Snow joke

Somewhere underneath that snow is a black dog. Aged 12, but acting like a big kid.

As I write, it has been snowing again a couple of times this morning after last night's fall and the forecast is that it doesn't look too good over the next couple of days. Given that, it's a surprise to be reminded by John Harrison in his allotment email newsletter that now's the time to start thinking about your seed potatoes and start chitting them.

Nothing was further from my mind, but I suppose I ought to start thinking about his advice. I need to decide what to grow and where to grow it. Finding a frost free place with some light for chitting is going to take some doing, I have to say. 

John Harrison relates his father-in-law's story about competitions where you had to grow as many potatoes from one seed potato as you could. The competitors would chit them and then carefully cut out each sprout and grow them on in pots. Then they would strike cuttings from the foliage and grow those on. 

Apparently a hundredweight (112 lbs or 51Kg) was often achieved! 

New Year musings

The snow was almost gone yesterday, but a new flurry this morning has left the ground covered again. Before it fell I was able to do a quick inspection of the ground and see loads of cat crap on the patch where I have planted the onions. Nowhere else has this neighbour's cat pooed. Does it think it's dropping a nice piece of manure to help the onions along or is there some scent from the bulbs that attracts animals? I'll be very interested to see if this piece of produce ever comes to fruition.

The people who run the excellent Blagger site have been out tending to their raspberries. They admit themselves it's a little late, but it prompts me to think I am even later and must get on with the job. It's not much of a task, just a bit of pruning to get the plants in order for the new year. Must do it - when it stops snowing.

Santa visits our house

Christmas Day arrives and Dorothy has bought me the welcome present of three packets of seeds and a herb mix from the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester (all right, all right, Salford).

The seeds are tomatoes, onions and nasturtiums and I can't wait to get them in the ground next year around June time, tomatoes a bit earlier. 

The herb mix is very intriguing, being a mix of parsley, chives and basil in what resembles a tea bag. Indeed, you do have to soak it in a bowl of water for a day before planting.

Whatever will they think of next.

 

Winter wonderland

 

Today I woke up to heavy snow, really huge flakes falling, and I felt glad that I did not have to get up and go to work. It seems as if we will see out 2009 in snow, just as we saw the year in.

Hard to imagine that a green garden existed here not all that long ago. As I surveyed the scene from our bedroom window, I spied a cat having a crap – right on the spot where I planted the onions, the only things that I have planted out at the moment (apart from the dubious existence of rhubarb). Why there?, Why, why?

Rhubarb puzzler grips this part of the world

Does rhubarb hibernate over winter? I ask because there is no trace of my smaller rhubarb and only a stub of the bigger one. Susan did say earlier this year that she wondered if they would come to anything. Now it looks as if they have indeed come to nothing.

The answer lies in the soil

I wandered - lonely as a cloud* - through the composts and manures at Kershaws Garden Centre and came away none the wiser. What do I need to revive the soil in my ailing vegetable patches? There's so much stuff out there that I couldn't decide. Ah, the modern matra of choice, choice and choice. It isn't very helpful to someone who doesn't know what they're doing. But decide I will have to do before winter sets in properly. And get Susan to come with me in the car to shift these huge bags.

* apologies to William Wordsworth

What about me?

Some people may disapprove of the Daily Mail, but there's an article on its website about new research which says the secret of a long life is not just to eat your greens. You have to grow them as well.

Actually, I don't trawl the Daily Mail - I was led to the article through a link left on Twitter by a gardener in Yorkshire. It's interesting stuff, although my friend Steve has read the Guardian's version of the story and says the Mail left out a reference by one man who also credited his long life to the NHS. Saying that would be a step too far for the Daily Mail.

Where does this leave the likes of me? Someone who tries, but can't seem to get a good crop. Do I get a few more years on my life on the basis of good intentions?

Apostrophes, onions and Christmas

Reviewing my previous post, I see that I referred to my growing abilities. A chap called John McIntyre whose website I look in on from time to time, would be horrified. He's an American journalist about my age and a stickler for language and meaning, especially in journalism. For his benefit and to avoid any doubt, I stress that I was writing about my abilities at growing vegetables in the garden. I did not mean that my abilities were on the up and up. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

I was brought to this after a discussion with my friend Kate about the misuse of apostrophes and the like in written language. She's a teacher of English as a foreign language and tends to the view that these variations are all right as long as the recipient of the language gets the meaning. I remain doubtful of the argument and was reminded of it when I glanced at the packet of white onions she kindly bought for me the other day. The label proudly boasts Wilkos Cream of the Crop. While the meaning is blindingly obvious, I would much prefer to see Wilko's.

Still, I was very grateful for the present and it was a pleasant interlude when I planted the 50 onions in the ground where my runner beans had produced such a bountiful crop this summer. Let's hope the onions similarly thrive. Or should it be onion's?

On the kitchen front, I have finally baked our Christmas ale cake, used the spare fruit for a Yorkshire tea loaf and got onions salting overnight for pickling. Susan says I have to finish the onions when she is out of the house as she does not care for the smell.

The ale cake is from a recipe supplied by Stephen Jackson, owner of the Weavers Shed at Golcar, near Huddersfield, and is one I used last year. I do not take against him because of the lack of apostrophe in the word Weavers. My ingredients are not so posh as his, being chiefly from Aldi, but I did manage the bottle of Theakston's Old Peculier he recommends. Decent amount left for a drink. Hic!

And the beet doesn't go on

I've previously told how my friend Kate quite rightly persuaded me to move the spinach beet outside and how it rapidly died after a couple of weeks.

Surveying the wreckage today, I spied a turd.

A comment on my growing abilities?

And another thing

A person's needs, tastes and wants change over the years and it's the same with us, one example being that we seem to have an uncomfortable night if we eat much after 8pm. 

Susan is trying hard to be gluten-free, staying off bread, cakes and biscuits, as it doesn't seem to be much good for her. Just lately chili also seems to give her a bad time. Now she has announced, and she is quite right in telling me, that she is laying off the garlic.

Garlic happens to have been one of the few things I have grown successfully in the garden and I have a small stock of bulbs in the larder. Bugger.

Another day, another excuse

In my last post I promised I would get out in the garden after many weeks of neglect. I'm sorry to say that I have broken that promise.

As I write this, a terrific storm restricts me to staring out of the window in wonder at the deluge. You won't catch me out and about in this today.

It's a valid reason, but I fully realise that I am faltering with my ambitions to grow veg for our kitchen. A kick up the backside is needed.

Fighting talk

Spring forward, fall back. It's the phrase everyone quotes to remember whether to put the clocks on one hour or back. Tonight's the night when we put the clocks back, the nights get dark earlier and we inevitably start to have thoughts of Christmas.

It's been a washout of a day today with the weather, but I intend to give the garden a good going over next week after a period of letting it go. Sadly, the spinach beet which Kate  persuaded me to plant out in the space vacated by the French beans is dying back rapidly.

Susan says (again) that I just don't seem to have the growing touch. I intend to prove her wrong.

I've read that some critics say by changing the clocks we adversely affect our body's natural rhythms. It ain't going to happen to me. Up and at 'em.

The things I have to put up with

Something has done a bit of determined digging in the ground. Was it a cat, a squirrel, a deer, badger or the Beast of Brighouse? Tempting though the latter theory is, I'm inclined to rule it out. The culprit, whatever it was, had a pretty good go at making a hole but appears to have left nothing in it. So why go to all that bother?

Never write off the Russians

There are times in life when things creep up on you unexpectedly and take you totally by surprise. Take my Red Russian tomatoes, for instance - they're growing again.

This is a real shock to me as my Bonny Best has long since died, the Outdoor Girl hasn't produced any for a while and I had the last of my store of Gartenperle in a sandwich today. Blow me down when I saw some green Red Russians growing and, lurking at the back, one that is reddish in colour. 

Recent weeks have had a decided autumn air about them and we've had a frost on a couple of mornings, so it is a real shock to see the tomatoes bursting into life again in a conservatory with no heating. I hadn't even been watering them.

How far will they get?

It's peas in our time

Here's the first of my crop of peas - and I suspect it will be the last.

My mate Steve kindly gave me some heritage seeds last year and I planted some of the peas near the runner beans, but they have been a dismal failure. I expected about five or six plants to grow, but got only one.

Other people seem to have had difficulty with peas this year, so I am not alone. But it is damned frustrating.

There. Got it off my chest. And no dreadful pun about peas please me.

Giving it a go

My friend Kate is a fan of spinach beet and persuaded me to plant it when I was looking for something to go in the ground where the potatoes had been. I duly bought some seeds and popped them in pots some time ago.

Kate visited yesterday and spotted them growing in their pots in the conservatory, where they have lingered as a victim of the twin evils of inertia and slight despair at not being able to grow anything from seed outside (beans excepted).

She suggested I ought to try them outside and got to work on the plot where the Cherokees had been, digging over the soil again and spreading some chicken manure pellets. Eight or nine holes, a bit of puddling in with the watering can and they were in.

The soil was very dry, she remarked. Today, however, I have woken up to rain which seems settled in for the day. A good start for the spinach beet.

As I’ve said on so many occasions, time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Kate,spinach beet

Something I hadn’t considered

Took advantage of some nice autumn sunshine today to have a good (though not long) session in the garden.

My back came through the test as I dug up the Cherokee Trail of Tears and gave a quick digging over on another two patches.

One thing I hadn’t thought about was how tenacious the beans would be as I worked to untangle them from the poles of their wigwam. Gone now, though. What a good haul the seeds have produced.

I’ve flung some green manure over the plot and used the last of the packet on what space I could elsewhere. Must get some more.

Also picked some tomatoes, but I fear they are coming to an end now. Gartenperle has been the best, followed by Outdoor Girl and then Bonny Best and the Red Russian. The last was a complete failure, although I did get them to a decent size and got three jars of green chutney out of them. Not bad.

Technorati Tags: Cherokee Trail of Tears,beans,green manure,tomatoes,Gartenperle,Outdoor Girl,Bonny Best,Red Russian

Gardening by the moon

I see I could, if I wish, buy a 2010 Gardening by the Moon calendar to hang on the wall.

A search on the internet brings me to this explanation on an American website devoted to the subject:

Gardening by the phases of the moon is a technique that can speed the germination of your seeds by working with the forces of nature. Plants respond to the same gravitational pull of tides that affect the oceans, which alternately stimulates root and leaf growth. Seeds sprout more quickly, plants grow vigorously and at an optimum rate, harvests are larger and they don't go to seed as fast. This method has been practiced by many for hundreds of years, and is a perfect compliment to organic gardening because it is more effective in non-chemically treated soil.

Can there really be anything in this? As an opponent of all things hocus pocus – spiritualism and homeopathy being chief among them - I am naturally sceptical.

I doubt that I shall be giving it a try.

(The use of the word compliment instead of complement is theirs, by the way)

Technorati Tags: moon

Some words of wisdom

Getting out of the car the other day, Susan said to me: “You’re garden’s looking a wreck, Andy.”

She’s not wrong.

And then, examining the rhubarb, she added: “I don’t know if it’s going to come to anything next year.”

To which I could only ask: “Why’s that?”

Her reply? “You don’t seem to have the magic growing fingers.”

She’s not wrong.

I looked around the garden centre this afternoon for these magic growing fingers, but they didn’t seem to have any. Some people are blessed with a natural ability to grow things, I know, but it seems to me that the only way I can develop any sort of powers in this direction will be to work harder, prepare more and think harder about the planting.

Lesson learned, I hope.

As I come out of hibernation after the back problem, I see there is a lot of tidying up to do. The Cherokee Trail of Tears will have to come out, the patches where I have tried and failed to grow spinach beet and carrots will have to be dug over.

We live and learn. On the plus side, Susan says my chutney has worked out well.

Result.

Technorati Tags: Susan,Cherokee Trail of Tears,chutney

Thinking ahead

The Organic Gardening Catalogue arrives in the post from Chase Organics and provides me with a pleasant half hour of reading. Apparently, they are part of the Ian Allan Group, better known to my eyes as publishers of transport books. Strange diversification.

Plenty of delights to think about in the catalogue, although I might not buy from them. The spuds look enticing, particularly some of the names. Is there still a real-life Lady Balfour and does she mind being described as having ‘moderate scab resistance’?

I’m going over in my mind what I’ll be planting next year and where. I’m unsure at the moment where the spuds will go or indeed whether I will have first earlies, second earlies or maincrop. Decisions, decisions.