Get off moi laaand!

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Isn’t it incredible how the weather has changed. We’ve gone from a heatwave to heavy rain, through to sunshine and showers but at least all this rain saves me from watering the allotment, so I really don’t want to complain.

I have a confession to make. I am guilty of neglect. I am, and I hang my head in shame. I have neglected the weeding on the edge of the allotment, so it has got thistles nearly two feet high and sparse grass through it as well, it’s not exactly growing land so I must admit I have left it, and in the heat it has shot up. But no more, I’ve now ripped it all out. In the last 3 days I have gone over the paths, the edge of the plot, behind the greenhouse and all over the plot and done some serious weeding and cutting down. It looks a lot better than it did.

It’s been the usual round of harvesting and taking things off the allotment although at the moment the strawberries are starting to wind down and the raspberries pick up. Mother Nature taketh away with one hand and giveth with the other.

This year I’ve had a fairly good strawberry crop, over 3 kilos at the moment, most of which have been eaten by us (or by that pesky squirrel – grrrr), but now I am starting to freeze them. Most of the early raspberries get frozen, unless I feel like I need some or we get into Autumn and then I have them on porridge for breakfast. The blackbirds have made off with a lot of the blackcurrants, so next year I am going to cover the bushes, I am told that old net curtains work well, so I shall endeavour to get some from a charity shop over the winter (although I am told they are getting harder to get hold of that way).

So far this year I’ve had 4 kilos of gooseberries, some of which have been turned into gooseberry fool and some frozen, some given away. There’s about another 2 kilos left on the bush.

I can definitely recommend mange tout as a crop. There’s about a row of 12 feet of mange tout plants on the allotment, and so far I have had over 3.5 kilos of mange tout. I can pick more than enough for a meal every day, so as a crop they are definitely one for the future.

I think the beetroot are nearly ready as well. So I’ve got a lot of pickled beetroot from last year to eat before mrs MK will let me pickle any more.

The replacement (carrot fly resistant) carrots are now all up and waving their little leaves around. I’ll keep an eye on them, after all they are my great hope for the future.

The end of the week and the weekend has been very light on the gardening front, all I have really been doing is a bit of light watering and picking things. To be honest, it’s been too warm or too wet for anything else.

On Sunday mrs MK and I are off to Filey to take part in the “last sandcastle standing” competition as part of the Filey Festival with some friends from Sheffield and their families. It’s a shame because there is an open day on my allotment site (complete with light refreshments and wine), so I wanted to sit there and ward people off from my veg and fruit. But so my plot is not raided and pillage I have left a special deterrent on the allotment …

…mrs MK bought him for Christmas a few years ago and left it in the greenhouse so when went down to get veg for Christmas day I saw it and opened the greenhouse and it spoke to me (it’s got a motion sensor), so that’ll be a bit of fun.

The allotment open day has me puzzled. I’m not sure what sort of person is going to go along to the plot and have a look round, the allotment is fully occupied, everyone that has a plot won’t want their plot divided, so it can’t be a recruitment exercise. I know we have had the top plot winner for the district for 2 years running so it must be a showing off thing. I feel that I have had to tidy the plot up a bit to not let the team down. More on that next time.

Depending on the quantity of doughnuts, ice cream and candy floss we eat I may nip in and collect some veg for Sunday dinner, though chances are we’ll have it on Monday if we run out of time or fancy fish and chips instead.

• 5 Jul, 2009
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