Summer?

At the risk of tempting fate, there seems to be a bit of a change in the air, with sunshine making an appearance at last and temperatures on the rise, which is good news for the garden, even if I would miss the ever-full water butt, thanks to the constant downpours of late.

The peas are ready for picking, and I managed to rescue a few for dinner from fellow allotment holders who were 'just checking if they were any good' and eating them straight from the pods. I've been really impressed with the crop on the heritage variety and amazed that I've managed to get them past the slugs and snails.


Just lovely in a salad, these nasturiums are a blast of colour among all the green in the garden, and attract plenty of beneficial insects as well. A few visitors have scoffed at my flowers, and one even said that they didn't grow nasturiums because they were always covered in blackfly.

And there was me thinking that was the point, to take bugs away from other plants and attract the others that like to eat them! Mind you, saying that, I don't seem to have any blackfly at all at the moment, but saying that is like inviting a swarm to drop in tomorrow.


This rose, which I think is called Tequila Sunrise, was rescued from among the 6ft weeds when we took the garden on in the winter. I gave it a pretty drastic prune and moved it to a safe place, and it has thanked me with a glorious show of bright orange blooms which even seem to glow in the dark.

There is so much to do in the allotment at the moment and it seems the docks grow a few inches every time I turn my back. I read the other day that dock seeds can lie dormant in the soil for up to 50 years, so I guess I've got my work cut out for a while yet.

Luckily, both Ian and Alan have been helping dig over the roots bed this weekend, which has made a real difference and I hope to get some seeds in for over winter soon.

I've been getting my ear bent by a few of the allotment holders about my 'mad organic ideas' concerning the use, or rather non-use, of weedkillers. I'm well aware that a good dose of weedkiller would put pay to the docks pretty rapidly, but I also know that it's not only detrimental to the environment but will also mean the weeds build up resistance and the roots will still come back. And I'd never get so many interesting bugs come to visit either. So, it's the arduous, painstaking hand weeding for now until the docks are gone in 50 years time...

Blue is the colour

...of the sky and our new bench. After days of monsoon-like rain (two weeks worth fell in 10 minutes on Newcastle the other day - naturally just at the time I was walking to the bus station) we've had a clear, blue sky day which has been perfect for getting on and finishing all those niggling jobs.

Ian (pictured above, proving the bench is not just for show) did a great job of finishing off his handiwork today, and it's the perfect height for people to get on and off easily. It also gives a lovely view of the garden from that spot.

Meanwhile, David got out the chainsaw to shatter everyone's peace and make a 'coffee table' out of some old sleepers to go inbetween our sofa and chair. Well, why not?!

I've managed to clear a very weedy spot to get the courgettes out of their pots and into the ground, and part of the green manure bed is now dug in. Four lavender bushes also have pride of place next to the hot bed (where the copper wire, hair and egg shells are having very little effect on the local mutant slugs and snails) and the climbing rose has a new home by the fence.



The strawberries have come into their own in the past few weeks and these really do taste as good as they look. We could do with a few more days of sun to sweeten them a little more, but I'm not complaining :)

Pretty but poisonous

When I first saw this plant a month ago, I wrongly tied it in with the jerusalem artichokes, as early on the leaves looked quite similar. But gradually the leaves became darker and more nettle-like and today they suddenly produed these amazing, tiny orchid-looking flowers in white and pink. I'm pretty sure it's a common hemp nettle, which is described as 'poisonous, can cause paralysis' so pretty as it is, I think the ones that are close enough to be within reach of tiny hands will probably have to go.


In the last few weeks I've been constantly delighted by the 'weeds' and random plants that are appearing out of nowhere. One such delight is this poppy, which unfurled yesterday in the sunshine, and was promptly rained upon this afternoon, so that must have been a bit of a shock for the poor thing.


One of the things I like about the allotment is the fact that hours can pass without me even realising, and it's just the distant rumble of my stomach that reminds me it's time for a lunch break. But, as I haven't worn a watch for years, I have no idea of the time at all and sometimes, just sometimes, I need to be somewhere. After all, I don't have to look at it ;) This lovely clock, which we've just put on the shed, also tells the temperature on the back, so we'll see if it reaches any dizzy heights this summer - like 70 degrees....

Staging, sofas and showers

The tomatoes are picking up in the polytunnel and thriving on the rainwater, but the staging is not up yet. It's been a real blighter and the instructions were pretty rubbish to start with, but after being munched by a snail/slug (is there anything they don't eat?!) and consequently full of holes, they were even more interesting to decipher.

I think David and I have cracked it and it's halfway done - until we realise we've put it on back to front and the last piece doesn't fit, probably.



Inbetween the showers we had a delivery of a sofa and chair (a member of the community association was throwing them out and asked if we would like to recycle them). They're made of wicker and suitable for outdoors, just the cushions need taking in. It's the first seating we've had, and although it looks maybe a little surreal on an allotment, I think it fits in perfectly, and I could get used to sitting on the sofa and watching other people work. If only :)

Today I managed to weed the leek/onion bed, which was harbouring just a few snails, and plant some teasel, which is from seeds of the one in my garden.



Courgettes are blooming in the polytunnel.

Hot, hot, hot

The 'hot' is in reference to the hot bed, rather than the weather, as a balmy July it most certainly is not. A hot bed is made out of fresh manure (many thanks to Lynn for letting us take a load of her spare prime dung!), straw and soil and, despite washing my hands several times already, I still seem to have a certain 'eau de dung' about me, which is most attractive. The rabbit certainly seems to like being near me, even if nobody else does...

There are many ways to make a hot bed and I'm sure I've probably not done it as well as most, but this year's is a bit of a test for next when we're going to be more organised and get the local school to help plant the seeds from scratch. I don't know who was more relieved about the plants getting out of their tiny pots in the greenhouse and into the soil - them or me. They've been in a desperate state for weeks now.

The basics of a hot bed is to create a container of really hot stuff that is perfect for heavy feeders such as squashes and beans. In this bed, I'm applying the Three Sisters principle, which is from a Native American tradition of planting corn, beans and squash together in one bed. Used by various tribes throughout North America, the system is a simple but effective example of companion planting.

The three plants are companions; they help each other by maximizing growing conditions for one another. The corn grows in the centre of the bed and serves as a support for climbing pole beans. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil, important for nitrogen loving, heavy feeding corn. The squash surrounds the corn and beans and covers the ground, serving to hold moisture in the soil, and – as Native American lore explains – the prickles on squash stems act as repellant to pests such as hungry raccoons. I don't think we'll have to worry about raccoons much in High Spen, but it might deter other predators.

Two pests that will love this bed are slugs and snails, which are relentless in their quest to eat everything I plant. I've tried everything from hair around the plants to egg shells and copper wire, but they always win. One thing that does work, even if it makes me feel a little guilty, is traps filled with my husband's home brew. Well at least they die happy :) So, around this bed you'll see in the picture is some copper tape, which I'm trialling. Fingers crossed it works.

I've lined the edges of the pile with recycled bubblewrap and decided that I'd make a framework of willow to hold it in place, which took longer than I envisaged, but it think it was worth the effort. I'm going to fill the rest of the base with straw to act as further insulation and help to keep it all together.

This afternoon I took a wander around the allotment and took some photos to show how things are coming along:



The hops are beginning to work their way up the wires



The jerusalem artichokes have been tied in - they're getting much taller and doing their job of bullying out the weeds pretty well (the insect home in the background is currently home to a family of earwigs - not quite the ladybird/bee/butterfly/lacewing I was expecting, and not really good news, so I'll have to try and encourage them to set up somewhere else)



Raspberries are finally appearing on the canes and I didn't want to lose the whole crop to the birds, so I've put a net up today over our home-made fruit cage (constructed out of old greenhouse staging we found under the weeds in the winter)



The willow dome is almost dense enough to shelter under (although definitely not in a real downpour, which I discovered recently) and I've been weaving it in on a regular basis to avoid the 'top heavy' look you can often get on willow creations that are planted and then left alone for years!

Water, water everywhere

I knew we'd had a fair bit of rain last night but the true extent of the torrential downpour was evident this morning when I checked the water butt. I know this might sound more than a little sad, but I was quite excited to see how much water it had collected overnight.

And I'm pleased to report that the 205 litre butt was full almost to the top - only about an inch below the rim - so now I'm going to have to work out how best to siphon off the excess water in the future, as by the look of the sky we're due a lot more of the wet stuff soon. Another butt perhaps?!