Another hyacinth thrust upon me

What a treat to go up to the allotment four times in a week.  David is away at a meeting in Cambridge, so my days are a bit long right now.  I have scavenged some more parquet from the neighbours – and will head up there after my run.

The water at the allotment usually is turned back on in March.  But this year there is no activity in the taps and I wonder if they are going to delay even further in an effort to save water.  Coming back from my run I found my nematode slug control package sticking half out of the letter box. Instructions – dilute package in plenty of water. Argh.  These little critters have a shelf life – mine said 26th April. I debated whether to wait until we came back from holidays before ‘doing’ them; but realised that the potatoes may have already come under attack from the slugs and I needed to get going.  First I had to collect water to take up.  Buckets, bottles and all sorts were put into service – I carefully placed them in the car and prayed that my poor driving skills wouldn’t result in suddenly screeching to a halt. It would have been a very wet ride.

I made it to the allotment incident free, and just had to explain to the nice Irishman what on earth I was doing hauling buckets of water out of the boot.  He didn’t seem phased by the organic method of slug killing.  He uses pellets, but only the paths.

I did the deed – it really was simple, but time consuming filling so many watering cans of water and sprinkling evenly over the beds.  There were supposed to be enough nematodes to cover 40sq metres of soil. And I think that’s what I have.  But it seemed to go a bit short; but that was possibly because I lingered too long on the potato beds.  Anyway, the beds had a good watering and if it works it will be wonderful.  The soil has to be moist for a few days to keep the nematodes alive. So I just have to hope the weather is as stormy as it is now.  It rained later in the afternoon when I was weeding and I did welcome it.

The fleeces had to go over the potatoes again, and when I was tucking them in I noticed, I think, a potato seedling on the surface.  My first little potato crop.  It’s weird but as I have never even seen a potato plant I don’t know what to expect.  People just assume you know what they look like. I am too scared to ask people whether they flower and if they are attractive, these things just aren’t done. I suspect they aren’t.  I can well remember my surprise at discovering how attractive broad bean flowers were when I grew them for the first time on the roof terrace last year.

I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding the last bit of the flower bed. Hard, hard work as it was at the bad weed end. Lots of nasty long hard to pull weeds and quite a few slugs.  I was delighted to push the fork in for the last time.  Now I have a week off (climbing in Spain) and when I get back hopefully I will be able to work it properly and start to sow flower seeds.

Was ambushed by the great Oswaldo at the gates and had another hyacinth thrust upon me. I drove home with the sweet sickly smell overpowering me from the back.