The greenhouse confirmed

The confirmation of my order came through this week. Excitement turns to nervousness when the 'extra information' booklet is opened. Especially when the title is followed by an instruction to read before delivery. Two pages of advice on a stable solid base with repeated advice on making sure that it is level. This puts the fear of slabs into me given my apprenticeship on various parts of the garden with slabs and levels. However, if I can make a foundation for the plot shed then I can feel confident that I know how not to repeat my previous mistakes this time round. Popping up to B and Q on Diamond Card day is something to look forward to given the advice to acquire a 10mm nut spinner (wish I had one of those in the school playground) but I am on the lookout to lend an SDS hammer drill, whatever that is. I loved the FAQ: How long will it take to put up ?......"allow a weekend..................that should cover it................depends on how fast you work" . Better look and see how much annual leave I have got left at work.

Greenhouse blues

The one thing missing from my life has been a greenhouse. What seems to be a simple item found on many allotment plots or in peoples backgardens has been absent from life for some time. For years I have brought on runner beans in trays on window sills. Two years ago I progressed to one of those plastic covered tent things with four shelves and was amazed at the assortment of vegetable seeds that I brought on in there. Until it was destroyed in a fierce gale during the last winter. I fetched all the parts from all over the place but many had broken and the whole thing was disposed of as a consequence.

Maybe there is a time in ones life when it is the right time to go big on this. Having purchased not one but two sheds this year, one for the plot and one for the back garden, it felt right to go window shopping for a greenhouse.

Now, there are many websites that are devoted to selling greenhouses and in nearly all (unless you are buying a fancy expensive one that would make your garden look like a miniature version of a Royal Botanical Garden) there always seem to be a number of add ons to the price. Consequently what you thought was a bargain at £250 is in fact twice the price once you have selected toughened glass and a colour finish. Thats also based on a 6 x 4 foot model, so you have to go big.

Until I found this site where I began to realise there was integrity in the greenhouse world at last. So I have dipped my toe in the water and finally taken the plunge today when I placed an order for the Hercules 6 x 10 model which appears to come with everything that I need without paying extra for what I have always believed should be included. Any add ons are those that I have chosen. I have chosen the Victorian ridging and finials to finish it off. Well, it is going to be a feature in the garden and is being purchased with a long life in mind, so might as well make it look good. I have also purchased some rather attractive wooden staging. It is due to arrive in October and will provide me with a number of stories to tell, I'm sure.

My carbon footprint

Since acquiring plot 12a I have been having to remove bags of pernicious weeds and old bits of wood and a lot of rubble. Once, or maybe twice per year, the allotment association rents a skip. This causes a flurry of manic activity and those closest to the knowledge of its delivery, usually those who are retired or not at work, wait in hiding with their disposable stuff, ready to dump it as soon as the skip arrives. Meanwhile folk like me end up discovering on a late Saturday morning that the skip is brimming to overfull.

Consequently, on average, I have been removing three bags of pernicious weed and other gubbins per week. Occasionally I also remove a bag of sieved rubble such as minor stones and metal bits. Large rubble and concrete bits I have piled up waiting for the annual skip or an opportunity to take them to the dump with my weeds.

Lets get this straight. We are talking pernicious weeds. The sort of ground elder type of root which just cannot be composted on the plot. So each week I have either driven to the local dump (know as a cowp in Scotland) or brought an occasional bag back to my house to put in the bin if I think it is a quiet week vis a vis the bin.

So it got me thinking. If I drive the equivalent of an eight mile trip with three bags of rubbish (based on average over the last eight months) each week - what does my carbon footprint look like ?

Artichoke 3

...............................................................................................................Gone !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artichoke 2

....................................................going.....................................................................................................

Artichoke 1

Going........................................................................................................................

Embrace the marrow

This is the time of year when anyone who is told that marrows will soon be ready asks, what do you do with them ? The level of ignorance about this noble vegetable is mind numbing. Is it a large courgette ? No. Same family but a gloriously different vegetable.

Here, in no particular order are my Three Beautiful Things that you can do with the marrow.

• Peel, core and slice into chunks. Boil with mint and serve with a Sunday roast with gravy.
• Create a chutney using small marrow chunks as the base. Add apple for flavour
• Peel, core but do not slice. Stuff cavity with stuffing of your choice, bake in foil for an hour

How do you eat your marrow ?

The Hill (Part 3)

"Major archaeological find discovered in allotment dig"

Reports are coming in of an exciting new discovery which reveals for the first time that Allotment Man may have existed before the 21st century. Local amateur archaeology expert, Gnome, has informed us that after a recent site survey and preliminary site excavation exercises, sampling has now provided evidence of cultural remains.


"We undertook a survey by digging a shovel test pit. We anticipated the odd broken brick and pieces of 20th century rusting corrugated iron. We also found a considerable amount of ground elder root which we have been dispatching by the bag load. But nothing prepared us for the discovery of a relic made of metal which can only have been buried here for many years. The post excavation analysis has now been completed and I can confidently tell you and all your readers that after Neanderthal Man came Allotment Man. This relic dates the new member of homo-sapiens to around 1979 or thereabouts. We cannot be too sure, it is not an exact science."

Gnome has sent the metal object, believed to be an early digging implement or possibly a hand weed excavator to the British Museum where experts are currently studying his find. Experts in the field of archaeology have already begun to talk about the importance of Gnomes Trowel, as it has been labelled, and anticipate that there is more to come from this vital cultural discovery.

The Hill (Part 2)

And so the time came to pass, further evidence was required to show fellow allotmenteers that progress was being made with the colonised ground elder heap. It was not so much a plan being needed but the discipline to chip away at this festering heap. It required physical effort to cut into the pile - a garden spade would have worked but Big Bertha was needed to take the effort out of the task - and physical energy to griddle. A mechanical griddle would have been a blessing but the only one at hand was a conventional round one the would need the same sort of waist movement as Chubby Checker. And a wheel barrow at close quarters with a strong plastic garden bag to receive the ground elder roots. The method was simple, thrust, slice, griddle, bag. The time required for this four part activity was the challenge. To complete two whole barrow loads of the resulting gubbins took approximately sixteen of these movement cycles. So far so good but only a quarter of the hillock had been eaten into.

What is the point of weeding, when they are all going to die in two months ?

(as suggested by John on the way out of the plot tonight)

The Hill (part 1)

On first sight, at the end of January, it did not seem to be a dominant feature. The entire half plot was in such a state that this hillock in the corner at the edge of the allotment gravel path seemed insignificant. It seemed like an old heap that had been conceived as a compost heap. There were pieces of old crock and some broken tiles dotted over it, like a spotted dick pudding. There were tufts of grass and some old weed that had frozen off during the winter. The suggestion was that it was an old heap. It had not been added to for some time. Passers by said that it looked interesting. But then so did many parts of the plot in its, then, present state. Like the curates egg. Its age was added to by the effect of the corroded and rotten corrugated iron edging which was firmly embedded at the rear. An initial dig at it exposed what we had feared. The spaghetti threads of ground elder. This was a large heap of ground elder root that had been left by its creator in the belief that it would compost down into a beneficial nutrient. There were too many other items that needed attention to get started. This lump of aging root and soil would need to wait its turn. And so it was covered in a black pvc pond liner rescued from a revamped pond in the hope it would not develop anything more than the eye sore it had the potential to be.

Don't you just love allotment potatos ?

I don't. I cannot see what all the fuss is about. I have yet to eat an allotment potato that just does not match up to those you can buy in a shop, when you want them. OK, so I have been on the Atkins diet since January and lost a considerable amount of weight. So I have it in for carbohydrates of most kinds (except beer). And therefore I would not expect to say anything in praise of the potato. However, I planted two rows this year to 'fill a space' as they say, or to help 'break up the ground' as they say. The end result has been a bit of a puzzle finding the blighters (geddit ?) and removing some tenacious weeds and thistles. It has been difficult to see what the breaking up of soil has achieved that could not have been done with a spade and fork. And to top it all, I get them home and boil them for dinner, and the usual thing happens - the same thing every year whether I grow them or someone gives them to me from another plot - if you don't catch them in time, they disintegrate. So there - you will all tell me that I am growing them wrong or cooking them wrong but I don't care - no more potato growing for me.

Gnome ?
What Weed ?
What are you doing ?
Ruminating Weed.
And what is that Gnome ?
It means sitting on my green plastic chair and wondering what on earth I am supposed to do with it all.
Do with what ?
The ground elder and all the mounds of rubble and gubbins that I have inherited.
Well, if sitting on your green plastic chair is ruminating, then you must do an an awful lot of that because I see you there every week.
Ah ! But what you don’t see is all the work that I put into getting shot of this pernicious weed that permeates every square inch of my plot.
Maybe I do Gnome but don’t want to admit it.
Very Freudian, Weed.
Gnome, are you trying to get rid of me as well ?
Are you pernicious ?
No, just occasionally invasive on an annual basis if you get my drift.
Ha! I get your drift, every year !
So, what makes me different from the pernicious weeds ?
Well, for a start you don’t have a colonising root with Triffid tendencies of reproduction at a speed of knots that would have put Donald Campbell’s record in jeopardy.
Does that mean you like me ?
I like anything that does not dominate every square inch of the plot in such a way that it prevents anything else from taking root.
Gnome, what was that stuff I saw you spraying round the plot last month ?
It’s called glyphosate, Weed and it has the power to eliminate anything that has a green leaf.
Is that the stuff they put into Chinese takeaways ?
Might as well have been for all the good it has done the plot. I had to read the label carefully because I thought it might have been a fertiliser, the ground elder seemed to be multiplying before my eyes.
But you won’t spray it on me will you Gnome ?
Just keep away from the marrows and stay on the edge of the path and you will be fine Weed.
Thankyou Gnome, and I won’t tell anyone about the extra hours you spend sitting on your green plastic seat, ruminating.