Proper Work

At last. Snow has gone, pretty much, and I've managed the first visit to the allotment this year. Happy 2010, Allotment.

And in a packed morning I've:

• paid my subs to the Hut (£2)
• picked some leeks
• pruned the Autumn Bliss raspberries (you see - Proper Work!), and
• started to coppice the Hazel bush.

Crikey. And now the sun is beginning to shine and the days are noticeably beginning to, perhaps lighten is putting too strong, but get less dark so early is definitely happening. Sunshine; love it.

International Kidney?

No, not some dubious overseas transplant scam. It turns out this is the 'proper' name for Jersey Royals.

Errm, why?

I suspect the people of Jersey have trademarked Jersey Royals, leading to this truly intuitive alternative name.

Oh, and I've bought some! Chitting ahoy!!!

Don't Look Down

Says it all really, but this is from Austria in September. If I'd come off that ladder it was a long way down. Strange how cheerful I look. But I WAS concentrating hard!

'Tis the season.....

...... to wish you all a very Merry Xmas, and here's looking forward to a great 2010 in the allotment!

Enjoy, eat, drink, be merry. Fa la la la La, fa la la laaah.

Woody

This is how to treat Garlic

It likes a good cold snap over winter.

Good job really

Take a Leek

The things I do to get vegetables

Earth lay hard as iron......

....on Houndkirk Moor.

Houndkirk road was built in 1758 as a turnpike road and was never surfaced with modern materials. So it looks pretty much now as it did then but is being badly damaged in places by off-road vehicles and motorbikes. Selfish pursuit of narrow pleasure, I think it's called.

Looks like a bit like the Blasted Heath today, and felt like it too.

Shortest day in two days time. Got your garlic in?

Where do I come from?

No, that's not the question which usually ends in "Mummy?". I worked that one out a long time ago.

Rather, it's about where do I feel I belong. If I were a sheep, which bit of hill do I feel hefted to? If I were French, where is my terroir? And the truth of the matter is that I don't really feel I know, any more.

Crikey, matey, I hear you say; what's brought on this bout of introspection (and why is it in a blog about allotments, for goodness sake; keep yer pretentious tosh for somewhere else!).

It's because today I've been to a funeral, of my friend Billy. I find funerals difficult & I was quite upset by this one, in a manly sort of way. I confess I had to pull over on the way home because I couldn't see to drive. The stiff upper lip has had a definite quiver today.

Billy was a well travelled man but unmistakably rooted in the Northeast. We are of a similar vintage and come from small towns only 20 miles apart. I was born and raised in the south-west Durham coalfield, but feel no attachment to it. I left the Northeast at age 18 and never really went back.

I've lived in Sheffield for over 40 years but ask me whether I'm a Sheffielder and I think the answer is No. I wasn't born here and don't have that inbuilt identity. And if you ask me whether I'm a Yorkshireman the answer is emphatically No. I recoil from that slightly synthetic, slightly jingoistic, assertion of [it seems to me] slightly false identity. I do feel a pull towards the Durham Dales (Weardale & Teesdale) but not sufficiently to want to live there.

So which hill am I hefted to? Well, that's partly about the pull of the allotment. If you ask me why I have an allotment it's only partly about growing things, outdoor exercise, fresh food etc, although all of those are important. A lot of it is about land; it's my land. Subject to only fairly light touch regulation I can do what I like on my small patch of land. My inner peasant isn't far from the surface.

So if you ask me about my identity, what I am, where I come from - what do I say? Quite often I say I'm a European. I do feel something of a supra-national identity, although I've never lived in any other country than the UK and am now unlikely to ever do so. I don't think of myself as English, although I am, but quite like the inherent diversity of British. Driving down the motorway today I coined the identity of a Modern Briton but aren't quite sure what it means. If that were an exam question it would be followed by "Discuss".

To get you started here is a plaque you can find close by the Rockefeller Centre, New York.



Discuss.

The last raspberries?

Almost certainly. I'm just pleased I'm still picking the little blighters, on November 22nd.

Today was the first 'working' visit to the plot for a month and in a packed programme Woodsworth managed to:

• Pick the last raspberries
• Prune the blackberries
• Tie in the new blackberries (if you thought this year was bumper, there is nearly twice as much fruiting stem available for next year!)
• Chopped out the old blowsy Mallow, shortly to be buried by a manure heap
• Cut more of the hedge, and
• Got wet
• Said "Phew", and
  
• Came home in the dark

The onions I put in a month or so ago are showing reasonably well and the garlic is beginning to show signs of life. I'm always a bit dubious about autumn onions but other people seem to do well with them so it's worth a try.

Bugger!

I seem to have done it myself!!

I'll have to set my own challenge now.

On the cusp

My view count stands at 7999.

Whoever the 8000th visitor is, please identify yourself and set me an allotmenting challenge.

Hollywood calls

Apologies for tardiness in updating y'all on "Finding David Douglas", which premiered at Pitlochry Festival Theatre last Thursday. Thanks to Gnome for pricking my conscience.

Well, what a night we had of it; I'm sorry you couldn't make it, Gnome. I think you'd have enjoyed it.

We had 300 people in the theatre, a reception, an address from the Provost of Perth, the Scottish Environment Minister was there, and we had a rousing chorus or several of "To the Oregon Country" (last heard on an island in the Hayes River, northern Manitoba). Oh and a damn good film launch.

The film was excellent. I hadn't seen it before the premiere and am well pleased with it. I know I would say that wouldn't I but I think it is a good piece of storytelling (with lots of on-screen from yours truly!!). There are some technical faults with it yet; it's a bit too long at an hour & eight mins and needs to lose around 12 mins to make it more broadcastable; some of the maps are a bit overexposed and don't add a lot to the story, and some of the running order needs tweaking to tell the story more clearly.

But we positioned it as what it is - a work in progress. All those issues will be ironed out over the winter ready for the US launch in April. For the moment we're very proud of it.

Frustration may cause Accidents.....

.....said the big illuminated sign beside the A1 on our recent trip to Scotland.

"Aye; better have a w*nk" came the cry from the Wilburys, passing by.

Start of a tradition?

Today is Wilma Wilbury's birthday. It's a significant birthday; she is now officially a pensioneer. But how many pensioneers do you know who were once kissed by Mick Jagger? Before she met me. Obviously.

I've also planted the garlic (75 cloves; we like garlic). This, planting the garlic on Wilma's birthday, could be the start of a new family tradition.

Dig for Victory

.... or Garlic & Autumn Onions in this case.

Before

After

But you'll notice no garlic or onions. Huh?

Soil is too fluffy, having just been dug & mucked. Needs to settle, which is as good a reason for not planting them today as any other I could think of.

New Life

At long last (12 days overdue), in the early hours of Friday morning, Tiny Wilbury checked in. It was a very long and arduous labour but mother and daughter are both doing well. And Woody is now Granddad Woody. YO!!!!!!

In three words

BBC News has been running a feature where visitors to the website are asked to share their outlook for the year ahead in three words.

Let's have a go, with an allotment or gardening theme. I'll start with:

Manure is Good!

Contributions welcome; keep them coming. Let's be 'aving you (Digression - there's a road in Sheffield called Letsby Avenue, on which the police traffic headquarters is based. I kid you not.)

The Mattock is a splendid Tool

I have three garden tools which I'd greatly miss if I lost them, and only one of which I paid for.

The first is my Dad's "Bulldog" spade, which I inherited when he died

The second is an equally good quality fork, with nice sharp tines. This fork was left behind in a shed on an allotment I used to work long ago and it sort of adopted me.

And the third, which I did pay for, is my much-loved Mattock. Here's a picture of it.


It goes with me every time I go to the allotment, but it never spends the night there. Nor do the others.

It's a very old design, used by peasant farmers around the world. They know a thing or two, they peasant farmers. There's nothing like it for clearing ground, short of Agent Orange which I might find hard to get hold of and a tad toxic.

The Great Autumn Tidy being in full swing, the Mattock is getting lots of use.

The first visit since the last visit.....

.... has revealed a plot in dire need of TLC. That's what happens when you go gallivanting up Austrian mountains and leave yer vegetables to look after themselves. Hey Ho.

Anyway, the Great Autumn Tidy has started, with the aid of the trusty Mattock. I'd show you a picture of me looking pleased with myself but it's a shirt-off job and I don't want to frighten the 'orses.

So here's a picture of two disgracefully knobby Italian courgettes.


Their proper name is Trompetti, courtesy of the excellent Seeds of Italy, but in our house they're known as Knobby & Bobby.

High on a hill stood a lonely goat herd, yodel-ay etc

Radio silence over the last week cos I've been to Austria on Chaps Week. Five good days = five good mountains. And food; ye gods, they Austrians like their meat. It's no place for vegetarians; think I ate more meat on the first night than in the whole of the previous week. If offered a Grillteller, first loosen your belt a couple of notches.

And if contemplating beer, mine's a Zipfer.
Q - what's a Zipfer?
A - to do up your trousers!!!! Boom Boom.

These are the geraniums outside a mountain hut where we stopped for a Zipfer.

There are fabulous cascading geraniums everywhere. Climate makes a difference of course; being so much further inland they get a reliably warm dry summer. Dream on, UK.

Anyway, here's a sample of the mountains we got up (note the ladder on one of them)



Then it rained so we went down a salt mine (no pictures cos I forgot the camera). Had to slide into it; the further back you leaned the faster you went. I managed 29.6 Km/h. Poor, but did have friction burns on undercarriage.