gardening

http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/aaa-challenge/

A is for Allotment, and here is mine. I inherited the shed from previous allotmenteers. It leans and snails roost in it. Last year I found a 1725 halfpenny in front of the door. The Team Leader has to come at regular intervals, armed with hammer and electric screwdriver, to keep the old place upright. He does the same for the tenant – me that is, not the snails.

When I’m not writing, this is where you’re most likely to find me, so thank you, Frizz, for your ‘A’ prompt. I’ve been toiling on this plot for around six years now, and when I first started, the soil was as heavy as lead. Gardening on the shores of the Silurian Sea is hard work. In between the layers of soil from a decaying tropical sea (c. 400 million years ago) is bentonite clay. As a substance this may have many useful properties. In the allotment, it is a guaranteed pain in the back. When remotely damp, it clings to the bottom of your wellies until you have giant’s feet. In dry weather, it goes crusty and it’s like digging through bricks.

I have learned recently that this unappealing greyish clag is formed from volcanic ash. Sometime when Much Wenlock was lying down on the Equator, all those aeons ago as our world was shaping itself, there was a volcanic eruption of unimaginable proportions. I now grow my beans and peas its degraded outpourings. Below are some pickings from last year’s crop, so you can see it does work – with effort.

I grow several varieties of broad bean including the lovely rose coloured ones which go pale mauve when lightly steamed. They don’t seem to mind growing in the heavy soil.

I’m afraid my plot looks a bit rackety, tidiness being sacrificed to the time needed to dig, weed, and keep the wretched pigeons away. Almost everything has to be netted or covered with enviromesh at some stage during its growing. Recently I have been following ‘Garden of Eve’ and suffering severe poly-tunnel envy.

To improve the soil, I grow areas of green manure, in this case mustard, but also phaecelia, buckwheat and alfalfa. It can be sown late summer or early spring and then dug in before it goes to seed. The difference in the soil afterwards is truly remarkable.

Comfrey grows itself all over my plot. I tear it up and use it to protect seedlings or newly planted young plants. I also fill old compost bags with it, cut the corner off the bags seal up the top with a peg, and balance them over buckets lined up inside my leaning shed. As the leaves rot down the resultant brown gunky liquid collects in the bucket. It can then be diluted with water – 15 parts water to 1 part comfrey to make a really good crop feed. Comfrey also has valuable therapeutic properties, and has been used to mend injuries for centuries, hence the folk name ‘knit bone’. The bees like it too.

Unlike me, my fellow grower, Phoebe, has a beautifully neat plot. She also kindly mows my path. And that’s one of the wonderful things about allotments, not only can you grow delicious food (pigeons willing) but you meet such lovely, generous and creative souls up there.

Phoebe has created these simple baskets across her plots at intervals. The uprights are embedded directly in the soil and the sides made with dogwood and hazel whips. Her aim is to use them for the rotting down of pernicious weeds like dandelion and couch grass, and then grow marigolds on top while this is all happening underneath. Gardening artistically.

This is the allotment’s insect hotel to provide attractive accommodation for over-wintering insects. Also courtesy of Phoebe who begged some pallets from the local timber merchant. When he knew what they were for, he delivered them free to the allotment.

This is the view from my plot. I can hear the clock of Trinity Church chime as I work, and the mewing of honey buzzards over the fields behind.

I call this the Garden of Eden tree, also The Tree of Life, because it has gloriously red apples in September. Phoebe created the wild flower garden in the foreground – lots of pink campion this year.

The bunting makes the raspberries look very festive and sees off the birds.

Below are two blogs that are well worth following for lots of useful gardening advice.

http://gardenofyvonne.wordpress.com/ Garden of Eve

http://peopleexcitedaboutcoexistence.com/ People Excited About Co-Existence

And when you’ve grown the produce, here are two great cooking blogs. ENJOY!

http://fromthebartolinikitchens.com/ From the Bartolini Kitchens

http://nourishingchow.wordpress.com/ Nourishing Chow

http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/aaa-challenge/

Word a Week: vibrant

Click on the image to enlarge. This photo was taken blind (because the sun was shining on my camera screen), and on a happy snapper Kodak Easyshare. So I cannot take much credit for any of this. But isn’t it good to see so many bees, and especially after hearing of all the pesticidal threats to their existence. So a big cheer for the bees. We cannot live without them. Love the way you can see the fluttering wings.

My writer’s mind, much like my garden, is often chaotic and full of weedy overgrowth. And so this morning, as a ready excuse not to tackle the former, I decided to go into the other weedy place in pursuit of something for the ‘A Word a Week’ challenge. I also thought I would try to overlook the fact that Sue, who set the challenge is very annoyingly enjoying tropical wonders in Malaysia while manfully coping with WFDS – wi-fi deficiency syndrome.

Apart from which, this is just the other excuse I’ve been looking for to show off some of the rampant vegetation in my small but multi-level flowerbeds. So welcome to my garden on the Edge of Silurian Shores.

Wild stock and Welsh Poppy. These came from my batty Aunt Miriam’s Devon garden. She is no longer with us, but doubtless is dead-heading and pruning and stealing cuttings somewhere in the big garden in the sky.

Verbascum, columbine, Patty’s Plum poppies

This white foxglove has grown itself in the path along with the pink and white columbine. I love plants that do their own gardening.

Pasque flowers going to seed at sunset – much like the photographer.

Variegated Lemon Balm not only smells delicious when you brush by it, but it makes a wonderful soothing tea if you are feeling stressed. Also good in Pimms and shredded finely on strawberries. Or in salads and tabbouleh.

Japanese Crab Apple in bloom a few weeks ago. Already there are thousands of tiny apples forming. You can see what they look like in autumn here. Wonderful for crab apple jelly, and of course emergency winter rations for the black birds.

Allium.

The garden coming into the kitchen, though a certain amount of vigilance and exclusion must be deployed. Having suffered an invasion of leopard slugs on my counter tops and in the spaghetti, I definitely draw the line at all forms of molluscs coming in too.

Townsend Meadow behind the garden and looking towards Wenlock Edge. For geology lovers this upthrust limestone ridge was once the bed of the tropical Silurian Sea i.e. c.400,000 million years ago. At that time this piece of ground was lying somewhere off East Africa.

And because one look isn’t enough, another view of an oriental poppy, freshly opened, but not quite pressed.

Finally, a Bee Movie. And for all those who follow Frizz on Flickr Comments, please note the sound effects. Don’t they remind you of something?

‘B’ Movie

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge

AAA Challenge: A For Allotments

Bee-line