Weather alert

One minute we are talking about a drought and a possible hosepipe ban, the next minute it pours down with rain.

As I write, I am sitting with a pullover on in bitter cold weather, listening to the sound of some quite harsh rain. Not like June is supposed to be, but it means I don't have to do any watering this evening.

But - and there has to be a but - I did a lot of sowing yesterday in the conservatory. Let's hope the cold doesn't have a great impact.

I've bean there and done it

I spent a very enjoyable few hours in the garden the other day, chiefly building a wigwam for my runner beans and planting them in. My friend Kate gave me some of her plants and I transplanted some I have been growing in the conservatory. Let's hope there's no repeat of last year's early death.

A second wigwam is up alongside, ready for french beans when the time is right. Cor, the soil is very stony, a reflection that we were once a big area for quarries. No matter how much I give the ground a going over, more stones appear.

It's a bit of a bonus that it has rained since I planted the runners.
 

Well, I never

Two miracles happened today, the first being that I used some produce from the garden. A whole 1lb of rhubarb from one of my two plants went into a rhubarb crumble cake I made this morning. Sadly, the eggs, sugar, butter and flour were provided by the shop, but I'm still pretty pleased to utilise something I have grown. The cake won't get any prizes for looks, but I'm hoping it is going to taste fine. The recipe by the way was from the nice Scottish tea room book my cousin Jennifer gave me for my birthday.

And the second miracle? It has rained after XXX days of drought. Not much, but I could hear it while I was in the bath and can see the wetness now that I am out of it. Altogether now: It will do a drop of good for the garden.

A sluggish day

Sheltering indoors from the rain this morning, I muse over that old saying ne'er cast a clout...etc. We shouldn't really be surprised about English weather, but would do well to remember these adages. Wisdom in a sentence.

I also fell to thinking about slugs and nematodes. My mate Steve has filled me in on them and says they tried them once, some years ago. The result? "The slugs and snails were unaffected and we were poorer."

He goes on to give me the information that nematodes include the threadworms that infest cats and dogs and I tell him that I definitely won't be using them because of our pets. Ah, not so simple, says Steve.

The phylum Nematoda is vast. The intestinal parasites found in vertebrates are passed on via eggs in the host's faeces, and then ingested by another host. Some of the nematode species are very host specific, but others will infest a wide range of hosts. The slug killer only zaps the slimy bastards, with no effect on vertebrates. Some nematodes are plain weird: one species lives only in the felt beermats that were used in German bierkellars.

His technique is to clout slugs with a hammer. His wife Marianne says that's too brutal: she stands on them. End result is the same.

My plans for tomorrow include earthing up of the spuds now they have reached the suggested height of about 8in. The internet is a great invention and includes an incredibly handy video on the Videojug website.

I marvel at how I'm quite happy to look at it, yet would shun any TV programme called How To Earth Up Potatoes. Some 17,000 people have viewed it. Mind you, there have been 779,360 hits for their video on how to get out of the car without showing your knickers.

I suppose I ought to say that I resisted the temptation.

Lettuce pray

Just as the pattern yesterday, the heavy rain of the morning stopped and I was able to go out into the garden again. Unlike yesterday, though, I had to come in after 90 minutes when a shower developed.

I achieved my goal for the afternoon. Which was to dig out the old lettuce and salad leaf patch and get the new lettuce and spinach in. The spinach, by the way, is a Cogarde (Oak Leaf), chosen from many varieties by me at Dove Cottage Nursery because of the slight association with where we live - Broad Oak Place. Let's hope it takes.

Did a bit more lawn edging (all the big jobs) and managed to mow the grass, something I had not done for about 10 days. Hadn't grown much though.


I have also started some of the sprouting seeds which daughter Dorothy gave me for my birthday. One is a rather exciting Melange Gourmet, made by A Vogel, pioneers in natural health since 1923, and is made up of quinoa, white radish and lentils. Should be ready in 3-5 days, as will the alfalfa seeds I have also started. Got a book too from Dorothy on recipes for sprouting seeds and am looking forward to using it. But I do confess I'm unsure about sprouting seed milk shake.

A perfect day (and not in a Lou Reed way)

Heavy rain kept me out of the garden again yesterday, but it brightened up around 2.0 and became exceptionally nice outside.

I was able to get out on the vegetable patches for a satisfying couple of hours of weeding, planting and generally mooching around. But not before we took a small trip to the very splendid Dove Cottage Nursery just a short hop from our house, where I bought some spinach and lettuce seedlings. I also took a punt on heritage tomatoes - a Red Russian and a Bonny Best (nice title).

Back at home I finally transplanted the runner beans which Susan gave me for my birthday and they are now nestling against one of the two wigwams built previously. Cherokee Trail of Tears will be ready to go out in next couple of days. Susan says reassuringly that the next thing is I will discover they have been eaten by slugs. Will I be upset, she asks. Who knows?

The tomatoes I was growing in the conservatory have turned into five seedlings, and have now been put into individual pots, although it looks as though one has died. Intend sorting out growbags for them soon. Reminded myself that this variety goes by the name of Outdoor Girl.

Had this message the other day from former work colleague Hilarie to tell me her vegetable growing isn't going too well:

Our allotment is completely waterlogged but the strawberries are blooming. Runner beans look moth eaten and the lettuce failed to germinate due to the cold and damp. Trying again with pak choi. Even the courgettes look sickly. If we were medieval peasants this would be very worrying indeed.

In the circumstances, I needn't feel too bad about my lettuces and salad leaves. I intend this afternoon to dig over their bit of ground and put in the spinach and lettuce seedlings I got at Dove Cottage.

Rounded off yesterday afternoon by doing some lawn edging and removing some nettles. Susan told me to take the sensible precaution of rolling my sleeves down. I did - I stung my ear.

All in all a very productive time and a well-earned beer at the end of the day. Seemed apt that it was a Combined Harvest made by Bateman's, a Lincolnshire brewery I was introduced to when my daughter studied at the University of Lincoln. Fine beers come from here.

Much ado about nothing

I'm reaching the stage (and may even be past it) of needing to dig and prepare the ground for potatoes. Apparently the traditional day for planting spuds is April 10, which is looming fast. But a walk in the woods just now with the dog has revealed to me just how slippery and muddy it is underfoot after the past few days of snow and rain.

I'm reading a terrific book called Close to the Veg, by Michael Rand, sent to me by my mate Steve, which has turned out quite unexpectedly to be good stuff. The author, who knew nothing about such things before taking on his London allotment, is full of good advice and one of his tips is that it is fruitless to dig a soaking-wet clay soil as you won't do the ground any good by squelching all over it. I've no idea if my soil is clay or not (how are you supposed to tell?) but it seems to me to be sensible to respect his wisdom and lay off until the patch dries off a bit.

This is rapidly turning into a journal in which nothing much happens.

Hunger stalks the land

The harvest has officially failed.

After taking advice from Susan, I have reached the view that the crops will not come through now after all the rain we have had. As I have said before, it was always going to be risky starting the plot when I did. The gamble has failed to come off.

This morning I gave the unused part of the plot a good turning over. Ditto with the other part, where I had been trying to grow lettuce, spinach and rocket. It all got dug over.

I then scattered the Phacelia tanacetifolia which my pals Steve and Marianne recommended as green manure. Or, as it said on the packet, 'broadcast' the seeds. What a delightful word! Roll on early next year when I'll start again.

With no food growing, I now face a trip to Tesco to top up supplies. Or Lidl as we now call it in these hard times that we are experiencing as the economy plunges downwards. (Hey! It's not my fault, says Mr Brown. Funny that,  I seem to remember he was taking the praise when it was going relatively well).

Or, I could book passage to America and start a new life. Except that I don't fancy dancing a jig in the hold all the way across the Atlantic.

 

Universally challenged

Marooned in the house because of the incessant rain, it's still constant thinking instead of action on the vegetable patch.

My mate Steve has sent me a message about potatoes and how he looks forward to the planning and the planting. He sent with it a photograph of his wife Marianne with their 'spud planter'. My wife Susan thought the tool had a proper name, but couldn't for the life think of it. Neither could I.

The gaps in our knowledge are remarkable at times - or is it a sign of memory fading?

There's a photograph of it shown above. I haven't edited Marianne out of it through aesthetic reasons, but rather because some people don't like their image put all over the internet. Ony right to respect privacy.

Planning ahead

Just spent an enjoyable 30 minutes or so looking through my vegetable planting book and planning ahead. Mapped out rough timetable for early next year to include planting of broad beans, peas, French beans, potatoes and lettuce. Might not be enough room for anything else, but we'll see.

It's amazing how engrossed you can get in the literature - and that's all I can do at the moment with the perpetual rain there's been. Had a brief look at the plot tonight and could have sworn I saw something coming through. I did, I did. Could I be wrong with my fears that everything has been washed out?

Watch this space, as the cliche goes.

Not good news

I reckon the seeds I planted on the vegetable plot must have had it after the heavy rain.

It was always going to be a chance planting at this time of the year, but I thought that would have been because of a long and sultry August. Little did I realise that it would be torrential downpours for most of the time. The result, I think, is that all growing has been scuppered.

I'll do a definite check over the weekend (when I have three days off work - hooray!). But I feel there's no hope. All part of a learning curve. I'll just utilise the hiatus by preparing the ground a bit more for when I plant again.

Better news on the herbs I'm nurturing in the conservatory. They all seem to be sprouting, with the chervil ahead of the parsley and cress. Must look up what I can do with them when I take up cooking.

The man is back (he never went away)

I'm back after too long away from the blog. I know the thing with blogging is to do it and do it regularly, no matter how small the entry. The truth is I've been a bit distracted by having to return to work and do other things in the evening when I get home.

Still, the vegetable patch is still there, although looking a little sorry for itself. I fear the seeds might not come up because it's just been pouring with rain almost the whole time since I planted them. Ah well, that's the nature of the game - I'm not despondent.

There's been a bit of conservatory action, though. I've planted some herbs in seed trays and I'm hoping they'll be successful. I've got (or should have) mint, cress, chervil and organic parsley.

Outside, I've covered the two lines of seed I planted with sticks to keep animals off and dug over the unused part again. Also, I've dug out a huge plant to increase the space available.

I'm happy. Patience is the name of the game.

He's a slacker...he's a slacker...!

Yet another confession - not one thing has been done on the old veg patch today. Heavy rain is my latest excuse. Am I being too optimistic in believing there is an optimum temperature for this sort of thing? In Britain?

Still, I did go to the garden centre again and actually bought some things this time. Chicken manure, lettuce seeds, two types of rhubarb and spinach. Perhaps you're wondering why sweets were the first three of the six items. Er...would sugar boost do?

Am on my own this weekend, so should have plenty of time to get out there.