Plans Ahead

How can it be April already? How? Just... how??

It's growing season, and I honestly don't know if I have the energy or wherewithal to commit to the allotment this year. I'm sad to say that I think this will be our last year of tending it. If it were just at the end of our garden, or made of soil rather than brick, or if we could leave all our things there safely, then it would be totally doable. Right now it's a drive away with all the equipment in the car with no idea when we'll return. Hardly ideal. And this year, just like last, there has seen a bit of extra workload due to the magazine now.

I don't really like being beaten so there is a good chance I might actually do the diametric opposite of giving up. But after three weeks away from home, and having three years' worth of crud to shift on returning, I am so very weary.

For now I'll enjoy growing season the old fashioned way - by buying flowers, watching blossom pop up on our trees, and enjoying seasonal food from our farmers.

Down at the Allotment

Each passing week sees such a transformation in this space. It is literally a live thing growing before our very eyes.

This week, some notes::

:: My husband spends all the time that we're there tending the potatoes. His patch is free from weeds and the potatoes look like they're on steroids. Conclusion? He should do the whole allotment.

:: The little bit of wood chip we've put down is already amazing me. Weeds are easy to remove and the moisture content has been improved. Little by little we're filling it up.

:: Actually, it is the boys who have done all the wood chip hauling. Using the wheelbarrow and spade they fill it up and walk all way back to our plot over and over until they can no longer stand the pain.

:: It takes every single one of us to make this work.

:: Tomatoes hopefully ready to go in next week. We're leaving it late. I'm worried I've left it too late.

:: If you want to grow brassicas you really do need netting. Butterflies are not scared of bird scarers... who knew?

:: What level of hell was clay created in? Dear Lord above. Enough. Please.

:: Playing with the idea of making a strawberry pyramid from old tyres. I don't really want old tyres, because it will make the place look like a dump - more than it does already - so paint might be involved.

:: As with everything we do you can't look at the mountain ahead but must concentrate on each step as it comes if you want to finish this race. Persistence is the key.

:: When spirits are low, blurting out "Rome wasn't built in a day" at intermittent intervals stops people throwing the trowel in. Until pain sets in, then people start mumbling under their breath about how they don't even rate Rome as a particularly good place, and what did the Romans ever do for us, and who the hell wants to live in Rome anyway. Which gets a bit Monty Python. At that point, it's time to go home.

How is your garden growing?

Keeping on Keeping on

I am ready to wave the white flag at the allotment and start working on raised beds as we try to improve the soil over the next few years. Good Lord what a punishment it is.

Trying to enjoy our space anyway - it's spozed to be fun - the nature area is shooting up and the boys have found some frogs on the border between us and our neighbours. They are trying to entice them into their pond. The frogs, not the neighbours. Obviously. Although they are most welcome...

I am seeing in my mind's eye perfection, and opening my eyes and seeing bedlam and trying not to be too dispondent. It is, after all, a work in progress. Always. If only this soil was a little more giving...

Ah well. A painful toil. A metaphor for life itself. How sweeter the rewards when things start to give.

Beginnings

This is how I spent yesterday afternoon - an impromptu, but much appreciated, seed starting session. To be honest, I didn't really know whether or not I was going to keep the allotment this year - but plodding along, persisting and stubborn, and here we are - at the beginning of another growing year. And I seem to be starting seeds off; I seem to have made plans for extra allotment space, and I seem to have got lists of arborists ready to call. Maybe I'll get the seeds in the ground and maybe they'll grow and maybe after all this I will get some onions to cook and call it a going concern. It doesn't matter; the process of working in the dirt, planting the seed and watching it grow, if at all - well, honestly, it's the best medicine you could have.

Zoned out and tired through in a happy, not thinking-too-much about anything kind of way I feel as though I am productive. And then I get to watch the fireworks when those little seeds decide to work their magic.

I don't even mind giving up my living space to make room for these new babies. They are totally worth it.

From Garden to Table

We didn't have a garden this year. The rain made sure of that, but even before the appalling summer, we had given our allotment over to another homeschooling family to work in the hope of making use of the land which I felt I couldn't commit to this year.

I miss it. I really, really miss it. Which is a good thing. I think if I hadn't there would be something wrong, and I'm itching to start planning for next year. Gosh I haven't even got any garlic to put in over winter that's how unprepared I am this year.

But. We have herbs. Scattered in pots here and there in our garden we have a handful of herbs that we regularly use and enjoy - rosemary, mint (several varieties! taking over the garden!), sage, lemon thyme, dill, parsley and chives, and one of my greatest pleasures is walking around the garden just before meal prep and cutting the handful of things that we need. I love the smell of my hands after I've picked them; I love the mindful (quiet) wander up and down the garden; I love knowing that at least part of the meal will be freshly picked. There is something about tending and growing food that is so essential to our nature, don't you think?

What are you growing in your garden? Any plans for next year?

It's Time...

It's time. Time to start buying in the compost, digging out the soil block maker, getting the seeds sorted and the allotment plan pencilled in. It's time. My potatoes tell me so....




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Strawberry fields forever

We usually go for corn in October. Maybe pumpkins, depending on whether we have decided to 'like' them this year. But we found ourselves this past weekend picking strawberries instead. In a heatwave. In the sunblasted landscape of the farm. An anachronism amplified by the crazy long shadows usually associated with early evening in summer or, uh, October mid-day as we wrap up with hats and scarves.

Chatting with the farmer this is the first year in his forty years of farming that they've ever offered strawberries so late. And my mother informs me up north they've had rain. Of course. And maybe even snow will fall at the end of this week. The farmer and I agree - something's broken, surely?

Embracing the season we are in, whatever that happens to throw at us, we have been enjoying the Indian Summer as hard as we can - road trips, beach trips, days out, and pool play.

Next week corn should be ready, and if this weather persists it will be the only year in my life so far that I have been able to pick corn and berries on the same day.

And happy as I am to have summer back, I can't help but feel a little worried too...

The harvest bushel bag's (seen above) pattern can be found in the first edition of Seasonal Living and Learning. Out now.

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