Summer update - blackcurrants

Despite lack of blogging activity, things have been happening at the allotment.  It's not in a fantastic state, but it's not critical either.

Rather than try to update all at once, I'm embarking on a mini-series of updates.  First up, our bountiful blackcurrants.  Or they would have been if we hadn't gone away for two weeks just at the peak of the crop.  We picked frantically the night before, and I froze 9lbs of berries.  Our little camping chairs provided the perfect way to avoid back strain while picking.

When we returned, the crop was on the ground and the wasps were having a merry time.  I did take another 1.5lbs from the bushes and made a few pots of jam straight away because the fruit was so ripe that it began to spoil once picked.  
 

Difficult to know when to go on holiday as a gardener!  If we'd gone the two weeks before we would have missed the strawberries.  Are just-picked strawberries in smaller quantity worth more than probably unmanageable loads of blackcurrants?  There is complex exchange rate of gardening which I haven't fully worked out yet.

What crops did you miss by going on holiday this year?

Decision made - perhaps

All Spring we've been swaying one way and then the other as we discuss whether to keep on with the allotment.  First of all I was absolutely convinced that we should give it up.  We would have so much more time for all sorts of things we keep meaning to do but never get round to.  Escaping Edinburgh and going walking at weekends.  Staying in Edinburgh and discovering parts we have never visited in 28 years here.  Tidying the loft.  Painting the house.

My conviction was absolute.  Then we went to the plot one glorious May evening, and I wavered.  The next day I swung back to my original gut feel.  The following weekend I sowed lettuce, Swiss chard, beetroot, carrots, spinach, rocket, and veered sharply in the opposite direction. 
 

And so it has continued, and at the moment we are being swayed by a bountiful harvest of strawberries and blackcurrants.
 

We have more lettuce than we can handle.  Our neighbours are resorting to making soup with what we inflict on them.
 

The onions are filling out, and it looks as if we will have a crop worth lifting this year.
 

And even the neglected and weedy pile of earth (a former compost heap/weed dump of the previous plot-holders) has put forth a stunning display of self-seeded foxgloves.
 

For the  moment it seems as if we are staying put for another year.  But we still have to find time to squeeze in our list of 'must-do' and 'nice to do'.  A few more hours each day, and a few more days each weekend would be good.

Decision time

How can it have been more difficult to get to the allotment in a summer where one 'child' has spent 2 months in Nepal, and the other has divided her time between France, Greece and working?  And now that they're both away at university (although only very recently), we still don't seem to have found the time.  Work, visitors, time spent as a family and time spent preparing for departures - all have taken priority over working at the plot.

We've made some small gains, despite our hectic summer.  Onions and shallots have been harvested, such as they were.  The hay (our pseudo straw) has been cleared from the strawberry bed and the old growth cut off.  Leeks have been planted, and are coming along oh so slowly.  The blackcurrant crop has been appreciated by the birds, and the fallen berries are creating a rich mulch beneath the bushes.

For the moment, the kale, broccoli and spring cabbage are holding their own beneath the bird netting.  Some signs of snail attack, and a healthy underplanting of grass which I'm gradually and painstakingly clearing by hand.  The soil has been too wet to use the hoe, so hand-weeding is the only option.
 

The old strawberry bed has become completely overgrown with grass, so to give ourselves an easier time we've covered some of it in light-stop membrane which I unearthed from the shed - ordered in 2004 and never used.

At our last visit a couple of weeks ago we came to a decision:  we're going to give the plot two more years, during which time we'll aim to have it productive and in order.  If at the end of that time we're still struggling for time, we'll give it up.  Longer term plans are beginning to take shape now that the children have finished school, and we want to have time to work towards these. 

Almost digging

A very gentle start to the Spring dig last week.  I went to the plot with the week's kitchen waste, and to pull a couple of leeks for a cheese and onion bread pudding (Cranks recipe).  I loved it - the rest of the family was lukewarm about it.  All the more for me!

Because we've been so tight for time the thought of the backlog of tidying up at the plot has been nagging at me, and so I thought I'd dip a toe in the water, or fork in the soil, and at least make a start.   You can see the paltry results above.  The plan for this winter was to have a no-dig, or minimum dig start to Spring, by sowing all bare ground with green manure.  It's been a very mixed experience.  

Below, the wilted-down phacelia.  This has been a success again after a trial last year.  For most of the winter it's stood green and robust, only recently giving way to frost.  But it still covers the ground and inhibits most of the weeds. 

Grazing rye, of which I had high hopes, has been literally patchy.  This is the patch.  Another whole bed sown twice with rye failed to come through at all.  Interestingly, although the rye hasn't come through, neither has much in the way of weeds.  

At the front of the photo below you'll see the first shoots of garlic.  Although we've had hardly any snow, there have been some good frosts, so hopefully the garlic will have got the cold it needs to form bulbs. 

The lighter straggly stuff below is what remains of the white mustard.  It was useful to mask weeds in the most difficult bit of the plot - under sycamore trees, with shade from mid afternoon onwards in summer, a buffer zone between the blackcurrant bushes and the main access road, and prone to infestation by creeping buttercup.  I've tried daffodils, dahlias as a summer display, a wildflower mix, and am thinking of putting spinach here this summer.  The soil is in good heart, rich in leafmould.  Some escapee daffodils meantime are cheering up the rather desolate remains of the mustard.

As for this bed - this is the site of the complete failure of the alfalfa.  Unlike the rye, the alfalfa's failure to germinate seems to have encouraged a mat of lawn-like grass.  This is going to make for painstaking digging.
 

In the event I didn't dig long.  The ground was very heavy - 'clarty' is the Scots word that springs to mind.  A sticky, heavy consistency.  Not to be confused with 'glaur' (wet, squelchy mud), or 'dubs' (drier, forming clods, and often marking the passage of a tractor along a tarmac road).

Now the green blade rises

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.

Jam tomorrow

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.

My weeds - creeping buttercup

An extremely vigorous specimen of creeping buttercup - one of my biggest 'weed headaches'. The Garden Organic website describes it as 'an efficient colonist of areas disturbed by man' and 'it can tolerate both waterlogging and a moderate drought'. Obviously built for survival, it's surviving just fine on our plot. If this were a vegetable I'd grown I'd be delighted with it. As it is, I'm waging war.

I went to the plot on Sunday not intending to dig. My back was giving me trouble - see why here. As I went out of the door my daughter said, 'No digging. Do you hear?'. And of course I meekly agreed. She's a pretty forceful young lady. But when I got to the plot and saw the gains that the buttercup had made around one of my one year old blackcurrant bushes I couldn't help myself. It was painful work. But so satisfying to fork up these long strands of roots.

When I got home I was rumbled immediately. 'You've been digging, haven't you?' I don't know how she knew. I've got off with a warning this time, but I still think it was worth it.

Afterthought: look how GREEN the grass is in this photo - and the frill of creeping buttercup round the base of the compost bin. It's January, but from this you might say April.

Sawfly

For a while I hoped that the newly planted blackcurrant bushes would stay pest-free. No such luck. A few weeks ago the leaves took on a lacy look, and I realised that the dreaded sawfly had struck. Finding the little blighters took a bit of detective work until I sussed out where the tiny caterpillars were hiding. Look for a crinkled up bit of leaf, seemingly welded together. Prize it open to reveal a wooly nest. Squish the wriggling green caterpillar firmly. The squishing produces a virulent, alien-green blood. Well, it was either squishing or using some chemical which has probably been banned by the EU, which I'm still determined not to do. But no matter how much I squish the leaves are still being eaten. Perhaps there are actual sawflies now, which flit away at my approach. My father still laments the battery of powders and sprays he used to deploy in the garden, until they were banned by Brussels bureaucrats. I'm holding firm, but I can see what he means.