Soilman

Well first the good news: I have more gherkins than I’ve ever had… ever. Tons of the buggers. More than 30 already, and they’re only just getting started. Wife is salting them furiously, but we still can’t keep up.

Now for bad news: I think I’m on course for a 100% crop failure.

It’s the leeks, the ones I put in so confidently a few weeks ago. Not only have they not grown, they’re now dying. Slowly.

Why? Haven’t a clue. It’s not anything obvious – I’ve checked all the major allium diseases. The buggers have just decided to cop it.

Which is depressing the hell out of me. Mostly because I know it’s my fault: if I’d been to the plot more often, I’d probably have caught it earlier – whatever it is – and been able to take remedial action.

But I couldn’t, because I have no time. It’s a refrain of my life. I do everything by schedule, snatching minutes here, seconds there.

Jeez, even in the khazi I’m usually crapping against the clock. Most of the time, I long to scream: “Just give me five minutes, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!”

Phew. Had a few days to cool off and come to my senses. Back to normality.

This lack of rain thing is becoming a problem, isn’t it? I know you guys Oop North have had a lot, but down in the SE of the UK it’s dry as a bone. My allotment’s like a desert. Don’t usually see this until July.

Absurdly, I’m writing this under a Met Office weather warning. By the time you read it, I’ll either be ranting anew about inaccurate weather forecasts, or building an Ark in the attic. See you on the high seas.

Hmm. Don’t know what to do with these.

They emerged from the weedy patch I was clearing today. Old and past it, and no good for eating. But it seems so wrong to chuck ‘em on the compost.

Any ideas… that don’t involve eating them??

This is the sum total of my gherkin crop for 2008.

It’s deeply, deeply shitty. And wretchedly unfair. I did everything right, but the weather crapped on me.

I’ve just got back from a short trip to Russia, where the sun was shining and the temperature was 25C. Cloudless skies, floating blossom, the lazy buzzing of bees, etc etc.

Then I get back to yet more British floods. I find myself questioning, not for the first time, the sanity of my forebears.

After all, these are the people who rowed across the English Channel in approx 4000 BC and decided to stay.

They must have arrived in July, during the only hot summer of the last seven millennia.

At this time of year, the house feels like a farm shop. There are vegetables everywhere.

The pattypan courgettes have gone berserk. We can’t keep up. So the traditional question, “What to do with courgettes?”, is upon us.

The traditional answers – chutney, frittata etc – just make me depressed. Been there, done that.

So sod it. I’m composting the buggers. And I feel totally liberated.