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.

Shades of green

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.

Only three

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.

Inching along

It's been a lot of work, but somehow it feels as if we're just inching along at the moment. Busy weekends are partly to blame, and the season has been cold. The shot above shows the state of play at the end of a rather dogged afternoon's work last Sunday. Between the posts and the Weed Heap the potatoes are coming along nicely. The net and post contraption is the site of the first lot of green peas - 'Ambassador'. In the foreground are the ten celeriac plants that I put in the week before, and some short rows of a random mixture: two rows of beetroot, one of 'Boltardy, the other of 'Barabietola di Chioggia'; a row of rainbow chard; a row of spinach; and a row of radishes. Here's the celeriac in more detail. I hope to convert my family to it: I was first seduced by celeriac at school lunches in France when I worked as an English language assistante, and have hankered after growing it ever since.


The peas have come along slowly, probably because they haven't been watered frequently since planting. In fact although it's been cold it's also been very dry - the grass hasn't really grown again since it was strimmed the previous week.


I'm taking no chances with the pigeons and the green peas, so have swathed the young plants in netting.

Salads are still just creeping towards maturity. Perhaps I sowed them too early, in April. The lamb's lettuce is at last showing, but the spinach at the top left of the 4 rows in the photo below is being very grudging.


Now my early season ordering has caught up with me. The first of the phased delivery of purple sprouting broccoli arrived this week from Delfland Organics, and had to be potted up temporarily. The replacement raspberry canes arrived too, and are also in temporary quarters. I remembered with some dismay that I also ordered alpine strawberries, and they too will pop up midweek sometime soon.

Meantime I'm flat out at work finishing up before I go on leave for a glorious 7 weeks. Just 2 weeks to go, but the cost of that pace is a distinct lack of energy in the evenings. Add to that the end of term shenanigans at school and spare time is hard to find. Tomorrow I plan to be out in the garden at 7.00 a.m. - weather permitting of course.