Soilman

Er, gosh. Wow. Can it really be that long since I last updated this blog?

Dear, oh dear. I’ve not gone a month without posting since I started this nonsense four years ago. I guess circumstances must really be as difficult as they’ve felt. I won’t bore you with the details.

Anyway, I’ve actually been to the plot and dug up some veg. Carrots, my reliable standby, have been excellent this year. We’ve had buckets and buckets of ‘em. A welcome consequence of the rain that otherwise ruined our summer (shame about the chickweed, which has run rampant in the wet).

One nice thing: I’m just back from Rome, one of my favourite places EVAH. Spent three days simply walking… and walking. Really the most wonderful city in the world: beautiful, exciting, stimulating, moving. I’m footsore, but delighted.

Just the one disappointment: couldn’t get into the Galleria Borghese, so missed the ticklesome statue of Pauline Bonaparte, posed from life as she reclined, Venus-like and semi-naked, on a divan. When asked how she could possibly have posed naked, she replied: “Oh it wasn’t cold. There was a stove in the room.”

Love it that she’s still embarrassing her wretched brother all these centuries later.

So here’s a small selection of vegetables produced on the ‘unacceptably weedy’ Soilman allotment. And there’s a shit load more where they came from.

Weeds there may be, but I’m getting a bumper harvest. In fact, there’s usually a correlation between the amount of weed and the size of my harvest. In a good growing year, you get a lot of weed. Surprise!

I’m over the warning letter now. Have moved from irritation to resignation. If folks insist upon being cunts, there’s not much I can do about it.

Instead, I’m busy drying my monster onions and preparing for the big potato harvest tomorrow. It’s a month early because we’ve had a major attack of potato blight this year. My maincrop spuds lost the last of their foliage about a fortnight ago – so I’m not expecting a best-ever potato crop.

Still, I’m excited… because a preliminary dig in among the Golden Wonder mounds revealed some monsters. Looks like they’ve done OK, even with blight.

I’ve just about caught up with the weeding and got all the crops in… on midsummer’s day.

Hey. Better late than never.

This season isn’t going to be my finest hour. I’m late with everything, the weather’s been SHIT (dry, cold, miserable) and I’ve not had time to plant more than 60% of my plot.

Oh, and now we’re going to have a drought. Fucking great. Wake me up when it’s all over.

There’s a shitload more carrots where those came from, but the beetroot is all done for 2009. Ditto the dahlias. I picked the last ones this morning, and the frosts are on their way.

So summer’s definitely over, and you won’t hear me moan about weeds and lack of water for a while.

I’m not too sad. Too bloody busy, what with all the wretched digging.

Guess what I’ll be moaning about now?

These are coming along nicely. They’re my favourite Autumn King carrots, and they’ll be ready in just a week or two.

It’s been a good year for carrots. Actually, more like a blinding year; I’ve had more and better roots than ever before. Haven’t the faintest idea why.

What’s grown best for you this year? If you have any theories about why, do share them… I could do with the enlightenment. I just blunder around in a fog on my plot most of the time.

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.

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.

It’s here, folks: 2009′s most egregiously ignorant example of allotment bandwagon-jumping.

Laughed? I nearly shat. Growing vegetables on a brownfield building site – with or without bags, but definitely with industrial pollution heritage and a grandstand view of a builder’s arse crack – is just what I’ve always dreamed of.

But wait, there’s more. If you get past the first par without splitting a side, check this out:

The grow bags idea came from a music festival where she saw huge sandbags being moved around by fork-lift trucks. “I was thinking how flexible they could be. Grow bags would allow people to grow carrots and peas.”

Grow bags are – what? – 4-5″ deep. So the City of London has bred a carrot that grows sideways??

Honestly. I’ve spent 40 years hoovering the dustiest corners of Human Ignorance. I expect human beings to be wankers. But the profound dimness of Homo Stultissimus continues to blow my mind.

Anyone else spotted any good examples of allotment bullshit and bandwagon-ism? Please let me know. There’s a prize, for the best example, of something utterly irresistible (OK, so I’m lying about the ‘utterly’ part, and probably the ‘irresistible’ too. But you get the point).

PS Apologies to copyright holders of the pics I’ve bastardised here. Get in touch and I’ll apologise and pay in full (that’s if you accept payment in leek seeds).

The first carrots of the season. Took about 10 shots trying to keep the bloody cat out of the picture, but he would insist. So I gave up.

These are the Early Nantes I sowed back in March under plastic. I’d never tried this before, and it’s proven an outrageous success. A hassle, of course, but worth the aggro – fresh new carrots are SO sensational.

I’ve never seen carrot seedlings so early. The early sowing under plastic actually worked!

With a fair wind, these could be ready as early as mid May – as baby carrots, at least. Unheard of.

As so often in gardening, I find myself asking yet again: Where did I go right?