Balancing on the Edge

As the ground lies frozen, and fingers drum on the table, in a toasty kitchen, I'm very conscious that we're zooming in towards the Winter Solstice, timed for 1747 GMT today. And then the days will start to lengthen and they will be taken up in a flurry of activity. Though, there are still a few more days to leaf through those catalogues and plan.

But as I think about the solstice, and its mechanics, and all the green and blue on this planet, it is the product of some pretty fine tuning.

Because the earth is tilted at an angle of 23.45 degrees relative to the sun as it travels around it, you get differing amounts of exposure to the sun, so creating the seasons. And the reason for the solstice today.

Effectively, the Earth wobbles back-and-forth as it whirls around the Sun. Leaning over backwards to produce winter, so the Sun's rays glance off us leaving little warmth behind. And leaning forwards , thrusting its face into the sun to soak up all the Sun's warmth, to create summer.

But there's just enough of a difference to produce these brief December days, which we spend hiding in the kitchen, dreaming dreams of tomatoes, peas and what have you, and the long summer days that stretch tantalizingly before us.

Any more of a tilt and we could be looking at winters lasting years, and think of the amount of paraffin you'd need for your greenhouse.

But it does seem so finely balanced for us. Much farther away from the sun, regardless of the tilt and you wouldn't want any ice for your G&T, a bit nearer and we'd be applying factor 400 sun cream.

And all of the beauty on this earth, the plants, birds, animals, everything, that has come about because of this supreme balancing act may all disappear, as such subtlety seems to be beyond the ken of our political masters.

Call me an old cynical goat, but I doubted that all those bigwigs, politicians and spin meisters that descended on Copenhagen about a week ago would ever appreciate the situation about global warming. They didn't, and they can't, as it is beyond their short-term political needs. The only winners from the global warming conference would have been waiters, taxi drivers and prostitutes, all earning their whack in their own way.

Now is the time for us to step forward and show to these politicos that polluting gases have to be cut by 40% by 2020, just to stop world temperatures rising on average by 2 degrees centigrade. Again it's the subtle balance again, it doesn't sound a lot, just 2 little degrees, but that's what we need to keep the world roughly in balance.

Anything much further than that and the world will be beyond a tipping point, and things will get fairly difficult.

So as Johann Hari says in the Independent, we'll have to take the power into our own hands. Politicians seem to have little inclination to do anything concrete, as they cannot look at global warming as a global problem.

Adding It All Up

Lazy would be one word, another couple would be too busy, but it's been awhile since logging on, though I have been keeping up with the blogs on the side there, and it looks like everything has been ticking over nicely. Apart from the lady with the skin disease's matrimonial mayhem, good luck there and chin up old girl.

I started this allotmenteering about a year ago now and it's time to take stock has it been worth it? Well I'm biased; if I had only produced some dried-up radishes and slug-nibbled strawberries it would still have been worth it. just standing out on the ground with the weather happening around you, breathing in the smell of freshly-turned earth is fairly priceless, and working outside is a reward in itself. So I won't do an accountant's look at this, though the 12 lbs of strawberries have got to be a bargain, but just to look at the failures and successes.

Failures first: Well what happened to the rhubarb? I put in four different crowns, and a couple tried poking their leaves through the soil but kept failing......soil, weeds or jinx?

I had a lot of potatoes, but generally smallish, so more watering and manure there I think.

The cauliflowers were pillaged by pigeons after I planted them. Mea culpa on this one as I failed to cover them. This has to be permanent standing order on this, putting out brassicas, cover them immediately.

I think I could have had a few more pumpkins, one per plant isn't great, and a lot more courgettes. I think this may have been to do with my lack of watering.

Some of my tomatoes, the big ones like mortgage lifters and some of the cherokee ones were hit by some strange viral infection, I don't think it was blight.

Successes: Strawberries, bags of them, quite literally.

Along with some delicious ice cream.

I was hit by some weird disease which I didn't think was blight but some form of blossom end rot. The tomatoes went all bubbly and started to rot.

However, there were quite a few tomatoes on the unaffected plants. I adore the smell of tomatoes, so rich, and the ripening green fruit covered with minute hairs seemingly dripping already with some sort of essence of tomato. Sometimes they look even better half way grown than when ripe.

to be continued...

Of Cabbages and Pens

"The time has come to speak of cabbages -and pens-

And why the tea is cold—

And whether slugs have souls.”

Spent about 3 hours the other day building two pens to keep the cabbages from escaping to attack the pigeons. Having seen the cauliflowers devastated by the pigeons I would be quite willing to go out shooting pigeons. Greedy little dunderheads.

I didn't realise I had so many cabbages in the seed bed. Planted out 30 odd assorted cabbages, january Kings as the label tells me. But courtesy of the numpties at B&Q where I bought the tags and a pen, the name was washed off the label; the pen wasn't water proof, numpties.

The cabbages were a little large, some of them, to be transplanting as they seemed to have quite a large tap root, and they wilted quite quickly, but I gave them a good water and we'll see.

There's still a truck load of red cabbages to take up to the other allotment, another twenty or so. if all these cabbages come good, well we'll be cabbaged out.

I also sowed a few lines of swede; a bit late but we'll see.

Salad Days

Naff headline but I have been sowing lots os salad in the back garden, along dome radish d'avignon, spinach, bella?, along with perpetual spinach and some nero broccoli, a little late but there you go, and a few lines of the beetroots, red ace and the bolthardy.

This afternoon I should make some sowings of swede, magres, that well late like, but what you going about it like, yeah and some spring cabbages, advantage and durham early.

That is all folks.

Oh and I tidied up my pots and planted a small herb bed, oh turned the compost, both bins, sigh.

Courgette a Go Go

The courgettes look like they're taking off. there are two types there an Italian striped one and errr another one, I'll get back to you on that.

Pain de L'eau

It's turning out like Jean de Florette; the tanks were running dry last week. Mmmmm some sort of water rationing going on. I arrived at the tank with me cans and all i saw was a dead donkey lying in the bottom, oh well that may be an exaggeration, but it was certainly pretty low. I had to go on the prowl to other tanks to get some.

I also sprayed the potatoes with Bordeaux, it's expensive but it keeps away the blight, though the Gentlemen of the Can who invade the allotments to suck on my potato leaves are a bit of a problem. That was on July 3, so fingers crossed I'll do that again in two weeks, 17 ish.

I have also augmented the pumpkins and marrows that I put out earlier with more pumpkins from the seed saved last year. Since I saw how strong the runner bean plants looked, which were from seed saved last year, I'm converted to saving my seed. Fnnaaar.

Picked the peas on the eden allotment, but about a quarter had pea moth caterpillars in them. That took a while to sort out those nasty little beggars; I'm going to compost them having drowned the caterpillars in a bucket of water.

Also picked a load of green goosberries, so I might have a tart tonight or possibly a fool. Ther was a bit of a small rain storm when I was picking, but that made a nice change, these days.

Strawberry Fields Forever

The other day I sat down in the strawberry patch, in the stealth fruit tent, and picked 4 lbs of strawberries without having to stretch. The day was sunny so I was working in a sweet, heady strawberry-scented cloud.

What can one do with that many strawberries? Well, we weren't geared up for jam making but we used the newly bought ice-cream making machine (A dangerous purchase, who would have thought the health conscious under gardener would do such a thing?) and churned up a bucket of strawberry ice cream along with a pail of sorbet, while the rest became Cossack strawberries, bathed in vodka as cold as the steppes in January and sprinkled with some sugar.

And the next day, another lb or so of strawberries were collected, more sorbet mixed up and more eating of the strawbs. The whole house is beginning to smell of strawberries.

And it's a sugary, heady combination, so unlike the artificially manufactured strawberry flavourings. One lad at work says he doesn't like real strawberries as he prefers the chemical strawberry taste. You know when you eat strawberry ice cream that it's not quite right, the taste is sweet but not rich enough and redolent enough, the colour a little too glaringly pink, like someone overcompensating and becoming excruciating.

It's an eye opener when you see home made strawberry ice cream, it's a pale delicate pink, more of a misty pinkness, possibly the colour of angel ears, while the taste is complex but understated in a very modest way.

Eat your heart out super, mega, world global mega-brands, pedalling your cloying, saturated dreams of your food scientists.

My strawberries can barely travel more than 2 miles and will only last a few hours after that, hence the sorbet and ice-cream rushes. But the ice cream hawkers have to have industrial strength strawbs, and the resulting concotions ahve to be bolstered by their chemicals.

But then again when you have people who prefer the taste of chemicals and the many more who have never made their own ice cream, then maybe the food giants have inherited the earth.

The next glut to look forward to is blackberries. I pick these wild across south London, yes wild in London, there are many secret places where there are jungles of brambles.

Can A Snail Eat a Large Strawberry

I'd noticed quite a large strawberry reddening in the frame the other morning, and thought "Aye, aye, I'll have that tomorrow." Tomorrow dawned, wandered down to the frame and there was just a stalk, no strawberry, gone, picked clean by something. Now I found a snail in the pot, and he was dispatched to the great snail heap in the sky, but can it have slurped down a whole, large strawberry?

Then I thought, maybe, it was a mouse, or a rat?

Traps, I think.

The words of Genghis Khan sprang to mind, he wasn't a great gardener, but this is certainly good advice,

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

Well maybe I won't gather into my bosom the daughters and wives of the snails, mice and rats but I'm certainly going to scatter them.

Those strawberries are mine I say, mine.

The Stealth Fruit Cage

Over the last few weeks I've built a fruit cage on the Eden allotment, it covers the strawberry plants that were there before and the gooseberry bushes I put in, along with a few raspberry canes, and now apparently some rhubarb which has sprung up in the cage. Though it is difficult to see it on a photo, it is there. I was a bit worried about the bees getting in and out, but after watching one force it's way through the mesh like a British Lions forward then there isn't too much to worry about.There's the old greenhouse, a while ago full of runners, sunflowers and pumpkins, which got blown over a couple of weeks later, also the B&Q cloches which are quite good, should have got some more of those, this is in the back garden.
And some of the lettuces started under the cloche, beetroots started under the other one.

Best salad I've grown, those nematodes are doing their job.

These are the beans at Eden, field beans planted as a green manure, but they've really sprung up so I'll let them go on and try the beans, they seem so much more vigorous than the other named types I've sown. We've alreday had a lot of the bean tops with bacon, and in a soupystew.

This is the allium bed at the house, white onions, which are slightly running to seed, garlic which is getting a good kicking from the brown spot disease, I keep rippin leaves off. The garlic are still going, they loved the snow we had. And finally, some afghan shallots, well if they're not shallots we can have opium parties in the shed.

More beans, the bees are loving all the flowers.


And finally one of the cabbages, 9 more to go.

So having got some more grass clippings, and secured them from being liberated by a person or persons unknown I was eventually able to plant all the rest of the potatoes on the Clay Hill allotment. They take up three beds, which are roughly 5 by 11. I noticed the other day that one of the earlies was poking out of the ground.

I also noticed that one of my rhubarb plants has been nibbled, can't remember the variety.


Note to myself, to make a proper plan, but just thinking about it briefly I've got 10 beds in the back garden, 9 on Clay Hill and 11 at Eden Lane, that's 30 odd, I'll have to make a plan of these. Plus I've got the names sorted out, result.

I've also got a gnome for Eden Lane, got to have a gnome.

It's a beautiful day, I'm off allotmenteering.

The Strange Case of the Grass Clippings

This case sticks in my mind as a strange combination of nefarious cunning and petty intrigue, it was just after Holmes and I, Doctor Watson the erstwhile recorder of his fantastic cases, had just taken over an allotment. The shortage of allotments in London was such that it had even forced Holmes to leave the cosy environs of Baker Street to move to the dreary hills of south London. We managed to secure a reasonable house in the dull suburb of Dulwich, where the local inhabitants seem to be fascinated by white posts. I propose to study this sometime, for surely this must be an example of a deep-seated twee syndrome.

A few years ago we had had recourse to travel the high ways and many low ways of south London as he investigated his celebrated case of "The Diamond Geezer of Streatham," and after, for many weeks, his rooms had been as full of opium smoke as the dreadful crater of a rumbling volcano as he tried to forget the horror of south London.

I began to fear the worst, as after we had laid waste to the weeds of the long forgotten plot, and had then exerted ourselves in hearty digging of the lumpen clay soil, we divided the plot into two and I proposed to grow on my half some potatoes and other roots along with some runner and broad beans; healthful vegetables that would drive away the soots of London. However, Holmes' first enthusiasm for deep beds and bio-dynamic gardening seemed to have withered on the vine, and looking at his planting plan there seemed to be a preponderance of poppy beds and a small hemp plantation.

It was then, that an instance of great peculiarity served to jolt Holmes from his moribund state. One afternoon I had given the extensive lawns that we had at the back of the house their first cut of the season. Being of the mind to be as efficient as possible I thought I'll save the grass clippings so as to use them to plant the potatoes on, it stops scab growing on them.

Imagine my surprise on the morning of Good Friday that I came around the side of our house and saw that the bag of grass clippings had been emptied, with just a few clips left on the floor. Who could have taken them. I instantly thought that i should try to use the methods of my renowned companion. i instantly deduced that it must be a desperate person who would steal grass clippings; for what intent though? it must surely be some insane composter who seeing me cutting the lawn had though "yes, I shall have those for my very own heap," no doubt rubbing his hands in some mephistophelean glee.

"Quite, quite, Watson, don't get carried away, what we are looking at here is quite simply the work of..."

to be continued

No one Can Hear You Scream in the Rhubarb

On Sunday I managed to put in the first early potatoes; Emerald Vale and Kestrel Early, diging a small trench and lining it with grass clippings, it stops scab, apparently. maybe I put the rows too closew together, 16" rather than what I've been reading recently of 2', oh well we'll see.

Also, the crocuses are flowering and the tulips are sprouting on the clay patch. Also slowly, slowly the rhubarb is sprouting alien like out of the soil. It's just rank speculation, but I reckon the designer of Alien, or indeed the Director, thingymawhatsit, Cameron, that's it, had been in a rhubarb forcing shed in the Rhubarb Triangle and seen the disturbing sight of rhubarb rhizomes breaking through the ground by the light of a candle.

I have also put in a row of early carrots, Paris Market, which was under a cloche but that got blown off by the wind, lucky cloche, I say.

Also two rows of different parsnips, tender and true and errr something else.

I have also started building a cage around the goosegogs, strawberries and the raspberries. Slow going and every time I go down to build it it seems to strat blowing a gale.

Dung Beetles

A pile of dung and bits of straw and wood chippings was dumped inside the allotment gates on Friday.
Cue the scene on Saturday, everybody rushing for their barrows shouting "There shit goes." It was as if the massive pile of manure was a beached whale and we the benighted islanders of the lost isle of allotments have descended to take our share of sustenance. Wheelbarrowing the sacred loads of the muck to our own little plot. And mounding it and then cuddling it, muttering "my precious, my precious, all mine."

Still seven barrows up the hill has given me a decent pile to play with. With all that, I haven't had any time to do any digging but I have three days off work and am content to spend them digging and mucking around on the allotment.

But I did manage to clear up the remains of the previous owner who must have been a bit of a gardener. He, I'm presuming there but I've got a feeling, has left a large cold frame and a tool box, both in a state of disrepair and some pots and tools left there and a pair of shoes. Ah, That's why I know it's a man.

He has also left a allotment deity, which I found sitting at the foot of what I think is an apple tree.

On the other plot I managed to sow two rows of the parsnips; to see the difference, and under a polythene cloche some short carrots. Also some chives, to see whether they take off.

Packet of Dreams

Just like the hippy farmer Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, I keep hearing a voice as I stand on the allotment, well both allotments, on the field of clay allotment, I keep hearing "If you concrete it over, it will be better," fair point, but I will keep persevering with the Paschendale-like slog of digging the clay.
One good point is that I don't have a lot of heavily-armed Germans shooting at me.
Always grateful for small mercies.
But on the second allotment the voice is more beguiling, "If you sow it, it will grow." The possibilities seem endless. Shall I grow melons? Always good to have a nice pair of melons to tuck into. Or maybe peppers? It looks like this site will get pretty hot. Though I'm trying not to think about all the watering that will be needed. Hosepipes are banned, so it will be buckets. i can't help feeling that I might end up like Jean de Berengere in Jean de Florette, broken man from the watering, obsessed with rabbits, driven mad by the avarice of the peasants of Dulwich. Ah peut-etre, on verra, ma jolie lecteure.
Still, it'd be nice to see Emmanuelle Béart flitting around the allotments naked with a flock of goats.
But after listening to the second voice I've bought some more seeds from the organic seed company:
Early Jalapeno
Ring o Fire peppers

and Tender and True parsnips along with Cobham Improved Marrow

also inspired by optimism I'm going to sow some early carrots under a cloche, Paris Market.

And also for the back garden, I have two packets of parsley, Italian Giant. Which was great last year, the smell of fresh parsley, "smells like...like victory" "You just knew that he wasn't going to get so much as a scratch on the allotment."
The parsley is still growing under a cold frame along with some strawberries, which should be a bit early this spring.

A Day in the Life of Denisovich

Clearing the allotment the other day was a bit like a day in Ivan Denisovich, perhaps not as cold and not so much of a threat of dying from the cold but a lot more brambles to be pulled up, and some of those thorns were slicing their way through my gloves. Tough, dirty work but it had to be done or you would lose your standing on the allotment. As a newbie I was wandering around the groups, wheeling barrows, cutting brambles and eventually, eventually pushing twigs into the shredder.

But we did see a frog whilst doing some clearing. it was only a Common Frog, but what do you expect in South London

Potato Frenzy

The other Sunday I went to a Potato fair. Cycling across the hills of South London in a sharply cold wind was not the best and when I got to the fair, which I thought would just be a few people looking at some tatties, I had to fight to get near the potatoes, elbowing my way past middle class voices wondering whether to get Pink Fir or Charlotte. A sign of the new trendiness of the allotments.

Anyway I managed to pick up most of what I wanted.
So I got ,

Vale Emerald, first early, 9 of those

Royal Kidney, second early salad, 15

Belle de Fontenay, early main salad, 10

Maris Piper, main, 11

King Edward, late main, 5

Golden Wonder, late main, 10

that's 60 in total, which is probably about three beds worth.

If there are no potato fairs out there, try Thompson and Morgan's potato section, it's quite good but you have buy a score at a time, usually.