Voltaire didn't write about allotments, but I bet he'd have been none too impressed with my own allotmenteering skills. I have neglected it terribly. It's in the grounds of Hubster's Quaker Meeting House. The plan was that I would tend it while Hubster was in Meeting, then come in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Of course that only works if Hubster is a good Quaker and goes every week...
So, before we went on holiday to Cornwall, it looked like this:
Hubster went once the week after we got back (I can't remember why I didn't go to the allotment - maybe I was tutoring that Sunday morning), and said it was pretty much wild. It evidently stayed wild until I finally got back to it yesterday.
This is what it looked like two years ago before I did anything with it:
I didn't take any photos of it yesterday, but it looked even worse. The borage has evolved into a new species, Borago triffidus, and whilst I can just about see over the top of it, we could lose whole classes of schoolchildren in there.
The oddest thing is the disappearance of vegetables. I put in a bag of first earlies, a bag of main crop and some onion sets. There are no onions. I got maybe a dozen main crop potatoes. Fortunately my first earlies are quite a bumper haul:
I'm assuming that onions have been dug up and eaten by squirrels/pigeons, and that the main crops were irresistible to slugs. Suppose that's a consequence of abandoning the plants for four months!
One of the other Quakers suggested sowing spinach, so I think I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks' time. This coming Sunday, however, I have an awful lot of digging to do.
In other news, I finally made it to Victoria's open garden yesterday afternoon. It looks even more gorgeous in real life than it does in her photos. And even Hubster was happy - he proclaimed the carrot cake the best in the world and was seriously considering another slice (the first one was massive!).
My crappy phone camera did not do this border justice. But I think it was my favourite part of the garden - the combination of reds, maroons, purples and oranges was bright, bold and damn sexy. As you know, I don't really do flowers in Jurassic Park, but I do have a massive soft spot for dahlias.
So two gardens yesterday, at opposite ends of the care-and-attention-given-by-the-owner spectrum. And mine languishing somewhere in between...
So, before we went on holiday to Cornwall, it looked like this:
Hubster went once the week after we got back (I can't remember why I didn't go to the allotment - maybe I was tutoring that Sunday morning), and said it was pretty much wild. It evidently stayed wild until I finally got back to it yesterday.
This is what it looked like two years ago before I did anything with it:
I didn't take any photos of it yesterday, but it looked even worse. The borage has evolved into a new species, Borago triffidus, and whilst I can just about see over the top of it, we could lose whole classes of schoolchildren in there.
The oddest thing is the disappearance of vegetables. I put in a bag of first earlies, a bag of main crop and some onion sets. There are no onions. I got maybe a dozen main crop potatoes. Fortunately my first earlies are quite a bumper haul:
I'm assuming that onions have been dug up and eaten by squirrels/pigeons, and that the main crops were irresistible to slugs. Suppose that's a consequence of abandoning the plants for four months!
One of the other Quakers suggested sowing spinach, so I think I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks' time. This coming Sunday, however, I have an awful lot of digging to do.
In other news, I finally made it to Victoria's open garden yesterday afternoon. It looks even more gorgeous in real life than it does in her photos. And even Hubster was happy - he proclaimed the carrot cake the best in the world and was seriously considering another slice (the first one was massive!).
My crappy phone camera did not do this border justice. But I think it was my favourite part of the garden - the combination of reds, maroons, purples and oranges was bright, bold and damn sexy. As you know, I don't really do flowers in Jurassic Park, but I do have a massive soft spot for dahlias.
So two gardens yesterday, at opposite ends of the care-and-attention-given-by-the-owner spectrum. And mine languishing somewhere in between...
Could the onions have been harvested by others? Then again, why just take the onions. Are you going to keep up with the allotment?
ReplyDeletePerhaps they were harvested (in which case I'm glad someone enjoyed them in our absence). I want to continue with it, but I'll see how I get on this autumn.
ReplyDelete