Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin

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...

Reasons To Be Cheerful

The great thing about a garden is that, even when you have lost plants (or bits of plants), and when you're feeling very pessimistic about the world in general, and wondering where you're going and why you're in this handcart, there is something to cheer and inspire. Bastard the Cycad is still in recovery, but Bastard II has decided, almost as a means of comforting me, to start a flush:


And despite being written off as a winter loss, Doodia media is alive. I did buy another one, but presumably you can never have too many Doodias...


I have lots and lots of Pelargonium cuttings taking root, ready to brighten up my new lab, which I move into on Monday:


And as well as some Chlorophytum pups that I've finally potted on, having got my GCSE students in 2009 to make them root to demonstrate asexual reproduction, I have my parrot plant (Impatiens niamniamensis) cuttings doing well:


Despite growing all these plants, I'm really not that confident at propagation. Dividing I'm fine with, and I've done that so many times with ferns to give chunks away. But cuttings, and - heavens! - sowing seeds brings me out in a cold sweat immediately followed by a deep sense of shame for my lack of confidence. So I know that Impatiens and Pelargonium are about the easiest genera to propagate evah!!, but it's impressive for me anyway.

Needless Vandalism And Destruction

You've probably all been watching the images of riots, looting and criminal damage. It was shameful and disgusting to watch. Hubster and I joined in with the Ealing cleanup on Tuesday - we couldn't just sit back and do nothing. It was a reminder that there are people in this country (and no doubt around the world) who manage to be materialistic and greedy while putting no value on belongings.

I wouldn't dream of comparing damage to my plants to the losses faced by the poor families I've seen on the news. I would give up my whole garden without a second thought for the sake of my own family. And yet the sense of perspective didn't make this any easier to deal with on Monday night:


This was Bastard the Cycad. Less than a month ago he started flushing, and by the time we went away this time last week for my brother's wedding, he had a good six inches of growth. I came back to find all his fronds snapped off and laid in the pot next to him.

I tried to think whether it was a strong gust of wind, or an animal. But wind would have sent the broken pieces across the garden, and an animal would have eaten the bits (hopefully getting the staggers afterwards). The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this was human. We have guys who work next door to us, but they are lovely friendly chaps who know how much my garden means to me, and I am sure that if one of them had knocked Bastard accidentally, they would have said something. So I'm discounting them.

Which means I'm led back to our nasty new neighbours and their builders, and I reckon this time it was deliberate. The fronds were put back in the pot. But because I was away I have no means of proving this. I just feel gutted that I'd spent all this time nursing Bastard back from near death, and now he won't have this lovely full flush of seven fronds that he was growing. If he's lucky we'll have two full ones.

I'm fed up of people who vandalise other people's property. I hate these builders, and the criminal tenants employing them. I'm disgusted by the far, far worse destruction and wrecking of people's lives that has gone on in the past week. And I'm angry because I am absolutely powerless to do anything about it.