The Farnham Allotment Show is always a happy affair; beautifully organised and populated by a wonderfully diverse cross section of local people, united by devotion to their allotments. I find it so sweet as we all arrive, carefully bearing our various baskets, jars and trugs – then painstakingly setting out our precious offerings. There’s always a gentle hum of concentration mingled with appreciation of others’ displays. All on a perfect summer’s day. How fortunate to be part of it!
The day started for me at 6am at the huerto, bathed in bright sunshine and loud birdsong. On inspection, this is what I picked – the best I could find (and not necessarily what I’d planned; the perfect red cos lettuces had been shredded by slugs overnight, drat them, and the promising dahlia bud still hadn’t opened (Bishop’s Children, from seed).
To my surprise and delight, I later found that the funny purple podded peas I entered on a whim had won Best in Show!! I had planted the whole of a mouldy old packet of heritage seeds – bought I think at a plant fair at Wisley – and only ONE had germinated. It then grew only very feebly, requiring agonising weeks of nurture before it finally took off …. but in the end here was this one plant’s crop proudly recognised. A lesson in perseverence.
It was altogether a lovely day of uncomplicated joy, sunshine and simple pleasures:
This lot was just a quick pick of young veg to add to a picnic salad – still tender enough to eat raw, chopped small and mixed with wild rice and a light dressing.
It was probably the finest plant I’ve grown this year. Funny how you can plant seeds from the same packet in exactly the same way, yet one develops into a much more vigorous and healthy specimen… This was a courgette Black Hawk, a thing of beauty and astonishing vitality, growing almost visibly. A courgette had grown underneath the lowest stem and had become distorted; potentially rotting and bait for slugs. So I manoeuvred my secateurs at what I thought was the right angle – and snip, a very satisfying crunch. Disaster. I’d cut the main stem at ground level. The whole plant was irrevocably felled. 
Happily, however, there is another Black Hawk plant which is growing well in the same bed. And, even better, there was a little patty pan courgette plant that had germinated late and for which I had in vain sought a home earlier in the day. So now it has a prime position and I hope will take energetic encouragement from its recently departed cousin, now sadly languishing in the compost heap.
Here’s pudding this evening, later macerated with golden caster sugar and served with a cool glass of Moscato d’Asti (first experienced at the wonderful River Café for my birthday treat last year, courtesy of my two darling daughters) – with cream too, of course.
What a busy day; and how very satisfying to see things coming at last to fruition.
Aren’t they gorgeous?! Only a short time before they are the first delectable courgette harvest. And what about the peas, only recently so threatened by those naughty weevils:
Trials and tribulations actually. I’ve been nurturing my asparagus bed now for 5 years and have yet to harvest any. I had done the deep trench thing, added drainage and delicately straddled the octopussy roots over a carefully constructed ridge – all by the book. Then, ‘they’ always say, you have to wait two years for it to establish, after which heavenly abundance will arrive. Not on my plot!
Research tells me that historically asparagus was happily grown on liminal beach dunes, essentially in sand, enriched with a bit of compost and seaweed. Nowhere can I find any encouragement that transplanting asparagus is possible; however, I dug it all up and did my best to create a little bit of seaside in the middle of a Surrey roundabout. Gosh, bags of sand are heavy! Time will tell if it works, but at least then I will know. And if it’s no good next year I will use the space for something that appreciates it more.
The seaweed, by the way, was gathered from above the tide line. I made sure there were no wee beasties stranded in it. I did wonder about attempting quasi-Jersey Royals by also mulching the International Kidneys, but there wasn’t enough.
Tardis-like, my modest shed had somehow accommodated a massive jumble of ‘stuff’, much of it dirty from muddy winter days when tidy cleaning up was secondary to getting home to the Aga. But yesterday, the time had come!
Here it is in all its new clean and orderly glory. For contrast, I should have taken a picture of all the contents spread outside, but I was in the grip of that spring cleaning frenzy that sweeps all before it! Quite a lot of old plastic pots are now in the recycling dump, along with the remains of several broken fork heads and two decayed baskets.
No sign of cosy overwintering mice or wasps holding hands like we found during last year’s spring clean. Raining today, so I’m very glad this was all done yesterday in the sunshine.
I was so happy to find these treasures at the Saturday market at Farnham Maltings this weekend, provenance an old manor house sale. The teeny ones are over 100 years old; auricula pots. They had all been stored safely in the potting shed for decades while the world marched on. Perfect for potting on seedlings. So romantic. I adore them!
Busy busy busy… so much to do at this time of year. On the plus side, seedlings are germinating in the cold frame, broad beans established in situ, all the beds dug and fertilised – and I’ve even managed to plan what’s going where this year, a conscious discipline after the ad hoc chaos of recent years. Mind you, I doubt it will all end up as per the plan…
The bean frame is in place. Initially my Engineering Advisor said I’d built a mere ‘mechanism’. However, with the addition of diagonal bracing apparently it now qualifies to be designated a structure. So that’s good (not that the beans will care :0)
On the not so good side, my dear little pea seedlings (variety Marvel), sown in a length of guttering under fleece and slid tidily into place as healthy plants, have been neatly serrated by what I believe are pea weevils. Little devils. But I think the plants are sufficiently healthy to survive.
Of asparagus we will not speak except to say that even in the face of dismal sprue fronds, I can’t quite bring myself to abandon hope.
I love it that the allotment plot is ‘hidden in plain sight’; right in the middle of an urban roundabout, yet completely invisible unless you know to look. Just inside the 5-bar gate the two trees I planted early last year are establishing well, and – even better – the clumps of snowdrops at their base are in full bloom, shining sweetly just out of view beyond the thickets of brambles and hedge that the passing motorists see.
The sunshine today was warm enough to encourage me finally to plant the Rose de Roscoff onion sets. This year I managed to source these in the UK (thank you Dobies of Devon), though it felt more romantic to get them from France.
I also planted broad beans Karmazyn and Express in modules under glass, along with onion seed Long Red of Florence, for which I have high hopes. Please mice, stay away.
If 
there were a competition for growing the largest buttercup clump, victory would surely have been awarded to the astonishingly huge specimens I tussled from the raspberry bed! Along with other lesser weeds, these are now safely composting away beyond the perimeter fence while the fruit cage looks smug and neat under its blanket of newly strewn fertiliser. I also pruned quite hard the gooseberry bush that produces such generous beauties each year with no other encouragement than a bucket of manure in the spring and the odd whisper of thanks. The alpine strawberries are everywhere; for now I indulge this habit, though they are becoming a bit promiscuous.
Due to a mixture of laziness, other priorities and a pusillanimous reluctance to engage with the chill dampness, I have been sadly neglectful of the huerto over recent times. However, a delightful array of gardening Christmas presents filled me with zeal and thence to work. Here’s my wonderful new Dutch spade (there’s also a new fork, which I have promised not to break!)
In a few hours I managed to:
So all in all a productive day, despite the most shaded areas resembling tundra! Interestingly, where the frost layer is only superficial, I have found it actually facilitates weeding; breaking the frosted earth with a trowel seems to enable the root of the weed to come up more easily than usual…
And all with lovely warm hands, thanks to my new gloves ‘winter touch’ (thank you, Ian). It always seems such a shame to start dirty work with immaculate new gardening gloves; a scruple, however, that I seem to get over remarkably quickly.
… broke the fork, that is!! As my daughter Clara observes, “Mummy is insanely strong!”…
This year’s extended fruiting season has been an unexpected pleasure, with all sorts of wonderful produce, including a good crop of quinces on the tree planted just 3 years ago.
Despite my dismal failure to get the remainder of my hyacinth bean seeds to germinate this spring, the lone survivor is making up for its lost brethern by taking off in spectacular fashion, putting its neighbouring sweet peas to shame. The pods are an amazing deep carmine colour, shining and waxy.
See the recipe page for blackcurrant jam – not including the dahlia (‘Juliet’), although apparently the tubers are edible…
The red kuri squash has taken off and is madly climbing up its bean pole tripod, fruiting brightly.
My friend Gill recently remarked that she had not appreciated the extent of the allotment plot. So here’s my attempt to show the length; there are 12 raised beds, six on either side. And at the far end the shed and compost area behind is complemented on the other side by the box-edged square plot that I scratched back from the stony wilderness 2 years ago.
And to change the scale, here’s the green drama of rampant swiss chard – variety ‘white silver 2’.
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