Tender

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)

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

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

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

Skywatch Friday - what sky?

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

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

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.