Thursday 2nd January, 2003 (am)
Happy New Year, folks!
Solstice is gone, and the days are getting a bit longer - not that I'm noticing it yet, but the birds are; as I'm typing at 6.30am, the garden chorus is singing away in the dark.
Time to take stock of last year? It turned out pretty good - if the 22 home-grown vegetables we've used over the past week of festivity is anything to go by!
That cold wet May was a bit of downer - we lost a lot of the very tender plants, but the rest caught up very well after a late start of summer. Whatever bad weather hit the rest of the country, seemed to pass Leeds by!
However, we always seemed to be panicking to catch up with ourselves last year - clearing the new beds for the potatoes was such a dirty and time-consuming job, that we were late with everything from then on. There's far too much to do in spring, without having to bring new beds into cultivation! At least that's one mistake I've not made this winter - we seem to be well ahead of ourselves.
Went up to the allotment yesterday for a wee bit of peace, and get some veg for New Year's dinner. Lovely mild day - could have spent hours!
The day before, Ayman and I transplanted the gooseberry cuttings we'd taken last winter. I felt a bit guilty chucking away 8 of the 12 plants, but there's no way we could have coped with all that harvest, or for that matter give up the space. Pruned all the fruit bushes, and mulched them with compost.
And we got one of the last corners cleared of rubbish - I've turned a compost heap over the weed growth. Next year, it'll be a good corner for a rhubarb patch. Not bad at all for a mid-winter afternoon - it was just cold enough for a bit of gentle work to keep us warm.
I'm wrong about not noticing spring is on its way. December has been mild and wet - and I've not been to the plot for 6 weeks, apart from occasional lifting a parnsip or two. The soil's bee just too wet. Now the season's on the turn, it feels good to be getting back in and working the soil - it's still too wet, but I'll go up just before sun-rise and potter away the morning.
As I finish this, the sky is just lightening to the east - I'm off to get my wellies on!
Thursday 2nd January, 2003 (pm)
"Solstice fever" strikes! A day for mad cleaning jobs!
I did enjoy rousing the seagulls from their overnight roost on the football fields, to get up to the allotment just as it was getting bright enough to do something useful. Caught the starlings waking up too, with their clamour in the sycamore.
The soil was far wet to do any more than clean up the brassica bed - get rid of all the stalks and roots of harvested plants, clean the brussels of dead leaves and blown sprouts. The Bedford Fillbaskets have barely a useable sprout - they have all blown; I wonder if that's because I didn't start harvesting as soon as there were sprouts lower on the stalks, or whether it's just the odd weather. I'll try them again next year - if nothing else I have some seed left over; but I do prefer the Noisette, for flavour, size, and standing power.
Once that was done - well, any digging or shifting compost was out of the question. It hasn't rained heavily, but it has been steady - and just enough to keep the soil "topped up" - and too wet to work.
So I got stuck into a couple of jobs - the kind of thing that, by the time summer comes, you know you should have done in winter. Could I be feeling smug and self-satisfied in summer, having cut back the bramble patches that border both of my half-plots? I've cut back to ground level about 30 square metres of solid bramble patch today; cleaned out the rubbish, and shifted it. Perhaps the brambles will not invade again for at least 2 or 3 years. The robin enjoyed it too - there were lots of snail or slug eggs on the brambles, so s/he's feeling well fed tonight!
Of course, it is more likely that their savage pruning today will stimulate them to even stronger growth; and I'll have even more of a problem, as they invade what will be the brassica beds!
I took the chance to clear some of the accumulated debris along the edge of my first plot - glass (lots of), old hose, metal pipes, plastic bags, old radios, and strange metal structures. Any time in the future I look at taking on allotment, I will avoid anything on which previous people have had structures they've allowed to decay!
A very satisfying day - I've been about 7 hours on the plot, and only gave up when a cold winter wind brought in a heavy shower just after three o'clock. Some of the day, I've even been working in shirt sleeves!