Saturday, November 1st, 2003
Well that's very nearly all the digging done - on both plots.
It's been very pleasant over the last couple of afternoons. I love the smell of new dug earth - and it's all the better for a few surprises. In one bed, fresh soil becomes a sweet herby chamomile; in another, clean, fresh spearmint. And in one bed, a definite aroma of mushrooms - where that comes from I have no idea; not at all unpleasant, just mushroomy!
The fox has discovered the potatoes I'd left undug - so I've had to dig them all up. Time to make notes on this year's selection, and know what to avoid next season. (Update - I'm adding these notes to the individual vegetable pages.)
Still got the brassica bed to clean up, one small herb bed, and the fruit bushes to clean and prune; and the strawberry and raspberry plants to sort out after the summer's neglect. Neat little jobs that'll fit into a reasonable late autumn afternoon!
And tonight's discovery - the broad beans that I grow too many of every year? They are the same as the Foul beans of Middle Eastern cooking! I just cut the plants down when the pods were full and ripe, and hung the complete stalks up to dry; and shelled them this morning.
I've got a huge pot of them simmering on the stove just now - the smell is right, the taste is perfect. They are easier to cook than the dried beans I've bought until now - and much tastier than the tinned stuff.
I would never have dreamed the allotment would remind me of Egypt, nor that I could regret not having grown enough broad beans. Next year!
Sunday, November 16th, 2003
Crisp, sunny - lovely, late autumn day. Most of the trees are bare by now. Lifted the Yukon Gold and the Kerr's Pink potatoes - both seem to do well on my plot, and very well worth trying again.
But I found again black spots on the skins - really hard to wash off; I'd to scrape them off with a knife. It seems to be Black Scurf, fortunately only a cosmetic fungal infection. What's interesting is that I've ONLY found it on the varieties I got from the Potato Day - is it something which comes in primarily on infected seed?
Anyway, it is only cosmetic - so boiled Yukon Gold with the first of our leeks at dinner tonight; another very nice potato. We seem to have been very lucky with choosing to test varieties reputed to have good flavour. And I'm very pleased that the Kerr's Pinks do well on our soil - it's one I remember my parents growing when I was a kid in Aberdeenshire; great when you want a floury texture.
Got some of the garlic in - until Halla hurt her knee somehow; we'd to go home a little too early.
Looks like we've got rats on the site - the animals this time, as well as the humans who come in with their dogs to chase them. I wouldn't mind the latter - except they are not controlling vermin; they are taking pleasure in hunting, and to hell with anybody's vegetables which happen to be "in their way"!
Sunday, November 23rd, 2003
Crisp, sunny - lovely, late autumn day - naaah! With the hard frost winter's on its way.
Planted the rest of the garlic, tidied the herbs (dead-heading and pruning), and pruned the blackcurrant, redcurrant, and gooseberry bushes; now that's a silly job to do when your hands are so cold they don't feel the chunks of flesh being ripped out!
Spent the rest of the afternoon listening to and watching the birds - becoming much bolder in the cold. Starlings chur-churling in the beech and lime trees; sparrows tucking into bramble seeds; blue tits scavenging the cherry tree and elder bushes. Oh - and planning! I think I'm able to change the rotation plan so that I have separate rotations on each half-plot, instead of trying to work both as one unit. It might mean that I lose only half a crop, if we have the same problems with vandalism next year - instead of the whole lot. I'm going to have to buy my first onions for the kitchen in years tomorrow!
And I've now got back home, playing around in the warmth. Ordered Red Duke of York, Kestrel and Pink Fir Apple potatoes for next year, and I'm digging into the seed catalogues. I'm watching a dramatic sunset swirling across the western sky - going to be an even harder frost tonight?
Managed to track down a weed that's been a real bug-bear over the last year - it grows in big clumps, and invades along white, brittle, spreading roots - a bit like bindweed but not nearly so bad. It only grows in a spot where my soil is very clay-ey - which gave me the clue; it's coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara. Thick, large fleshy leaves, heart-shaped, and hairy underneath. What had thrown me is that I'd never seen the flowers - if I had I'd have known two years ago which part of the flower books to look in! The flower heads appear before the leaves. (Weeds as an indicator of soil types)
I've also been trying over the last week to sort out all the little scraps of paper where I've got notes of seeds and varieties I've been using over the last four years - and adding these snippets to the vegetable pages.
Sunday, November 30th, 2003
Another crisp, sunny, late autumn day - but I'm stuck at home with kids and winter-bugs. So an offering out of the usual.
How about an allotment song - found this on Mudcat, this week; one I want to learn.
by Bernie Parry
Every day as I go through the old shanty town
Where the sheds and allotments all stand
I see the old man of the land
With a rake or a spade in his hand
And he's there in all weather in sunshine and rain,
I hesitate as I go past
Is he happy or sad with his task,
Oh I haven't the time for to ask.
Chorus:
A man of the earth, a man of the soil
In his lonely allotment he labours and toils
He's not much to do since he turned sixty-five
So he's took to his garden to keep him alive
It's his only joy and his pride.
Forty years in the iron works broke his will,
And his back and shoulders are round
There was no other work in the town
So they had him both fettered and bound
Then all of a sudden he turned sixty-five
And the bosses said "Thank you my man"
And they stuck a gold watch in his hand
as behind him the door quickly slammed.
Every Saturday evening he's down at the club
And he stands with his mates at the bar
Slowly sipping a solitary jar,
Ah a pension won't go very far.
So he sells a few things to his neighbours and friends,
A few of the things that he grows
But he has to watch how he goes
Or they'll stop all his pension, he knows.
Every day as I go through the old shanty town
Where the sheds and allotments all stand
I see the old man of the land
With a rake or a spade in his hand
For I cannot linger, I must be gone,
For I work in the iron works too
I started there five years ago,
Only forty-five more years to go.
You can tell it was written a while ago! Lads no longer follow grandfathers into the iron works, nor do they expect to work 45 years! Something different for me to get into this week, while it rains.
Back to normal though, I'm delving into the catalogues for my veg seeds - I've already ordered our Red Duke of York, Kestrel and Pink Fir Apple potatoes, and I'll wait for potato day to get a few other varieties.