A perfectly sunny spring day. Not bad for January (the warmest temperatures on record), but alas, I couldn’t get up to the garden. I had research work to do, and lunch with Wendy in town. But I did get a vicarious pleasure out of picking up pea sticks on my return. I stalked through Hyde Park choosing the choicest straightest sticks lying at the base of the trees. That huge storm of a few weeks back have yielded a bounty of the things. Naturally it looked very, very odd; and so incongruous bringing back tree fragments to this completely sterile and modern building. They are in a heap at the front door. If all goes well and according to plan – I shall drive up tomorrow and plant them in the rows where the peas should go.  And tonight I shall write up notes from the Diary of a French Herb Garden by Geraldene Holt: An Englishwoman who has a large house and garden in the hills in the Ardeche.

Oh my god I just bought a strimmer. This gardening lark must be serious.  It was all done online with some big gardening mail order company and it’s so incongruous:  hefty weight of product versus light mouse click of purchase.  I had checked a specialist consumer testing magazine to see how the strimmers compared. I’ve gone for the lightest one available (around 3 kilos in weight and with a collapsible handle) as the one we hired in the summer felt about as pliable as a water buffalo. It should be delivered next week.

The main reason why I haven’t been up at the plot was a detour to France looking for houses. And it’s a most insidious affair. You fall in love with every place and imagine where you will plant the trees and dig the vegetable garden – sorry, potager – and all the while your humble little plot looks shabbier and shabbier with every house you see. I looked at eight properties and the last one I saw happened to include the most stupendous five acres of garden for sale. (All for the same price as a one room apartment in Primrose Hill.) It turned my head. I swear I barely slept an hour that night – all my time was spent imagining how I was going to create the most beautiful Australian style garden and live a life of sybaritic bliss. Never mind just how I was going to mow five acres of grass while I wait for the trees to grow. But it is hard to concentrate on mundane matters like real life.  We will buy a house eventually (booked to travel out again with David in late February) but in the meantime I have to think of potting up my sweet peas and what happened to all my long deep narrow pots. I have no idea where they went and realised that I haven’t been assiduous in collecting toilet rolls these past months. They are the perfect planting medium for peas and beans as the cardboard rots when you plant the entire thing in the soil and allows the peas to put down long roots.

It was on my mind as we went out to dinner on Saturday night. And I have to admit that I pocketed an empty one that I found in the ladies’ restaurant loo. Sad or what? But I am building up my small collection and will plant them up with sweet peas next time I’m out.

I was roaring out the gate of the allotments this afternoon, revelling in the fact they were open and I could cruise through when I realised that I had forgotten to shut my shed door. Incipient Alzheimer’s or what. Yesterday the wallet, today the door. It took about five minutes to get back through all the complicated traffic systems to go back to where I started. Out the car, slip and slide along the muddy path to my plot about 200 yards away, into the shed and secure the door. I have no lock any more. Instead I have a threatening long pot of hellebores (just in flower) which I wedge against the door to stop the wind. Anyone can get in; but if they see it’s not secure they aren’t going to think there are any treasures there. In fact my treasures (spade, fork and half moon edger, are hidden under the black plastic sheeting securing the close end of the plot. It doesn’t look like expensive garden tool shapes under the plastic, and it’s easier than having them cluttering up the boot of the car. Where I will put the strimmer I want to buy next week is another matter. I’m just not thinking about that right now.

Driving to the allotment was a complete rally course of people reversing at speed in front of me, cars jumping red lights, 4X4s barrelling into one’s lane without looking, and little old ladies lurching into the street without noticing the lights. I was so relieved just to survive the 40 minute drive intact. The little shop was open, so I managed to buy two more bags of seed potatoes (Maris Piper and Duke of York) and a few different bags of onion sets for the spring – Red Sun, Red Baron, Golden Gourmet – plus some fertiliser. You have to spend so long in the queue waiting for John to laboriously write in his perfect copperplate handwriting every item everyone buys; then take a second piece of paper and loudly and very slowly add up the purchases, take the money, rattle around the tin for change, and then have a longish conversation about the terrible storm / terrible suppliers /perfidious council with each and every person. Naturally while you wait you have nothing to do but stare at the product and you end up buying all sorts of reduced rate products that catch your eye. I managed garden twine, cane tops (10 for 40p) five foot bamboo canes as well as the potatoes and onions.

I wasn’t going to stay long at the plot as I had so much to do at home. But I did manage to create a straight path down the newly dug section of the plot, store away the onions from the potential stormy cold weather that is threatened next week. And retrieve my wallet.

I won’t be able to get back to the garden until Friday next week, but I’m hopeful that the frost might help me break down some of the hard packed clay soil I have turned. And you will be pleased to know that I didn’t take out any little old ladies on pedestrian crossings on the drive back.

Couldn’t sleep last night (a surfeit of tea in the afternoon) so redesigned my vegetable garden with my eyes shut instead. I have a new spot for the tomato plants and even have found a purpose for that line of gravel under the soil up near the rhubarb. I will use it to plant the herbs. They like well drained soil after all. And if I can ever get my spade in to shift some of the clay encrusted gravel it will be worth while.  The sun is shining at long last after a roaring day of storms. So I am off to dig. Hurrah.

What a day. T’was the calm after the huge storm. And when I went up to the plot I could sense something was different but couldn’t pin point it at first. And then I saw what was not beside the shed. My 20 foot high pine tree had been blown down in the storm. And by a miracle it didn’t fall on the shed. It fell on the path. And a very kind allotmenteer (Dave I believe, or perhaps Bob, I wasn’t paying that much attention for once) had sawn it in bits to make it easier to drag to the side of the path. Very dramatic and I was rather pleased that it was down. So I don’t need to keep the big bow saw in the boot of the car after all. Dave (or Bob) has promised to burn it for me. But I think I will have to parcel it up a bit more neatly. It still has that stricken just uprooted look to it. But it did mean that the lurking chore has been sorted. David Raeburn, the allotment secretary, had been warning me that I needed to attend to it. It really was a lumbering beast: once a small Christmas tree of the plot holder three people past.

To make up for the task completed by the wind, I thought it prescient to tidy up all the areas covered by carpet and black plastic that the wind should have lifted off and deposited a few plots further aft. I tidied and sorted and pinned down the edges and generally made the whole site a lot more secure. Then it was a quick meal (again in the sun) and on with the little pits of compost for the next beans, and more digging of earth. I had long read that you should prepare your bean areas by digging in good compost a few months before you plant. Garden rubbish and newspaper bits are supposed to be put down, then covered with soil. I found some not too slimy grass cuttings in plastic bags beside the shed, plus added the old cabbage and kale leaves, and torn strips of newspaper. Hope it works; it looks like soup right now.

I have won another 15 feet of soil that used to be under carpets last year. It’s looking quite a long plot now.  I don’t really need the room. I just don’t want to share the little shed.

But it was a great day for progress and turning soil really makes life into a physical and simple affair. Slice, heave on the top of the blade, bend, lift, turn. The Vietnamese neighbours appeared after lunch to inspect any wind damage and found that a lot of their netting had taken flight. And they were amazed that the tree came down. We never have real conversations, but big gestures and smiles does for all of us.

I don’t think I’m going to dig any more of the plot.  The whole bit needs weeding in that hands-and knees-and-aching-back sort of way. It will take weeks. So there’s plenty to do. And besides I don’t know if I have permission to squat in the end of the plot that has been memorable for Jana’s absence all year.

I made the makeshift cold frame out of an old glass window that was propped against the dilapidated compost bins. The window pane is dilapidated as well, but placed over the clear plastic file boxes I have it makes a sort of cold frame. And it saved me one hundred smackeroos in the process. It’s only temporary, but at least I have somewhere to put the broad beans.

Janet, another gardener, came and saw the upended tree and promptly burst into tears. There was a difficult moment as she thought I was the villain who did it. (I would have if I could, but she didn’t need to know that.)  I tried to show her the roots sticking up in the air and explained that it came down in the storm. But she thought I should have ‘replanted it.’ She is not very logical poor woman. I found out eventually, between sobs, that she was weepy over her husband’s extra marital affair and not the massacre of the Scots pine. But I did have to spend a bit of time with her to cheer her up. Ineffectual patting of the back trying not to transfer armfuls of clay and soil as I did so and generally trying to be an optimist.  She is great believer in mediums and was heading off there to get some wise (?) advice later in the afternoon.  This is the same medium who told her that she foresees divorce in her tea leaves (or whatever). I don’t know if she was more upset about the husband or the medium. But it did remind me that gardening at an allotment is a very public affair and you have to deal with some rather odd people.  I guess my unrelenting enthusiasm must make them think I’m odd too, so it just adds to the mix.

She cheered up eventually and was eyeing all the pots of assorted bits I had to store round the back of the shed from the house sale.  Goodness only knows how she can imagine pretty flowers and shrubs from the motley lot, but she is a strange gardener. She doesn’t do fruit or veg.  To make her even happier I placed the two climbing roses (Alfred Carrière) under the apple trees. Hopefully they will thrive and wind up through the branches and the strong scent ought to fill the air. But we shall see. If we have the same drought as last year I won’t be able to keep up with the watering of the pots.  And one of the pots really is there to prop up the apple tree that insists on listing to the left.

Stupidly I don’t have the right routine yet for my new tidy shed and managed to leave behind my wallet and purse sitting on one of the now neat shelves. Curses. I hadn’t planned to go back on a Saturday, but at least it would afford me the chance to buy more seed potatoes from the shop.

Gardening? This was the time I set aside to weed and dig. But oh my, oh my. It is absolutely tipping down. How on earth can I go gardening today? I bought Tupperware containers to mouse proof the seeds in instead.

I really, really need to buy a strimmer (a long handled petrol driven brush cutter) and they cost a fortune around £160. So I want to actually see one before I buy. You can order them over the internet, but it’s not the same as lifting it and seeing how heavy the darn thing is. I diligently looked at our area and found a large garden centre called the Chelsea Gardener about half a mile from home.  Perfect. I’ll pop and check out the range I thought.

Oh foolish girl. This is Chelsea and South Kensington. They have professional gardeners to do the heavy work. The entire garden centre was given over to expensive pots, expensive orchids, and amazingly overpriced hand carved wooden tools. And nothing electrical or petrol driven at all. I asked at the counter and the woman sneered at me and replied ‘Madame, central London is just not the place to have large gardens that require lawn care.’ I felt like showing off and saying I have one – but it’s not true, my garden is definitely not central. And besides, they did have some lovely seeds and flower bulbs. So I contented myself with buying those instead. Nerines at last (I have admired them in Ruth Scrivener’s garden in the Blue Mountains for years, and Bron and John’s garden in Scotland.), plus nasturtiums to cover the ground around the veg; more coriander seeds, salad leaves, very early carrots (ever the optimist after last year’s debacle) and more broad beans.

London is such a conundrum. Too, too big and too specialised. I will have to trek somewhere way out of town for electrical equipment. But buy the strimmer I shall. I weeded there yesterday and found so many slugs lurking in the long grass at the sides of my plot. I’m not going to let them hide this year.  And I really want a neat plot

I sat on an upturned box in the sun in the middle of my plot admiring the view and marvelling at the sunshine. This was my first guilt free day of gardening this year. I could garden till the light ended. And I abandoned the spade after five lovely hours of work, delighted with progress.

Today’s main chore was to edge all the way to the end of the plot. Cutting the grass on the path, and digging down so that I can lay planks to protect the edge from weeds. I was encroaching into Jana’s plot in a big way – I think I have 130 feet of garden now, must measure it next time. Mick suggested I plant potatoes there to open up the soil.  It throws my vaguely thought out design plans awry, and I have to get permission from David, the plot secretary first anyway.

Its great to get the bits of soil turned over that have been lurking under a heavy blanket of old carpet for a year. I will need to get on my hands and knees and extract the long couch grass roots and the occasional startlingly white bindweed roots; but not yet. The bindweed roots are amazingly thick and treacherous. You know that if you drop them on the ground they will grow, chop them in half they will grow, and you need to be vigilant in getting them out of the soil. I pop them into my pocket and find them days later when I reach in for my secateurs. My mud encrusted trousers now reside all chill and stiff at the shed as they are way too muddy to wear on the drive home.

Today’s sunshine has also been accompanied by two days without rain and it’s much easier to dig the ground. I dug out the huge stems of the red kale, removed the oldest mangiest cabbage stalks but kept some of the purple sprouting broccoli as they seem to be continuing to produce good tasty leaves. And I didn’t pull out some of the old flowers from the ‘cutting garden patch’.  I just don’t know if they are viable – times like these you realise how green you are to this gardening thing. I don’t even know which are perennials or annuals. Some of the flowers from last year look so bushy and healthy I couldn’t bring myself to yank them out. We shall see. Same goes with my cabbage. I have no idea if they will keep on. I shall furtively inspect my Vietnamese neighbour’s cabbage plot and follow suit. (Their broad beans are in the soil and romping away.)

Heading up to the allotment this afternoon was a welcome break from the tedium that is marmalade production. I swear I will never give a pot away blithely again. If people knew what a chore it is they would serve it only on Sundays.  My reason for battling the traffic was my keenness to get to the little allotment shop; it’s only open for an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon, and briefly on Sunday. This being January it means potato purchase time (plus some pea and spinach seeds).

First I had to get to the little shed of my own and pot up 32 Sutton Broad Beans into root trainers. I have few hopes for the ones I so recklessly planted directly into the soil earlier in the week, so I thought I’d better start a few off under more controlled conditions. Well I’ve just had a thought. The mice will probably find the ones I planted and am storing in the shed. They are in root-trainer pots in a  clear plastic box in the shed. I’m going to have to secure the lid more firmly if the rodents are to be thwarted. Hope I remember on Monday.

With the money earned from the sale of our home in Primrose Hill I have earmarked some of it to spend on the allotment. This was my mad musings when travelling to Sydney last month. There’s nothing like a long plane journey to stimulate your design and growing plans for the year ahead.  I want to buy a strimmer, and perhaps a fruit cage. And put much more structure in the plot.  One thought I also had was to buy some sort of cold frame. I don’t think I’ll ever warrant a small green house (and if desperate I can always ask Rino to grow things for me in his. He has a plot above mine and only works on weekends, so less lunging takes place. And bless him, his English isn’t great.) But what about a cold frame? They are expensive to buy and I realised as I lugged out two clear plastic boxes that I could just as easily make one. There is a pane of window glass lying next to the dilapidated compost bins; so I have fashioned a crude one that may just do for the broad beans and early peas. The site is such a mess with all my pots from Primrose Hill. But they are doing their job of holding down the black sheeting. Hopefully I will get a clear run of work next week to clear more of the plot. I’m going to brazenly dig into Jana’s plot and exercise squatters rights when it comes to payments in March. I hope I have proved to the allotment association that I can grow productively (if a bit messily). Besides if you can see how ambitious just my broad bean patch is, the rest of the plot should be spectacular.

I also spent a few hours turning over the soil with a fork. I am trying to emulate the older gardeners like Mick who never ever get muddy or seem to bend to attack weeds.  Naturally this being January I am always too keen to get started so I usually give myself back ache for the entire month. Today I have shooters going down my back. Good old sciatica. Hopefully it will improve so I can get down to some close soil and weed inspection next week.

A mud bath. My hands are filthy, my trousers are utterly mud covered and not much of me is clean. That’s what happens when you garden during a monsoon. Mick was doing his rhubarb, the other Irishman bellowed with laughter as we plodded our way in the rain to the plots. But it was worth it. The birds are already haunting the place and I had lovely weeding to do. Did the broad bean plot, even planted two rows. Cheeky I know as they will probably be devoured by mice or drown. But it was so tempting after I had done the whole bed and raked it over. Water laps the ground about 6 inches below the surface.

I sorted the edges and laid down planks down the side to try and halt the couch grass invasion. Did more weeding of the future potato bed. Laid down black cloth on the top part of the bed – there’s too much gravel underneath to work it properly (something I inherited from my previous plotholder. It must have been a pathway once). If I do only peas and broad beans there should be enough room. And I want it tidier. But naturally I haven’t even drawn up my veg map yet. It’s funny; last year I spent hours and hours dreaming up the design of the beds and where everything will go. This year it’s just launch in and rotate the crops.

I pruned the apple trees to the best of my ability. And believe me I have no ability whatsoever. Book learning is all very well but getting poked in the eye with long whippy apple branches while reaching in to prune the obvious nasties is no fun.  I don’t have a ladder so can’t reduce the height of the things. One suffers from wind rock – but is rather easy to manage, but the other one is huge. And wormy. So I haven’t launched myself into rescuing it.

Top on my rescue list however were all the seeds. I brought the sorry mess home in a plastic bag and had a sort out. Not too many casualties really. Except I need to buy more peas, broad beans and carrots. Carrots, pah! Will I try again?  Yes. This is the time of year for hard physical labour and hope.

Happy new year to all us gardeners. It took nine days, but today was my first trip of the year up to the plot. And I was so excited. Suddenly I am roaring with enthusiasm for a garden I neglected for a few months last year when I thought I was leaving. The weeds have no stay of execution now.

I drove up with all the paint pots, tools and other detritus that didn’t go into storage during our house move, and wheel-barrowed them down to my ramshackle shed.

Step one was to clean it out. And I can safely say that my actions are going to cause much chagrin in the rodent world. They seem to have set up a very comfortable home in there, feasting on my seeds and nesting in the mess. Stupid me for leaving them there in their packets and open boxes over the summer. I daren’t have a good inspection just yet; but I think there isn’t much of value left.

Out came all the possessions from the shed – strewn over the plot in gusty winds. And I swept and scooted out the spiders and generally made it more homely. Now I understand why there are so many nails up near the roof of the building. That’s for hanging seeds and things away from nibbling rodents. It all looks much more orderly and does show that I am one pair of secateurs short. Someone may have helped themselves to them in the past few months. Not hard when you see that I don’t even have a lock on the door. It was wrenched off last autumn and I didn’t bother to replace it. I just wedge the door shut with a long pot of hellebores.

And excitingly the hellebores are showing signs of flowers. Hurrah. They did nothing last year at all on the roof terrace – probably much too hot for them. But they do like the windy damp of the plot. Next visit I shall trim off the old leaves and see if there are enough flowers to pick.

It’s grey and mild and incredibly windy – so quite fun. And I ran into the Irish man Mick who is one of my coterie of elderly boyfriends. He hugged and kissed me when I told him I was staying, and gave me barely time to explain why before he wanted to show me his divided rhubarb. So that’s great continuity then. He is one of my mentors on the site: and would be perfect if he didn’t lunge at me every now and then when the moon is full.

Tomorrow I will get a few hours out there. More weeding of the broad bean plot. And if it stops raining, I may even be able to plant them. I am full of excited plans. And guilty that I have neglected that valuable piece of land for so many months. Time to get it neat and tidy and plant some veg.

Here is the short list of my gardening New Years Resolutions:
- Tidy the shed
- Build more structure
- Grow more veg
- More mulch