Sweetcorn and Loss

A rather sad post. In something of a freak accident part of my room has burnt down. Headed down to London to visit She Who Does Not Dig and sort out our moving house. I'm moving out of my current room and into a house with her next Friday and there are billion things to organise. To maximise light for my sweetcorn the curtains were draped over my armchair, which, crucially, meant they were touching my uplighter. It wasn't visibly on when I left, but its slider switch must have been on a tiny bit, because 36 hours after I left the house the curtains burst into flame. A housemate smelt it quite early, so the damage isn't total, the house is fine.


My stuff is not though. Mostly smoke and heat damage; but my sofa, speakers, armchair and other things have enough fire damage to make them skip material. Haven't assessed all the damage, but it's likely to be well over £1000, plus items of sentimental value which no insurance company can replace. Needless to say the sweetcorn that was enjoying the extra light is no longer with us. With this and moving house at the same time it's going to be quite a trying period.


On a more positive note, I went to the plot just before I left Birmingham and planted out half the sweetcorn, so hopefully they'll grow happily and show that life goes on.
No photos of them I'm afraid, I'll take some the next time I head to the plot.

This does mean my room is uninhabitable, and so I'm going to be all over the place until we move in to our new house, and so the plot and this blog might be neglected for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully though I'll find some time for it, some productive gardening is perfect for cheering me up.

More Digging

She Who Does Not Dig was away for the weekend, and my plans to go climbing fell through, so I had the entire weekend to spend on the plot. Plan was to plant a huge number of potatoes, in the hope that their leaves will stop most weeds returning. The photo below shows the potato rows. The strips in between will be very roughly turned over onto the potatoes when it's time to earth them up.


The digging was exhausting work - lots of nasty and unidentified weeds with very dense and deep roots. Handweeded it all first, then dug it thoroughly to remove as many roots as possible. The soil is full of stones, rounded ones about the size of a damson, so I took out lots of these and have been placing them along the beds. I'll eventually add some edging and the pebbles will form paths.



Some of the runner beans have slight slug damage, and a couple looked sorry for themselves, but a good soak cheered them up. Along with all the rows for potatoes I dug another bed and planted some early purple sprouting broccoli, which I love, and some squashes. They will also provide lots of ground cover and stop some of the weeds returning. Only 1 more of the 4 vegetable patches left to dig and then I can have a break from digging - it's hard work! I did have a portable radio with the cricket on in the background so it was enjoyable as well as tiring, and I was pleased with my work by the end of Sunday.

Progress

It's all action on Plot 138b. She Who Does Not Dig and I headed down to the plot on Monday afternoon and were blessed with pleasant weather. After a quick chat with the charming, if slightly eccentric, man whose plot is a couple along from mine, I measured and divided the plot. 4 veg and 1 fruit is the plan. Brought my camera so you can see the plot in its virgin state.


It's the non too impressive looking strip to the right of the blue rope. It's not out of control though, the soil looks well drained and with a bit of manure should be happy to churn out lots of veg for me. Digging and weeding the first bed seemed a reasonable aim for the first session so we set to it. It was bloody hard work, and took us 4 hours. She Who Does Not Dig was digging hard, and complaining about missing tea even harder. We got it done in the end though, just as the sun disappeared. Very satisfying to have got the whole bed done. Here's a picture of She Who Does Not Dig most definitely digging.


And here's a photo of the first bed after our efforts. The bed is fully weeded and dug, although we failed to make any impression on the thousands of small stones. They'll have to wait for another day. Would a sprung rake be any use in getting rid of all the stones sitting on the surface? It's depressing seeing so many on the surface, so it'd be nice to get rid of them to make the bed look prettier, and if I could do it with a rake then I wouldn't have to compact the soil.



This morning we were heading off to London for a few days so I made a quick trip to the allotment to put in the runner beans I'd bought at the weekend. Putting up the frames was very satisfying. They give the plot much more structure and make it look more like a garden. Having green veg in, promising food to come, was also satisfying. Planted the peas as well, it looks like this is the legume bed. Hopefully they'll survive the lack of compost and soon be heavy with lovely food.


Back home I transfered some oregano to a larger pot - I'd bought it at the weekend to add to my treasured herb collection. I also split the sweetcorn I'd bought at the weekend and put them in individual pots. I was reluctant to do so because everywhere says that they hate having their roots disturbed but with many plants in a small pot it was unavoidable, they weren't going to grow at all as they were and were going to have to be seperated at some stage. Away from the plot in London until Friday now, but I'll be back at the weekend to make an attempt at a second bed.

Rained Off

Ignoring the pattern of pleasant mornings and thoroughly miserable afternoons I stayed in bed far too long and by the time breakfast had been consumed the rain was pouring down. The walk from the car to the garden centre door, all 20 metres of it, was enough us leave me bedraggled and convinced of the impossibility of getting anything done outside today. Still, I have got my seeds for the rest of the summer. If anyone has any experience of these varieties let me know how you got on with them.

Squash: Golden Hubbard and Spooktacular F1
Carrot: Autumn King 2 and New Red Intermediate
Swede: Invitation and Angela
Pea: Onward and Kelvedon Wonder

I've also got some sweetcorn and runner bean seedlings, as well as some potatoes currently busy chitting. The potatoes are Kestral but as for the rest, I don't have the foggiest idea, I really should have asked at the farmer's market.

It feels like a lot for a plot started so late in the year, especially one that is currently a dockleaf factory. As long as the rain stops at some stage in the next month I should manage to get the weeds cleared and the seeds in ground. What happens after that is anyone's guess.

Here we go...

My first post for my new allotment. Appropriately named I suspect, because there's going to be a lot of digging before I get to the eating part.

I concluded that I'm not going to have a large garden in the near future. Doing a PhD in Birmingham and having a cottage in the countryside with a big garden aren't mutually compatible. My mum made the suggestion of an allotment, and She Who Does Not Dig (my girlfriend) came around to the idea after much teasing.

I phoned up the local allotment and asked to be put on a waiting list and 2 months later found myself viewing 2 plots. One had returned to something of a primeval state, although they were going to attack it with large machinery later that day. The other was smaller, only a half plot, but had potential for growing this year. Culinary greed and instant(ish) veg-satisfaction won out, and I signed on the dotted line for the small plot.

Tomorrow, dubious weather permitting, I'll get the scavenged rusty spade and fork out and begin the digging...