Say you missed me. Life was meaningless without me. You’ve white-knuckled your way through my absence, gagging for your hit of Soilman magic… right?
No?
Hey-ho. Too bad, because I’m back from my Spanish holiday and I’m full of beans. Don’t give the tiniest shit what anyone thinks, and am ready to crow about my allotment successes. Sickening, innit?
Here’s the week’s worth of veg that grew while I was away. A few torpedo marrows, but lots of good ones. Plus some sensational corn, carrots and beet. It’s turning into a terrific allotment year.
Some folks at my plot site are eating beans already, but mine went out rather late (May is one HELL of a month for a gardener, isn’t it? I chase my tail 24/7 trying to get everything sown, brought on, repotted, planted out, watered, weeded etc etc etc).
This lot will soon be glutting along with everything else, and relatives will be shrinking from my pleas to take courgettes. In late July I become like the Ancient Mariner; I accost total strangers in the street to recite my allotment travails and beg them to relieve me of a marrow.
When I’m not worrying about my courgettes, this is the Big Topic that troubles/concerns/maddens me. It’s fallen to my generation of editorial folk to ‘fix’ a system that’s been more or less stable for 500 years – but which is now comprehensively broken. And none of us has much of a clue what to do.
Thick and fast now, thick and fast. It’s all going crazy.
We have Ratte potatoes, Orla potatoes, All-the-year-round cauliflowers, Early Nantes carrots, Bolthardy beetroot and Russian courgette/squash hybrids (don’t know what these are called in English, but they’re known as ‘Kobachok’ in Russian).
The missus and I are stuffed to the gills with veg every night.
Probably should have made this picture black and white for the full artsy-fartsy look. I’m totally chuffed with my corn this year. It’s growing like hell and looking gorgeous.
God alone knows why. Yeah, yeah, I know the weather’s been good for corn. But still. That can’t explain why it’s worked SO well this year.
Honestly, I know I shouldn’t interrogate my successes, but it’s hard not to spend most of your time – as a gardener – living in a state of quasi-senility. Mostly, I’m baffled to hell. Dunno what I did wrong – or right.
The latest in my ‘how to’ video series focusses on brassicas… specifically cabbages and cauliflowers, and how to grow decent ones. As always, apologies to anyone who’s an expert already. Do tell me about any hot tips of your own for brassica success.
If this is a taste of what’s to come, I’m all for it.
Today was sensational. Sunny, warm, barely a breath of wind. And the vegetables are loving it.
This is the asparagus I planted in early April. The fronds are a bit feeble, but that’s to be expected in their first year. They’ll thicken up well next season.
Sadly, I can’t attack ‘em even then; you shouldn’t cut asparagus until its third year. Just as well I’ve got another established bed, which is still producing enough spears for dinner four times a week.
Bloody hope so. After the deluges that passed for summers in 2007 and 2008, we’re owed a Jamaican-style tropical meltdown, I reckon. Confess I’m daring to hope, because I’ve had a feeling since February that the summer would be good. I can’t point to one single thing on the allotment that’s been, well, ‘different’. It’s just been a feeling.
