppliers.

A mixture of Arabis and pear blossom:

Abu Hassan tulips, and some Wallflower which I think are called something like Orange Delight. I've just made that up, but it sounds feasible.

Another Pieris, given to me by our then Swedish au pair about 6 years ago.

Finally, basic and cheerful daffodils, with my Brunnera which is not doing too well this year. I have given it my usual regime of benign neglect, but perhaps it needs a treat.

Blooms from around the world are at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens.

Back to basics

2010-04-21T21:00:00.004+01:00

We're almost weed free, thanks to the bitter winter, most of the plot is dug over, and we're further ahead in terms of clear ground than we've been since we took on the plot. But we've decided to go back to basics this year, and spend our time on getting the shape of the plot in hand. Sorting out the borders, defining the central path (look how ragged it is), evening up the size of the two beds on either side, getting rid of The Heap and the corrugated iron.

So this whole big bed is planted with potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic. Red Duke of York and Charlotte potatoes, Shakespeare overwintering onions, garlic (Solent Wight??? I've forgotten already), and several varieties of onion which I must remind myself of. And that's it. Nothing fancy, no celeriac, no green peas which need staking. Just a basic Scottish diet and a lot of hard work on edges and earth moving.

Just to situate you - the bed in front of the dark orange shed is ours. The other half of the plot is off to the left, and the bed to the right, in front of the black shed, is our neighbour's. The hand that is just reaching out to close the blue-spotted shed door is my husband's.

I will post about the other half of the plot when I emerge from another busy spell at work, daughter about to sit important exams, son looking for flat for next university year, hamster in the last couple of weeks of her short life (sob).

The work squad

2010-04-07T22:13:00.001+01:00

So nice to watch other people working!

Again

2010-04-03T14:54:00.003+01:00

Arriving at the plot on Sunday, it took us a few moments to realise that although the shed door was bolted shut, the padlock wasn't to be seen, and the ring that it had been fastened to had been cut off. Yes, another shed break-in. This time we were one of about 20 sheds to be 'done'. Inside, everything was very tidy, except that our petrol strimmer was gone.

This is the second strimmer we've lost to theft, and I suppose it means we'll have to keep the replacement in the garage at home. For me this is less than ideal, as the garage is where we hang clothes to dry on a pulley when it's too wet to use the outside clothes line. Having made it through 19 years of children's washing without a tumble drier, I'm not about to cave in now. So either I have to reconcile myself to a faint odour of petrol around the clothes (my husband swears he can't smell anything), or we risk having the new strimmer stolen.

Annoying.

Bit by bit

2010-03-25T21:15:00.005Z

A scant hour was all the time I had at the weekend for getting to the allotment. I did swither as to whether I should go, but I did, and was glad of it. By the time I walked there and back I had 40 minutes left for digging. The great blessing of this cold winter is that even the weeds have been stopped in their tracks, but that can't last much longer. So the obvious task to tackle first was the mess of dead, frosted red clover. It hasn't rained for weeks, and the withered plants were dry and stringy. But I dug and chopped and dug again, and cleared a patch that looks as if a bit of progress is being made.

The drought of March has broken at last, a little ahead of Chaucer's timing of 'Aprille with his shoures soote'. I'll bet those weeds are even now planning their takeover.

Skywatch Friday - corrugated sky

2010-03-12T12:22:00.005Z

The clouds were low over Edinburgh yesterday, with a corrugated effect over the allotment site that I pass on my way to work. I thought they matched the corrugated iron that for some reason seems to collect on allotments. We're desperately trying to get rid of the stuff we inherited with our plot. I have decided that this will be the year that it goes. Watch this space.

More skies from around the world are at Skywatch Friday .

Beginning, middle and end

2010-02-28T16:48:00.006Z

The first spears of the autumn-planted garlic mark the beginning of the allotment year for me. The autumn variety needs frost to get going, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop from this frosty winter.

In the middle are the autumn-planted Japanese onions, standing like troopers through all the frost and snow. I think I'm meant to be feeding them around now to kick start further growth, but I have no allotment time for the next couple of weeks. Let's hope they realise they're in Scotland and still have a bit of the winter left.

And coming to an end are the Red Duke of York potatoes which we didn't have time to lift in the autumn, and have taken a chance with leaving in the ground. Amazingly they're mostly unaffected by the frost, with only one bad tuber in every three or so shaws, and a good yield all round.

Right at the end, in terms of having had it, is the red clover sown in the summer as green manure. Time to dig it in now. It's suppressed the weeds beautifully, and I'll use it again in preference to field beans which allowed weed growth and were then a pain to dig in.

Tender

2010-02-04T15:53:00.004Z

Cold February days are for dreaming of things growing. And who better to set you dreaming than Nigel Slater. "Just listen to this", he writes. "... a supper of golden pumpkin with a crisp crumb-crust flecked with parsley and garlic; a dish of emerald cabbage leaves with shards of sizzling ginger; a crumbling soft-pastried tart of leeks, cream and cheese; a bright carrot chutney on a mound of ivory-coloured rice to make your lips prickle."

Thank you, family, for my Christmas present.

The Heap (or, Ethical Dilemma)

2010-01-30T17:59:00.008Z

The last real work done at the allotment was way back in mid December, on a day of fog and damp. Then after a month's gap I visited briefly a couple of weekends ago and that will have to do for the next few weeks while other parts of life have to be attended to. But all the while I've been looking forward to working on the next stage of dismantling The Heap, the huge weed pile that we inherited with the plot and have only added to over the years.

Removal of The Heap has been a problem. There is no communal green waste facility at our site, unlike other sites in the city. The large waste container is explicitly NOT for green waste. We don't burn our weeds, as we suffer at home from the acrid smoke blowing from a neighbouring allotment site. Some plotholders seem to regard a smoking bonfire as a necessary part of every visit, even tho the waste is too green ever to produce flame. Contrary to site regulations (oh yes, I know these regulations by heart!) they leave the heaps smouldering when they go home at the end of their stint. It's a real nuisance for those of us who live beside allotment sites. Smouldering bonfires mean having to take in washing hanging on the line, unless of course you like the tang of smoke in all your clothes.

So how to free up the ground occupied by The Heap, which would give us half a bed more of growing space? An appeal to the Council's allotments officer brought the concession that we could relocate green waste to marginal woodland ground at the borders of the site. Great, we thought. We'll do it slowly and spread it well around so that it doesn't impact too much on the existing grass. However, we've not been the only ones with the same problem, and not the only ones offered the same solution. During the autumn we noticed that there was wholescale dumping going on in the woodland ground, not just of green waste (of which there were mini Himalayas building up), but also of unwanted wood, brick and corraugated iron. We could either hold back on our green waste disposal while everyone else piled in, or get a move on. Civic togetherness is not a particular feature of our site, so we didn't hold out much hope for a reasoned, let's work this problem out together approach.

Hence my stint of moving the growing part of The Heap while permission to relocate was still available. Sometimes I feel I should have been a bit more principled, and held off while the issue was sorted out. Mostly I feel that I was doing what I had permission to do, and doing it properly. All the same, I didn't expect to face ethical dilemmas over a compost heap.

The photo at the top of this post shows The Heap after a couple of hours' work. Last April, before we'd done any relocation, it stood tall and proud. Over the course of the summer, before we stopped adding weeds, it began to bulge out from its iron walls.

Here it is once scalped:

A pleasant surprise was the cache of Charlotte potatoes, probably grown from a potato I'd thought too small to be worth taking home.

Now 'all' that remains to be done is to sieve out the residual couch grass roots from the rich, crumbly compost and spread it over the beds. I'm keen to get on with it, and to return this part of the plot to growing something other than weeds and a few rogue potatoes.

Greenhouse maintenance

2010-01-16T17:02:00.006Z

Thank you to all who have left kind messages. Things are now improving, but with quite a way to go yet.

The greenhouse above is my Dad's, in the last few days of Britain's Big Freeze. Day-time temperatures on Speyside were around minus 13 C, and snow depth in our little pocket 18 inches to 2 feet. Since we were weather-proofing Dad's house, we had to weather-proof the greenhouse too. My husband is standing on a mound of snow that he's cleared previously from the roof.

In the shots below you can see the layers of snow. Not surprisingly, given the way the snow has fallen, the Cairngorm ski area has avalanche warnings in force. Although today the ski roads are blocked by 15 feet deep snow drifts. Lots of wry comments going around about there being no snow when you want it, and then it all comes at once.

Pausing the blog

2010-01-08T09:34:00.000Z

Family illness means I'll be away from blogging for a while.

Skywatch Friday - what sky?

2009-12-18T22:14:00.004Z

Last Friday I took a day off work for a combined allotment/Christmas shopping blitz. It was a day of freezing fog, and not surprisingly I was the only person mad enough to be working my plot that day. While I was working - hard - I was warm enough, but as soon as I stopped the damp chill seeped into my bones. I drank my thermos of tea sitting on a deckchair inside the shed, looking out at the foggy view, and felt very...British and eccentric.

More skies from around the world, including some with sun, are at Skywatch Friday.

Wish list - Forsythia

2009-12-18T07:45:00.003Z

Does anyone else remember the old-style Woman and Home magazine, that our mothers and their friends used to get? Before its makeover into empowered womanhood and a 'brand new attitude'? It was a 1950's time capsule of household hints, knitting patterns, soft-focus short stories, and flower arranging. Even in my childhood I knew this magazine was seriously out of date, but there was a certain comfort about it. Most of all, it has left me with a love of Forsythia, that brave winter flower that seemed to feature in all the 'arrangements' between November and March.

I long to have Forsythia in my garden or at the allotment. Not that I am into flower arranging, but a few sprays of it in an IKEA vase would brighten up the gloomiest December day. And hurtle me right back to my childhood.

For the moment I have to make do with this sunny patch at the entrance to the allotment site.

Still working

2009-12-13T18:16:00.005Z

It may not seem like it from this blog, but things are still moving slowly at the allotment. A bit like this worm, disturbed as I cleared out the dahlias that seemed like a good idea at the time. I did have a slight pang of regret as I dug them out. They were strongly established, with huge tubers. But they need staking, and they don't attract bees, and they get so heavy and sodden in the rains of September and October. And they're full of forky-tails (Scots for earwigs). So it was out with them the other week while the soil was still workable.

In digging them out I disturbed not only worms, which of course I was glad to see, but several ladybirds hiding under fallen leaves. The work went all the more slowly because I kept gently relocating the ladybirds under a different pile of leaves, and they kept stolidly heading back to where I was digging so I stopped again and...

I see other garden bloggers are still busy, but I've had no time to visit. I hope to have a big catch-up treat once this last crazy week of work and school end of term finishes.

St Andrew's Day - allotment style

2009-11-30T20:40:00.003Z

Even allotments fly the Scottish flag, albeit in a tattered state. A bit like the rest of allotment life - determined but a bit ragged round the edges.

A national holiday today, and of course more fireworks this evening. That's two lots in seven days here. We could perhaps have a rest from pyrotechnics until Hogmanay..

Still green

2009-11-28T18:24:00.002Z

The green manure is still green. And downy. It was only when I was up close to it yesterday, with the low sun slanting across the leaves, that I noticed the fine hairs on the leaves of the red clover.

Lots of lovely nitrogen fixing going on. I will definitely sow clover again. The other green manure I tried this year - field beans - not so sure, since they didn't give the blanket effect I was after, and were a pain to dig in. Mind you, I haven't tried digging in the clover yet.

After the gales

2009-11-27T19:21:00.004Z

It could have been worse. The frame supporting the netting was still standing firm, and our shed was untouched. The plot next door wasn't so fortunate. They have a classic allotment shed put together from offcuts and old doors, and the recent gales tore away one whole side. I didn't take a photo. It seemed a touch voyeuristic.

I found a stout stake to replace the cane that this plant had been tied to, and tied the stake to the metal frame to make doubly sure. Although the ground was still sodden from all the recent rain, I couldn't push the stake in very far even with leaning all my body weight on it. I would have needed a man with a mallet (as opposed to a woman with a chainsaw - anyone else know that campfire song? 'I need a woman with a chainsaw...to keep me warm at night').

As these things do, the date has embedded itself in photos I've taken over the past couple of days. It must have happened when I fumbled with my camera in the dark while considering whether to try to take a photo of the 'lighting of the Christmas tree fireworks' yesterday. I've spent a frustrating hour this afternoon reading the camera manual and discovering how to embed the date, but not how to reverse the steps to un-embed it. Eventually, by dint of my favourite technique when dealing with anything mechanical - random prodding of buttons (which drives my family crazy), I seem to have got rid of it. Until the next time.

Poor neglected allotment. Bad weather, extreme activity in schlepping daughter and harp and violin around the place in the run-up to Christmas, and general November lethargy mean that it's further down the priority list at the moment.

Skywatch Friday - portents

2009-11-14T08:52:00.006Z

Sunday's blue skies began to change as I worked at the allotment. To the south, all was cloudless and calm, but to the north mares' tails appeared. I felt a sense of foreboding, and checked the netting over the broccoli in the face of what I was sure would be wild weather overnight. The broccoli is coming along well, protected from the pigeons this year.

On my walk home the eastern sky was full of portents too. I was even more certain that we were in for a stormy night.

But Monday morning came with the first white frost of the year, and my first thought on seeing it was that I didn't have my frost-loving winter planting garlic in yet. My second thought was relief - at last some seasonable weather.

More skies around the world are at Skywatch Friday.

Contrast

2009-11-09T20:46:00.005Z

Unlike last week when all was dark and sodden, this Sunday was blue skies, sunshine and glowing colours. I'd resolved not to do any work at the allotment, because I'd been working all morning in the garden. With a ferocious pace at work just now I knew I needed a few hours on Sunday afternoon just to read, rather than to be in perpetual motion all weekend.

But it was impossible not to do just a little bit of tidying up. I thought the dill should come out, and then I could tackle the field beans, and before I knew it I'd been working for an hour. Just before I pulled out the dill I took this last shot of its autumn glory. After that I broke off the stems of the field beans and left the roots in the soil. Next week, if it's fair, I'll dig over that part of the plot and let the roots rot down and keep their nitrogen in the soil.

At home I finally managed to plant out the wallflowers I'd been bringing on from tiny plug plants. In the spring they'll be a fragrant lemon and orange splash of colour alongside scarlet and yellow tulips. The copper tape round the pots had successfully repelled snails and slugs, so I'll definitely use that again. I just love that extra touch of the sharp points along the bottom edge!

But oh dear, look at what I found poking through the soil.

Crocuses. In November, in Scotland. Wrong.

Why?

2009-11-01T20:20:00.006Z

Why, on a day of non-stop rain, did I squelch along to the allotment? Rain pooling in every slight hollow in the soil. Everything sodden, and no-one else in sight.

This shot has come out much brighter than it actually was. We had lights on indoors all day, and by 3 o'clock daylight was fading.

The path through the trees shows it like it was.

But I needed some chard for tonight's meal, and having made up my week's menu it was somehow easier to plod out in the soaking rain than to think of an alternative. In the end, I was glad I'd done it.

Found

2009-10-18T18:26:00.002+01:00

And indeed it is.

After taking these shots I put my camera in my pocket and forgot to take it out again as we worked at the plot this afternoon. The grass just keeps growing, so there was a major strimming session. I weeded the strawberry bed, which was being invaded by couch grass. All around, leaves were falling from the ash trees that border the site. When we're next back - which will be in a couple of weeks now - I'll rake them up and bag them for leaf-mould.

We agreed that we needed to use the winter to get the borders of the plot under control, and to reclaim more ground from grass. That depends on having a relatively snow and frost-free winter. The Winter Olympics might be crossing fingers for snow, but we're not.

Naughty

2009-10-13T21:29:00.006+01:00

Bad enough, but when it comes to holes dug in the middle of newly planted overwintering onions...

I've been unable to visit other blogs much lately. Hope to emerge from this busy spell soon and see what's happening elsewhere.

Glimpses

2009-09-30T20:19:00.005+01:00

My walk to work takes me past an allotment site. Every morning it tantalises me - here am I, heading into an office, when just the other side of the fence is where I would rather be.

Still, it makes for a good start to the day.

Only three

2009-09-23T20:35:00.001+01:00

Strange only to be pulling three beetroot instead of four. These little reminders that I now have a son away at university pop up in the most unexpected places.

Rainbow chard - THE receipe

2009-09-20T08:19:00.003+01:00

For a while I've been searching for something else to do with rainbow chard than steaming or sauteing with chilli flakes. I like it this way, but the rest of the family is lukewarm about it. Now, at last, I've found THE receipe, which everyone likes, which makes chard into a meal, which is as good cold as it is hot, which can be taken to work for a packed lunch...

It's by Thomasina Miers, from the 'Soul food' section in The Times newspaper.

"Swiss chard pastilla pie

Serves 4-6

6 sheets filo pastry
50g currants
50g raisins
1 bundle of chard, about 600-800g
1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp pine nuts
100g Parmesan
2 lightly beaten eggs
75g feta, crumbled
zest of a lemon
70g melted butter

Pre-heat oven to 180C/Gas 4. cover the currants and raisins in boiling water. Brown th epine nuts in the oven until golden brown. Run a knife along the chard stalks to remove the leaves. Wash and slice the stalks into strips (you may need to use only half), then wash and cut the leaves into large strips.

In a pan heat the oil and soften the onion and garlic, seasoning with salt and pepper. Meanwhile blanch first the stalks and then the leaves in boiling salted water until tender and drain well. Add this to the onion mixture and heat through to evaporate any excess liquit. drain the currants and raisins and add to the chard along with the pine nuts. Remove from the heat and add the Parmesan, feta, eggs and lemon zest and allow to cool.

Grease a frying pan with an ovenproof handle or shallow round baking dish (about 20-25cm wide) with melted butter. Lay five sheets of filo pastry in the pan at angles, brushing them with butter as you go, making sure that some of the sheets hang over the sides. Now fill the pastry with the chard mixture.

Place the last piece of filo on top of the filling and fold the overhanging pieces of pastry over the filling. Brush again with the melted butter and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is golden. If you like, transfer to the hob and heat for a few minutes to ensure that the bottom is crisp.

Serve either from the pan or slide out onto a large plate, dusted lightly with cinnamon. Good with a mixed leaf salad."

I didn't use currants and raisins, as we don't like sweet/savoury dishes. I didn't use feta, as we had Wenslydale cheese in the fridge which is a bit like a British feta. It still tasted good!

Things are busy just now, and while I'm keeping up with other blogs I'm not managing to leave comments very much. There's so much out there to enjoy, and so little time!

Doing nothing

2009-09-16T08:01:00.008+01:00

On Sunday afternoon I took the house compost pail along to the plot, and intended to do some work while I was there. But I saw nothing that wouldn't wait another week, the sun was warm, and I was tired. I'd left husband sawing up large IKEA shelves (Ivar, for those on first name terms with the IKEA range) to make smaller IKEA shelves, daughter practising her clarsach, and son away at university in Glasgow. For a brief spell there was no obligation on me to do anything at all.

I looked out across our plot and our neighbour's, listened to the wind in the trees, and soaked up the sunlight that is beginning to slip away now. Sunrise today was 6.47 a.m., sunset will be 7.28 p.m. Almost at the equinox. It felt good just to sit, at this turning point of the year, and look.

From my deckchair I took these shots of what was around me.

Seeding dill:

Elephantine rhubarb:

The door plank splintered in the last break-in attempt on our shed:

A bee on a marigold:

And for once I felt no Calvinist guilt about doing nothing.

Nothing doing

2009-09-13T22:01:00.004+01:00

Seeds sown on 23 August, and so far only three carrot seedlings have come through. I sowed more lettuce a week earlier, and there's no trace of that either. Too warm for the lettuce to germinate? Too late for the Autumn King carrots, probably, despite their name. I had a rosy picture of lettuces going on into the autumn under cloches. It's been a funny old year for germination.

Onion harvest

2009-09-06T08:00:00.006+01:00

We do have more than one onion. In fact they've been our most successful crop this year, to the extent that we're running out of space to dry and store them. We haven't had two dry days/nights together for a very long time, so leaving them on the soil to dry off, as the books optimistically advise, isn't an option.

After removing (with no loss of life) the snail nursery:

parts of our old fridge/freezer come in handy, as drying racks in the shed:

But the shed's full, and now we have overspill into the garage at home, where because it's so rainy the washing drying on the Victorian pulley is deliciously permeated by the smell of onion. We don't own a tumble drier, so when it's wet this is the alternative. Teenage noses are beginning to wrinkle.

Another item on the list for the forthcoming shed interior makeover: drying lines on the walls.

Catch it while you can

2009-08-31T19:53:00.001+01:00

That's what we've been doing this summer in Scotland when the sun has shone. Foxes and people alike.

Field beans harvest

2009-08-26T20:58:00.003+01:00

If we'd wanted to harvest a crop from the green manure field beans we'd have been in luck. As it was I racing to cut off the seeding heads before they scattered their largesse onto the soil. It hardly seems any time since I was opening the packet and pouring the brown triangular seeds into my hand.

After the chop, the stems went in the compost, leaving the roots and short stalks behind to keep doing green-manure-ish things for a while longer.

Green manure

2009-08-09T17:43:00.011+01:00

For the first time I was organised enough to sow a green manure. Organisation didn't extend to some crops that I meant to sow, but life's been busy. The shot above is of the two rows of field beans that have been the most vigorous crop on the plot this summer. Taken on 2 August, compare it with the shot below, taken on 19 July.

The bean flowers have been hugely attractive to bees and flying insects in general.

The thing now of course is that I need to cut them down before the flowers set seed, and we're about to go away shortly for a few days. There may be some vigorous hoeing in store for me next year, but at least I've done something to start enriching the soil. We seem to have been making compost forever, and have only used half a bin full so far. But because this summer has been so wet the soil has remained rich, warm and soft, like coffee grounds rather than dried out to a lumpy hardness.

With several rows of new potatoes now lifted, I decided to sow another green manure, this time crimson clover. I've been looking for manures that will please the bees as well as doing my soil good. Here's the area I sowed with clover on 3 August, broadcasting it in what I fondly imagined was a competent medieval peasant style. We'll see what happens!

At the left of the shot you can just catch a glimpse of the utter failure of the green pea crop. I think I sowed too late, or kept the young plants hanging on in their cardboard tubes too long, or... it was just one of these things. Pity, because I was looking forward to fresh green peas. I would never buy them fresh in pods from a supermarket, because they're less fresh than the frozen variety, for an exorbitant price. But green peas eaten straight from the plant are better than any sweets.

12:34:56 on 07/08/09

2009-08-07T15:57:00.003+01:00

Confessions - at 12:34:56 I was actually asleep in the sun in the back garden, but this is the scene minus the sun-soaking bodies of my daughter and me. We have had a week without significant rain, and it has been blissful.

Cultural features to note: the indestructible tartan "travelling rug", a traditional ingredient of Scottish picnics. I have a photo of me as a toddler sitting between my grandparents on such a rug spread out over the heather somewhere in the Braes of Glenlivet. Early 1960's. Grandmother wearing best Sunday cardigan buttoned up tight. Grandfather, a trawler fisherman, looking disconcerted by this landlubbers' custom. White bread tomato sandwiches, the juice from the tomatoes bleeding into the bread. A tartan Thermos flask of strong tea.

Moving to more recent times, two France '98 World Cup (football) cushions, bought for a snip in a supermarket in Brittany a few weeks after the final. And a waterproof-backed polar fleece rug, bought in a general store in a little village on the edge of Dartmoor, down in Devon. Just the thing for those many summer days when the sun shines but the grass may be a tad damp.

Veg Plotting is hosting a gathering of photos of what other gardeners were doing at 12:34:56 on 07/08/09, using UK date notation.

Broccoli art

2009-08-07T08:08:00.005+01:00

One of last year's broccoli plants, drying out before being chopped up for the compost heap. I thought we might as well get some allotment art out of it at the same time.

It always surprises me just how small the broccoli root system is, considering what a huge edifice it supports.

Raspberry removal

2009-08-04T09:25:00.007+01:00

The raspberry situation has been going from bad to worse. Plentiful berries, but malformed, scabby fruit, fruit withering before it can ripen, dry and brittle canes, wilting top-growth, yellow-mottled leaves, this season's green canes snapping, and the biggest yuck factor, pale wriggly larvae in the berries. Any unaffected berries we've been able to find have been delicious and sweet, so it took us a while to accept that the canes had to come out.

Researching the cause has thrown up a nexus of ghastly possibilities. Ken Muir's 'Grow Your Own Fruit' has a lurid 20 page section on pests and diseases, with the sort of photos of bugs and beasties that when I was young made me try to turn the page of National Geographic magazine without touching the technicolour specimens displayed for my education.

By the time I'd finished with Ken's pests and diseases, I'd turned into a raspberry hypochondriac. It seems that our canes have not just one, but several afflictions, each more horrible than the last. Raspberry beetle: that's obvious because of the larvae, which as Ken says more graphically than is perhaps necessary, "can often be seen crawling around the punnet after the fruits have been picked." "Ultimately, there will be many small malformed fruits and heavy crop losses...Attacked drupelets turn brown and hard...The presence of the grub inside the fruit renders (for most people) the fruit inedible." We're definitely in the 'most people' category here, and we've got all these symptoms.

But wait! There's also raspberry leaf and bud mite. "The feeding on the leaves gives rise to distortion and irregular yellow blotching on the upper surface of leaves which to the inexperienced observer can be confused with virus infection. Apical buds of young canes are sometimes killed, leading to the development of weak lateral shoots. Attacks on fruits cause irregular drupelet development, uneven ripening and malformation." Yes, yes and yes.

Here's raspberry cane midge: "The failure of canes to break into leaf at the end of the winter and the wilting of the fruiting canes at any time between bud burst and picking are the obvious signs that has been an infestation by cane midge during the previous summer."

We've got the lot - larvae, blotching, wilting, distortion, the failure of the other row to break into leaf at all. Ken notes again and again, with some regret, "There are no label approved chemicals available to the amateur gardener for this pest." So we followed one of his solutions, which was to cut off all growth at ground level, to be followed by cultivation of the ground around the stools over the winter to expose overwintering bugs to the birds.

Taking a chance because they've outgrown their temporary pot, I put in the six new canes of Tulameen into the row we'd dug out earlier. I realise now that I left them with too much top growth, but I'll cut them back next visit, so that they're encouraged to throw out more growth from the root.

Beyond the new row of rasps the strawberry bed is all vigorous green leaf. Time for that to come off, now that fruiting is over. The season is turning.

Back garden harvest

2009-07-27T17:43:00.007+01:00

Years of attack by snails have reduced the range of fruit and veg I'm willing to risk in our small back garden. Lettuces disappear overnight, no matter what defences I put up.

Here's what's growing at home this summer. The blueberries above are 'Nui', and are doing well in their first year. Our soil isn't particularly acidic, but I've added sawdust and water when I remember with ericaceous feed. The variety below is 'Bluecrop', not doing so well in its second year. I think I need to increase the acid feeding regime. Somehow it can be more difficult to look after plants that are right outside the back door than those at the allotment.

I've seen a few bounteous shots of blueberries recently on North American blogs, and they've reminded me that blueberries are one of our great treats when we cross the Atlantic (which isn't as often as we'd like). Big bags of blueberries and cherries are what we make for on our first shopping expedition. Here we have measly 4 ounce punnets imported from Poland for 'only' £1.99.

The Alpine strawberries are enjoying this year's damp summer. I remember now that I ordered half a dozen of the 'Baron Solemacher' variety for the allotment some months back. I assume that they'll be delivered in the autumn.

The feathery stuff beside the strawberries are a mystery at the moment. It may be dill, or it may be love-in-a-mist. I daresay I'll find out soon.

Courgettes 'Black Forest' are doing surprisingly well for their shady situation, although some leaves are suffering snail attack.

Harbinger

2009-07-26T13:45:00.003+01:00

And then it rained. And rained again. The black finger coming out of the middle of the cloud is pointing down at our plot, just over the hill from this adjacent allotment site. We haven't been to the plot all week: with a combination of torrential downpours and my daughter's French exchange partner visiting just now, we've grabbed the chance of any good weather to get out and about in town and further afield. Mushy strawberries will be awaiting us, I'm sure. But I'm not stressed about it. We're enjoying what we're doing just now, and the one thing we said when we took the plot on was that we weren't going to let it become a millstone rather than an enjoyment.

In the meantime, the build-a-ball frame kit has arrived, much more quickly than promised. It feels good to be armed against the pigeons.

Brassica cage (at last)

2009-07-19T23:06:00.005+01:00

After a week of rain the sun shone today. Next week's forecast is for rain again, so we put in a long session at the allotment. The most pressing task was to construct a brassica cage. I had given in last week and and ordered a build-a-ball cage, but it won't be delivered for another 2 weeks. Meantime my first batch of purple sprouting broccoli was hitting its head against the fleece tunnel - you can just see it beyond the onions in the shot above. So ingenuity was called for, and the children's old climbing frame turned out to be just the thing. Husband and daughter are here manouevering it into position. We tried out all our stock of netting, but none of it was big enough to drape over the frame and attach securely on all sides. Work was therefore suspended for a trip to Homebase. One thing led to another, and it was mid evening before we returned to the plot for the netting ceremony.

I popped in the second row of broccoli plants recently arrived from Delfland Nurseries, seen in the foreground with their little anti-cabbage butterfly collars, and we then pinned and pegged the netting in place. Although we bought the biggest size Homebase offered, we had to cut in in half to cover the whole frame down to the ground. Clothes pegs came in handy to join the two halves of the netting together.

Once my posh build-a-ball frame arrives, we'll use the climbing frame set-up to cover the blackcurrants for next year's crop.

I've just noticed that the first shot shows our pitiful garlic crop. It's the yellow straggly stuff at the front of the picture. This was the first time I've grown spring planted garlic, and probably the last if I get my act together to order the winter variety in the next few weeks.