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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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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