Make a Wish

Make a wish and blow...

...I wish there weren't so many dandelions on my allotment plot. Doh!

Precautions Pay Off

This time last year my early vine growth was stopped in its tracks by a cruel May frost. This year I have taken precautions and wrapped the vines in fleece. I had a peep behind the fleece this morning and I'm pleased to report that the vines are thriving. I'll leave the fleece in place until next weekend when, hopefully, all risk of frost will have passed and I will then look forward to a long hot Summer and a bumper harvest of grapes ready for pressing and fermenting.

Home Grown Allotment Pest

I seem to be personally responsible for breeding the most destructive allotment pest that I have yet encountered. When I was out working yesterday my daughter went to the allotment with her friend. Before coming home she forgot to close the greenhouse door (What she was doing in the greenhouse in the first place  is yet to be satisfactorily explained). I was not aware that she had been in the greenhouse until I popped round there on my way out this morning. I found the greenhouse door wide open and I was devastated to see my seedlings hanging limp and tinged with grey and all suffering obvious damage from the overnight frost.

The leeks and peas will probably survive but the courgettes have certainly had it. At least half of the tomatoes are gone, the runners are goners, the corn is hanging limp and the beetroot, sprouts and broccoli all look very poorly. I have got a few back-up seedlings on the window sills at home but I will still now need to start sowing again. It feels like I'm back to square one. I feel very deflated.

I was so angry at her carelessness that I've told my daughter that our bank-holiday kayaking trip planned for tomorrow is cancelled and the time will be spent on the allotment making up for wasted time. The trouble is that I was looking forward to our day out with the kayaks more than anything and so I may relent and still have the day out. Whether I take my daughter with me or just leave her in the greenhouse, with the door wide open, is yet to be decided.

Avant Garden

If the artist Christo had an allotment I think it might look something like this...

...but he's probably not so cutting edge as to attempt to do anything so radical (or daft) as to cultivate grapevines in a North Lincolnshire swamp where, even in May, the so-called Queen of Months, there is a serious threat of damage from vicious sub-zero temperatures.