It's a shed thing

The decision had been made and I was comfortable with it - happy even.  We had rationalised that with parental illness on both sides and the need to travel more frequently to help out in house and garden (and both parental houses have large gardens) our time for allotmenteering was going to be even more squeezed.  Add to that my husband starting a new job, and our wish to get out of Edinburgh more, and everything seemed to add up to a sensible decision not to renew our allotment lease.  

Having made the decision, I tested it out on my emotions when I visited the plot in early December.  What pangs of regret would I feel?  I tried not to dwell on the 'glad to see the back of', such as the endless battle with couch grass, the heavy soil, the feeling of obligation at spending sunny Sundays at the plot instead of out on the Scottish hills.  Perhaps because they were the only things growing, I did feel a pang about leaving the blackcurrant bushes and strawberry plants.  But once home again I returned to my calm, settled conviction that giving up the plot was the right thing to do, and began to plan for weekends away.

And then the gales came.  We dutifully visited the plot afterwards to check the state of the shed roof.  Although we were giving up very shortly, we didn't feel we could hand over a shed that we had let deteriorate through the worst of the winter months.  A section of tar paper had blown off, and it was decided that husband and son would return the following weekend to repair it.

They were out all afternoon, returning after dark.  A good, solid repair had been carried out, and another decision made.  We were keeping the plot for a further year, on the basis that so much investment had been made in infrastructure that we should try to maximise our return.

I sat and thought about the infrastructure.  Blackcurrant bushes?  Strawberry plants?  Two compost bins?  Posts for wires up against which to train non-existent raspberries?  There is nothing else - no paving, no fencing, no greenhouse, no fancy border edging or raised beds.  So I concluded that the only possible 'infrastructure' was the shed, and set about doing a mental U-turn towards planning and sowing.  And perhaps hopefully still some weekends out of Edinburgh.  

Getting tiresome

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.

Same but different

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.

Doing nothing

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.

Onion harvest

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.

Tinkering

After a day of gale-driven heavy rain on Friday the soil was too wet on Saturday for any serious digging. All rather frustrating, since the rampant wild forget-me-not is spreading. However, it's easy to dig out once things dry up a bit, so I mustn't get too downhearted about its onward march. I cheered myself up by a bit of year-end tinkering: checking the netting over the broccoli and spring greens and pegging it down more firmly, and planting some very late bulbs up against the shed, where the sunflowers had been in the summer.

The bulbs were the result of an exuberant order from Avon Bulbs in September, when I was confident of finding time to plant them up both at home and at the allotment. As it was, only my daughter got her share in on time, planted up in the courtyard of the Music School at her school - the beautifying of which she and a friend have taken on off their own bat. I was especially keen to finish planting, as the leftovers included some rather lovely White Parrot and Abu Hassan tulips. We'll see what manages to come up from this Christmas planting. As well as the tulips I popped in the last of a bargain bag of narcissi, reckoning that cheap and cheerful might have to carry the day.

I pulled a couple of leeks, sorted out some shallots to take home from the rack in the shed, and with daylight waning went for a muddy stroll round the site to see what was happening. There are always plots which I look at enviously - pristine, dug to perfection - and those which make me feel that others are in the same boat.

Evidence of Friday's gales - this tree was well and truly blocking the main access road.

Some greenhouses had broken panes, and sheds had tar paper ripped off the roof. I didn't take photos of those, but I felt that this lucky glass shed cum greenhouse deserved to be featured. One of the classic do-it-yourself allotment constructions, all tidy and ship-shape for winter, and eco-friendly down to its little push mower.

That was probably my last visit to the plot for this year. Very shortly I'll be heading north, to what looks like being a warm, wet Christmas.

Shetland gardening

Sorting through some photos today I came to a folder from a holiday in Shetland a few years ago. Amazingly, we had two weeks of almost constant sun, and of course that far north it's never completely dark in summer - the 'simmer dim' as it's known in Shetland dialect. Since it's raining again today, and we were chased from the allotment by a downpour after a couple of hours of determined work this morning, I felt like letting some sunshine in to these posts.

We rented a cottage from friends, undertaking to water their garden. In Shetland the great enemy of gardeners is the salt-laden wind. Many houses have shelter belts of 'rosa rugosa', with the seaward side of the bushes burnt brown by the salt in the wind. Tender vegetables are still grown inside the traditional circular stone enclosures. On my first visit to Shetland I took these for sheep fanks until I was corrected. Here's the gardening apprentice setting out to do some watering.


As well as the constant winds, the plants have to survive the attentions of the rabbit population, hence the chicken wire barriers.


When we returned to the mainland we were overwhelmed by the lushness of the vegetation after the wind-blown landscapes of Shetland. It all seemed too much - the municipal flower beds we passed in Aberdeen after getting off the ferry were psychedelic, and tall beech and chestnut trees seemed blowsy and fantastic. We have to go back. I think we all hanker after the space and sense of being at the edge of the world.


The lines of buoys marks out a salmon farm.


Gulf Stream notwithstanding, the sea temperature is pretty glacial. Who cares when you're young and have a beach to yourselves to build a sandcastle.


By car and ferry we made it right up to the tip of Unst, Shetland's northernmost island. Much of Shetland life revolves around the sea, and garden sheds on Unst are no exception.


We called in at the famous Unst bus shelter, which features a sofa, TV, microwave, lace curtains, a stuffed cat, and more.

The day we visited, the current planting was a trellis of sweet peas.


More about Unst here.

So today, on a gloomy Sunday afternoon, I wish I was in Shetland.

Soggy

'Soggy' makes a change from 'wet'. I pulled onions and shallots at the weekend. 'Lift onions and shallots and leave them on top of the ground in the sun until they have dried off', say the books. Not this ground.





Isn't that just disgusting? Wet and weedy.
Nevertheless, I lifted the rest of the shallots
and most of the onions.
We've run out of space at home to dry off
the oniony harvest, so I laid the shallots on a former
IKEA shoe rack in the shed, and took the onions home
to dry in the porch. Ideally they should all dry in the shed
and be stored there too, so that they don't begin to sprout
in the dark. As it is we'll just have to use them quickly.
The onions and shallots will get used up long before the
garlic - there's only so much garlic a Scottish family can eat.

We used to have a window in our shed, but we boarded it up after the first break-in, and after a second break-in we have no intention of replacing it. There's nothing of value in the shed any more, but I think the board is there to stay. The joys of city gardening. If we DID have a window, this is the sort of set-up we would have (perhaps without the Tibetan prayer flags).





I love this - it's so...'allotment'. Often I'll down tools and wander off round the site to see what's new, what's quirky, what's growing.















The ground still wasn't fit to be stood on, much less dug or weeded.

There are a couple of miniscule yellow courgettes just
peeking through. Normally by this time we would be
putting a brave face on yet another meal featuring courgettes, but this year I think we've picked four so far.
















One crop that is doing well is the slug. The little horrors were feasting on every head of shallots I lifted. Some were the fat little pink-ish cream beasts as here, others were vast, bilious khaki green tiger slugs.








Thank goodness for dahlias.