Things are growing wonderfully

Fresh off the Eurostar from Paris with David, we raced home. I created a fast lunch, and then zipped up to the allotment to see what I could do.

First thing was to admire the activity of the neighbouring plot (luckily in a lower sector as we are separated by a main path and a shed. Huge family all hard at work and shouting at each other as they weeded and dug and did all sorts of horticultural things to their once derelict site. I oscillated between being amazed at their activity (must have been five kids helping their parents) and rather put out as none of them came to say hello or consider anyone else’s peaceful activity around them. But I guess they will be weekend gardeners, and I hope to get most of my work done during the week.

I did get a visit from another plotholder: another new blood like me. A man named Peter bounded over from a plot and asked how far apart I spaced my broad beans. That was rather sweet. I’m the most amateur person there, but suddenly there is a rookie who is asking advice. He seems to be doing a plot with two other friends which looked rather convivial. Hopefully I will get to know them a bit better as the season progresses.

But socialising wasn’t the menu du jour. It was planting. I had to set up the carrot bed. First I need to put in four sticks at each end of the space (about 5 feet by two feet in bed 2) and then wrap around a vast quantity of the light breezy horticultural fleece to make a physical barrier about two feet high. This is to deter the carrot fly which infest the root crop. They can’t fly high however, so many people make barriers to stop them landing on the carrots and burrowing in. Mine looks rather twee and small. And the plot is now hopelessly bitty – sticks for peas one bed, this white fleece barrier in another. No razor straight lines and precision any more. I must be learning how to become a real gardener if I put aside my aesthetic sensibilities and opt for practical looks.

I sowed half the bed (rather awkward crouching over this two foot barrier and leaning in) in drills the traditional way, and the other half I did the Holden method of a huge steel spike making large holes, filling with compost and sand and putting seeds on top. This is supposed to create giant carrots that can grow softly and easily into the sand below. The carrot seeds are so tiny that it was hard to just get a few into each hole. Goodness only knows how many fell in during my sowing. I will have to thin. But as the carrot fly deterrence methods start to sound like something out of Harry Potter and the Dark Arts, I think I’m supposed to only pull out the seedlings at dusk or dawn to stop the smell attracting the attack carrot flies which hover like spectres around the plants. Thinning at any other time will invite disaster. Ugh. I’m so full of good intentions, but I’m bound to forget and just pull out the seedlings any old time and Invite Trouble.

I planted the broad beans from the missing bits of the row; planted a row of radish, a row of land cress, which looks an interesting crop. I thought there was only watercress which I love, but cannot possibly grow it as I don’t have a large body of free-flowing clean water. But I saw this packet of seeds in the allotment shop last visit, and thought I’d give it a try. It looks like watercress, but is definitely a soil type. It does need shade, which I don’t have until some plants start to grow up, so this first row might not thrive. I will definitely plant another crop under growing tomatoes or peppers later in the year.

The rest of the sowing was easy: a row of radishes. Just a straight drill and in they went. Lots of watering and that was it.

Watering is of course the big talk at the moment. Thank goodness for moisture retaining clay soil. I’m glad I bought those two second hand wheelie bins (£3 each, a bargain) from the Council as they are going to be my lifesaving water store. There are taps at around every 150 metres or so on the allotment, and I have been diligently scooping up the water that sits in the nearest trough, trundling with my wheel barrow full of the ‘bottled’ water, and taking them to my plot and filling the bins up. I also arranged a tarpaulin over some of the derelict compost bins so I can catch more of the rainwater and feed it into the wheelies.
I get the feeling that most people on the site use the watering can method and transport the water from these taps. I can’t see how they get a hose pipe anywhere near the long plots.

But all this water shortage has made me cut back on the large number of sweet peas I wanted to plant. Too, too extravagant. Shall save the water for the beans instead.

I weeded the potato bed (and unearthed the few that I buried a bit too enthusiastically) and admired the growth. The charlottes are romping away. Must remember not to walk between the rows when I weed. I have to be slower and put down a plank before I launch myself after a weed. Perhaps if I add the extra soil from the future flower beds between the rows that will deter me. (I need more soil to earth them up as they grow.)

Then I went for the final dramatic girlie moment – I put in the 12 huge eight foot poles that will be my central sweet pea and bean support. They are widely enough spaced on each side of the central path that I can get my wheelbarrow down the plot, but I haven’t finished off with the top supports, that is going to involve climbing into the wheelbarrow and reaching up with deft bits of string to attach them. I think I’ll leave that for another day. Time was running out.

On my way back I had a chat with Mick who was watering in the parsnip seedlings he had planted a month before. His rows are immensely long and there must be a hundred parsnip seedlings all growing away. What on earth does he do with all his bounteous produce? They all have to be stored somewhere when they are fully-grown. No doubt he will have an ingenious method and I will learn all about it. We chatted about when to put in our beans – he puts his seeds directly into the soil in the second week of May. Mine are already growing in root trainers on the top floor balcony at home. So once they burst through the bottom of the long skinny containers, there is going to be no stopping them – they will have to go into the soil next week or ten days at the most.

I collected about ten stalks of rhubarb for my neighbour Sally. She loves rhubarb, and made the mistake of trying to buy some from our chi-chi green grocers in Primrose Hill. They wanted £5 for a small bunch. Outrageous. She got mine for free. I wish I liked rhubarb more. I always think that it is part of becoming a British citizen – you have to just love rhubarb crumble and declare it your favourite dessert. Quite frankly I tend to reserve rhubarb for the medicine cupboard: one small amount and I find I am obliged to spend monstrous labours in the water closet. Still it does look nice; and grows as you watch it.

It was late by the time I got home, and spent a happy half hour potting on the tomatoes, the capsicum, the kale and the cabbage seedlings. Things are growing wonderfully.

Vegetable: Carrots Very Early Nantes 2
How many?: a few rows
How planted?: Half into prepared holes, half into drills
Notes: Bed 2

Vegetable: Radish French Breakfast
How many?: 1 row
How planted?: Into shallow drill
Notes: Bed 2

Vegetable: Land Cress
How many?: 1 row
How planted?: Into shallow drill
Notes: Bed 3