Free as a Bird

No gardening this weekend - I've been gliding instead!!!

This was the Spring meeting of the East Pennine Association of Churchill Fellows, of which I'm currently Chairman. We usually go walking but fancied something more dyamnic, and one of the committee is a member of York Gliding Club, so off we went to Rufforth Airfield, just outside York.

Despite a weather forecast which promised heavy showers (and delivered them in Sheffield), gliding in York was excellent! Rufforth airfield is an old WW2 airfield, still in reasonable shape and used by the gliding club and various small-scale aviation outfits. Quite a lot of conventional gliders, a couple of powered gliders and an autogyro (which looked great fun).

Got a tow up to 2000 ft, behind a fairly basic plane,

then cast off. We found a thermal which took us up to 2500 ft and were up for about 25 mins. I flew it for a bit; managed not to pull the wings off or anything. Tremendous fun and would love to do it again.

Hoe, Hoe, Hoe - No.2 in an occasional series of favourite tools.

I like all three of these, for different functions, and like to see them shiny, indicating that they've been put to work, seeing off weeds in a cloud of dust. The long Dutch hoe is from that well-known purveyor of gardening tools to the gentry, Wickes, but I've no idea where the others came from! My favourite is the short-handled onion hoe, which is as sharp as a sharp thing and really effective at "slash and slice".

Allotment activities today? In a packed schedule I

• hoed
• weeded and tied in the blackberries
• planted out 12 Parsleys (flat leaved)
• got rained on (but not enough)
• forgot to take the mouse-proof tin for teabags, but it didn't matter because I
• also forgot to take the stove to boil the water anyway. Duh!

Chesterfield Canal Wildlife Hour

In an hour cycling along the towpath this morning I saw:

• 2 swans a-nesting
• 4 herons a-stalking (well, actually the same one 4 times; started to look really grumpy as he kept having to a-stalk a bit further away each time)
• 1 moorhen chick a-having what looked like its first outing in the water. Very small and very low in the water, with much anxious a-fussing from mum, and
• 1 vole, not so much "a-questing through the plashy fen" as a-scuttling hell for leather across the path.

No partridges, no pear trees.

Catching Up!!

Finally cleared the garage of old-kitchen rubbish, with a mere five "car stuffed to the roof" trips.

Finally got the AGM of our Churchill Fellows Association out of the way (William Hague as guest speaker and a really good event. V pleased).

At last I can get on with catching up with greatly neglected seed sowing.

So this day I are mostly been sowing:

Lettuce - Salad Bowl & Red Salad Bowl
Rocket
Basil
Sybil
Manuel
Coriander
Mangetout peas (Oregon Sugar Snap)
Runner beans (Polestar stringless)
Climbing French beans (Veronica Lake)
Courgette (last years remnants)
Cucumber (Burpless Tasty Green) - don't you believe it; well they're green anyway.

And potted on a mere 30 tomato plants - 15 Tamina and 15 Moneymaker. I've got some Gardeners Delight (isn't that called beer?) and San Marzano Plum coming along too but they're a bit scraggy because they got a touch of frost nip.

And finally, planted a Lavatera at the plot and one at the house so we can have synchronised flowering. Aah!

To follow, in due course:

Yer Brassicas, which are miles behind
Yer leafy vegetables (spinach and beetroot; yes, beetroot, I know but it is quite leafy!)
Yer Flowers.

Next weekend with a bit of luck.

Mouse in mi teabags, what mi gonna do?

Something of a conflict of interest in the shed today. Old Mousey, sitting on the workbench waiting for me today, clearly thinks he owns the shed. Given that he's been there more than me just lately he has a point. But making a nest in my box of teabags is going a bit far.

Did all those Chocolate Oranges i left him count for nothing? He'll be turning his nose up at ordinary Sainsbury's tea next and asking for Earl Grey or, heaven forfend, a nice bit of Lapsang Souchong for him and Mrs Mousey. And probably cucumber sandwiches too (he'll have to wait a bit for those; haven't even sown the seeds yet).

Well listen up, Mousey; this is taking liberties. From next week the teabags are in a tin; a tin tin, ideally with a picture of Tintin on it, innit? Let's see you blunt your mousey teeth on that, matey. Teabags indeed.

Digressing into Sheffield dialect for a moment, the only possible conclusion to an exchange like:

It's in the tin

No it isn't

Yes it is

No it isn't

is

'tin't in tin

Any road up, as they say in this northern enclave of blogland, allotment life has been very quiet lately (unless you're a Mouse), due to the massive diversion of having a new kitchen installed. No, not at the allotment. I've done enough for that mouse already. Before and after pictures below - I know you couldn't give a stuff really but we're proud of it.

On the plot, the onion sets have come alive, lord knows how cos there hasn't been a drop of rain since I put them in 3 weeks ago. But alive they are. Spuds in too - row and half of Charlotte and half a row of Nicola. King Edward's take up too much time and space and as for Prince Albert, let's not go there.

So, it being dry and all, I got the hose out and watered the onions, topped up the baths etc and naturally it started to rain. I am rain god. The baths are v useful for soaking the wooden stool. The weather has been so dry that all its joints have dried out and it's fallen apart. A couple of days in the bath and it'll be fine. Know how it feels.

Chinese Wilson

I spent last Wednesday at an RHS Study Day on the life and works of EH "Chinese" Wilson, another of my plant collecting heroes, second only to David Douglas. Look him up on Google for more info but this is the man:

As you would guess Chinese got his nickname because of where he did the bulk of his collecting, and he was prolific. The most spectacular is Davidia involucrata (the handkerchief tree but he is credited with literally thousands of others. Travelled hard in difficult country and had a horrendous accident crossing a scree slope, which almost cost him his leg and his life.

The Study Day was classic curate's egg - good in parts. When it dealt with the man and his travels it was first class. When it dealt with his plants it amounted to trainspotting for rhododendrons, and Ye Gods, the audience were a load of buffers (present company excepted of course!). I'm sorry to admit that I fell asleep in one of the duller parts.

Simply the Best.....

....manure is well-rotted horse manure. Three big bags of it so far, from my free supply in the woods, through the holly bush and over the rickety bridge (no trolls, at least none I can see).

And the allotment is OK, a bit dry in glorious sunshine but my pathetic plum tree is finally flowering

and the garlic continues to roar away.


Planted 150 onion sets (Stuttgart Giant), 75 red onion sets (Red Supreme), 15 Shallots (Golden Something or other).

Two-Sheds

Devotees of early Monty Python will recall Arthur "Two-sheds" Jackson, who in fact did not have two sheds but was only considering a second shed.

Dear Reader, I have gone better - I am now Two Sheds. My rude hut at home now supplements a ruder hut at the allotment and rejoices in the title you see below.

Sixteen Miles on the Erie Canal?

Well, no actually, more like 10 miles on the Chesterfield Canal towpath this morning, by bicycle. The Chesterfield Canal should look like this

but bits of it actually look like this.

There's been a breach; the ducks look very confused.

I was listening to Springsteen singing about the Erie Canal on the Seeger sessions last night, and I have actually been to the Erie Canal,

here in 2001 when I was on my Churchill Fellowship following David Douglas - all good allotmenters should know about David Douglas (1799-1834).

But the Chesterfield Canal has grand aspirations:

Meanwhile, back in allotment-land, it's been glorious here today.

Finished clearing out the cabbages

and came home with that great Russian delicacy, a bucketful of cabbages. I've also started digging out some of the internal paths - my path:plot ratio is too high and I'm wasting good growing space. Although all I have in the whole plot at the moment is a few leeks and some excellent garlic.

Other plans for the plot this year include:

• making a manure 'bin' immediately behind a thin part of the hedge so that I can have manure delivered and hurl it, in a cavalier fashion, through the hedge into a cunningly placed receptacle - not unlike what my Geordie Granny would have called an outside netty.
• To one side of the pseudo netty I want a flowering mallow (Lavatera), for big showy colour and
• to the other I want a Rambling Rose to ramble picaresquely through the hedge.
• Downhill from the pseudo netty, I want to extend the top part of the plot and and actually grow things in what is currently a fallow area.
• Also need a new water butt for the top, and to repair an old one with concrete (what else?), and fix a puncture on my wheelbarrow.
  

Exciting times, what?

Pheasant in mi Garden, what mi gonna do?

(with apologies to UB40).

Anyway, today's snow seems to have driven an unusual visitor out of the woods and into the garden.

Ronksley Cabin Brunch

Bloggers with long memories (Sept 22nd, last year) will recall an off-plot expedition to Ronksley Moor shooting cabin in the Peak District, Derbyshire,

and a threat to revisit for brunch. Been there today with my old mate Paul.

A "no-breakfast" start got us to the shooting cabin by 9.30, for bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms & tomatoes, courtesy of Sainsbury's and two small camping stoves.

Fabulous. Completely stuffed, it took us another two hours to get back to the car and make plans to do it again.

Favourite Tools - No. 1 in an occasional series

The Spade

This was my Dad's spade, which I inherited when he died. He never had much money in his life and I discovered after he died that he had saved up for a month, in his seventies, to buy this spade. It is a really good spade (Bulldog, I think). It isn't stainless so I have to keep it in use to keep it shiny, which my dad would have liked. He was wont to say "Come on, put the tool to the job", so I do.

I like to think he would approve of the use it continues to get. Not sure what he'd make of this blogging business though.

Plastic Fantastic

New "greenhouse" is up & running. Well, it'll do for now.

Oh, Potting Bench...

Oh potting bench, oh potting bench

To leave you now is such a wrench

Next lines please. Have to scan to the tune of Tannenbaum, People's Flag, Oh Christmas Tree etc.

Woodpecker in St James's

There I was at 9 o'clock this morning killing time in St James's Park in central London, before going to a sustainable development conference, when I heard loud and clear, twice, a woodpecker.

Got the day off to a good start. Glorious bright sunny morning, good conference in prospect (and it was) and a woodpecker.

Are there two moons? Was I looking at the wrong one?

Watched the eclipse last night, on a brilliantly clear night. Everyone is banging on about the reddish colour it went. Not in my sky it didn't. And it was an hour late.

Am I missing something? It was good, and very clear, but not the teeniest bit red. Am I in a parallel universe?

First seeds sown, taters chitting, mice hungry

At last, some seeds sown! Tomatoes - Tamina & Moneymaker (haven't grown MM for years because I remember them as insipid; we'll see how they do this year. Leeks - Musselburgh - back to an old favourite because my Gigante d'Inverno from Seeds of Italy did badly last year (suspect I'd kept the seed too long). Parsley - Flat leaf. can't get enough of it in summer.

Taters - Nicola (chosen by Mrs M) are chitting well but, checking back through last year, I find those are the ones Mrs M said she didn't like on account of them having a 30 second window between being cooked and being boiled to mush. So Charlotte are now chitting too!

And finally, the saga of the omnivorous mice seems to be over. They've eaten not only the chocolate orange but the box and the silver paper too. That must have given 'em bellyache!

Garlic is doing well,

Rhubarb too. Spring is Springing!!!

A Pile of Poo

Taking the visiting relatives for a walk in the woods, we chanced on a pile of poo, of the Horse variety. What better for allotments? A neighbour keeps two horses in a paddock in the woods behind his house and the poo is beginning to escape the confines of his manure heaps. Free for the taking, but for the small matter of bagging it up, barrowing it through the holly bush and over the rickety bridge into the bottom of our garden. You think I'm making this up don't you?

The holly bush diversion is new, following a tree coming down in the Big Storm. The rickety bridge isn't very rickety but still challenging with a wheelbarrow full of poo. Why don't I just get a trailer load of manure delivered, like normal people, you may ask? Trouble is, the unstable back won't handle that amount of lifting, twisting, turning, tipping. It's actually easier to do it in smaller quantities, through the holly bush etc. Pictures in due course. Bet you can't wait?

Meeces tidy up too!

It hasn't taken them long to get to the 2nd Chocolate Orange. Through the box yesterday, now through the foil and half the choc has gone. Oh for a mouse cam.
















But look what they've done to my shed by way of thanks. How tidy is that?

















Sadly, tidy inside doesn't necessarily mean tidy outside!

Meeces clean up!


















As you can see they've left no trace of the Chocolate Orange but plenty of traces of themselves. There's another, still wrapped, Chocolate Orange next to the remnants. They've already started on the box. Let's see how long it takes them to get through the foil.

Of Mice and Spiders

At last I've found a way of disposing of the Terry's Chocolate Oranges I get in profusion at Xmas. I don't dislike them hugely, I just get a bit fed up of them, so take them to the allotment for an emergency sugar surge. Carelessly left one unwrapped last week and found it today, significantly smaller and with mousey teeth marks on it. Meeces, you're welcome!

Less welcome was the spider which had made a nest in my [allotment emergencies only, got to be pouring with rain before I wear it] cap. Big, nest, big spider, and of course only discovered when I put the cap on and it ran round the top of my head. Hey Ho.

Who nicked my Darwin Fish?








I bought one of these last week. A really neat and elegant statement of belief, from www.darwinfish.co.uk , and put it onto a nice clean car on Sunday. By Wednesday, GONE!!!!

And it had spent Monday & Tuesday in a secure car park. Unless evolution has speeded up dramatically (mutants?) and it's gone off for a nice walk by itself I have to conclude some toe-rag has nicked it.

Or has it been too provocative a statement for a passing Fundamentalist?

Still struggling with a bad back but this time it's my own stupid fault. It had been improving all week and had a good pummeling from the chiropractor, then I foolishly tried to move a cast iron Chiminea and it all went twang again. Hey Ho.

Rather restricts allotment activities - in fact all I managed was to dig up some leeks, although I did have to dig my way in to the plot. Recent heavy wind & rain meant a pile of soil & leaves 18 inches high against the gate. Needless to say, there's been no sign of The Inconstant Gardener since well before Xmas. But, three bright spots on which to remark:

three plots surrounding mine which were derelict when I took this one are now well advanced in the recovery position

my garlic is sprouting well

and so is the rhubarb

First post of the new year, and it's actually nothing to do with the allotment. Although I have got this year's sald potatoes now (Nicola, chosen by Kate). But that's it - the allotment is a mudbath at the moment and attempting to do anything will simply make it worse; well, that's my excuse. But the Seeds of Italy catalogue has come so there's lots of fun to come with that. Think I'm going to buy a Passata maker, to avoid wasting surplus tomatoes.

And I've been out onmy bike too - 13 muddy miles on the Transpennine Trail, which has hurt my back so now I'm hobbling.

In the bleak midwinter (not so bleak, not so midwinter these days), the allotment sits dull and grey. No action, cold wet and miserable.
















Or perhaps that's just me? No matter; I can take comfort in a festive cabbage!!

Happy Xmas, allotment bloggers everywhere

Seeds ordered (at 33% discount from Suttons through work). Cut down on some of the daft ones this year but still seem to have a lot of chillies (How'm I feeling? Hot, Hot, Hot). Still using home-made chilli oil from 2 years ago and it still blows your socks off, despite looking distinctly unsavoury by now. My son refuses to touch it. Gnome - try some in your chutney!

At last!! Back online again after a 5 week absence - broadband nightmare, new provider, line faults, exchange faults, call centres in India etc. Very tedious but now alive again. And how is the allotment, you may ask? Neglected but not as bad as it would have been if neglected for 5 weeks in the summer. Digging now 70% done.

And next year's Garlic is in, on 2nd December. Not quite as early as last year when it went in in October but it'll still get some cold weather for vernalsiation. And there's lots of it. Ye Gods - 64 cloves. Good job we like it!

Only a quick visit to the allotment, to confirm the sad state of the Carlingford “ready for Xmas”, don’t you believe it, taters. Had to dig them up as virtually all the foliage had gone from blight.

Entire crop is pictured below next to my [small] mobile phone for indication of huge size, not. Also tastefully garlanded with what will probably be the last of this year’s cucumber and courgette crop. Yes, I know the courgettes look odd – they’re Italian. Trompetti, from Seeds of Italy. www.seedsofitaly.com

Also made great progress on this year’s bindweed harvest. If it were edible, or half as nice as they Sukebind, I’d larfing. Laugh? We lay on the ground. As it isn’t, I’m not.

Finally, great news on the domestic front. Our daughter Sally has signed the tenancy agreement on a flat. Sally is 30 and has a learning disability so the prospect of living independently in her own flat is major good news. She’ll still need some support but she moves in next weekend. Celebrations all round, and massive trips to IKEA to furnish it! Dad’s wallet is already groaning.

Interesting week. Went to see Dervla Murphy, Irish travel writer extraordinaire, speaking at Sheffield’s [now 10 yr old] literary festival, Off the Shelf. Dervla cycled from Ireland to India, via Afghanistan, through the bitter winter of 1963, wrote a book about it, Full Tilt, and has carried on writing and cycling ever since.

I have an original copy, now 40 yrs, old of that book because Dervla’s exploits, mostly on a bicycle, have been an unattainable yardstick for my own cycling travels. She has just returned from a 2nd solo trip to Siberia (age 75), having carelessly left her bicycle (Pushkin) there. And has now signed my book!! Like’s a drink too; she had a pint of Boddingtons at her elbow throughout the book signing.

My own cycling efforts have been more prosaic. For Lake Baikal, read Rother Valley Country Park & the Chesterfield Canal.


For the BAM railway through Siberia, read Trans Pennine Trail through North East Derbyshire. 13 miles; legs still attached.

G continues to keep up the “exercise & get fit” programme – 10½ miles cycling down the Eastern Edges above Matlock & the Derwent valley this morning (dead badger in the road at one point; may have been a hit and run but looked rather as though it had been dumped. Possible victim of badger baiting?). 1000 steps in 20mins on the step machine last night. No reduction in waistline yet!

More digging (spellchecker suggested ‘dogging’; I should be so lucky!) at the allotment this afternoon. Two more sub-plots (is this really a novel?) done, altho lots of bindweed in the2nd one. The Inconstant Gardener in residence when I got there and actually working. Must stop calling him that. ICG hereafter. Have now done about 40% of my autumn digging. Now need a load of manure to spread on it for the winter and re-dig in spring.

G is out on his bike again. Normal service almost fully resumed. 11.5 miles this morning around the old circuit by Derwent & Howden reservoirs up to Kings Tree. Lots of very miserable cyclists who clearly haven't been brought up proper and told by their Mums to say Good Morning to the nice gentleman. If any of you are reading this (unlikely?) Lighten up you Miserable Buggers and say Good Morning when someone says it to you!










Then to the allotment this afternoon for a good bout of "Digging in the Rain; what a wonderful feeling, I'm digging again". And it didn't rain too much and I did get two sub-plots dug. Needless to say the inconstant gardener hasn't done much. Too busy making goulash.

Later - turned out nice again! Earlier wet weather has quite disappeared and it's glorious sunshine. Made it to the allotment after all and managed some 'shirt off' action. Bean poles down and gone-to-seed lettuce trees uprooted. Cleared tatty cornflowers off top plot and earthed up the 2nd crop potatoes. They're looking good - planted at the top of the plot to, hopefully, keep both frost and blight off them. We'll see.



My 'other half' arrived, en famille, with a Hungarian Goulash pot hanging from a tripod, under which a fire was lit. Looked impressive, but not sure there was enough dry wood to sustain the fire to make goulash. But a good attempt.

G is out on his bike again! No allotment work this morning – too wet – but may get there this afternoon. Instead G managed to get the bicycle out and do 6 miles – pathetic really but it marks a watershed.

Biking was suspended earlier this year, to concentrate all available time (apart from allotment of course) on moving house. Bike has only been out three times this year! Just need to remind G’s legs of their proper function now and start building up to a ‘normal’ 20 miles per Sunday morning session.

Thick mist along the ridge above Darley Dale and Matlock, with intermittent heavy rain, but the philosophy still holds of “ignore the weather and go out regardless”.

Old No. 81 had a day off today, from incessant house-moving tasks and general work-related “stuff”. Instead, went walking on the Peak District moors in glorious sunshine. Temperatures up to 260C (on 21st September) and got a sunburnt slap-head. Farmers were out with hounds but otherwise saw hardly anyone. Had lunch at the shooting cabin in Lower Small Clough, off Ronksley Moor, which is a fabulous place.















There’s a visitor’s book, benches and chairs and it is clearly a much-loved ‘bothy’ for many people. I’m tempted to suggest a Ronksley brunch for the group of us who are going to Crete next year, by way of a training exercise.

Well, what a long gap since my last post in May. Excuses? Partly pressure of work over the summer (including at the allotment) but mostly because we’ve been moving house. But that’s done now – moved 10 days ago. Just about unpacked and been to the allotment for the first time for 3 weeks or so. Lordy, how it grows when you take you eye off the ball.

Massive attack with the petrol strimmer (good for strimming petrol!) has got it into some semblance of order but it needs some concentrated attention – end of this week; promise.

Successes this summer – courgettes and cucumbers, especially cucumbers; given loads away every week (perhaps should grow less!); beans, tomatoes, lettuce (until they bolted and I hadn’t got any succession ready).

Failures this summer – sweet peas (v poor), onions, blackberries (birds had the crop – must net them next year), plum tree (a lacklustre thing from B&Q which has struggled to do anything about growing at all.

But, generally, things are looking up. The abandoned plot to the left (82) has been taken and had scorched earth policy applied. The abandoned plot at the end is similarly being reclaimed and, deep joy, he has discovered a fully functioning grape vine which is actually rooted on my side. Yikes!!! Chateau Brincliffe looms. Even the inconstant gardener with whom I share a gate and path has returned to do some more. So I am suddenly surrounded by burgeoning cultivation and have a reborn blog to keep going through the autumn. Avast there, he said on “Talk like a Pirate Day”