It feels.....

.....as though the season has opened. In truth, all I've done is spread some manure around all the fruit bushes and more generally. But I was doing it in shirt sleeves, in bright sunshine and feeling good about it.

This is what the blackberries look like;

I do like a nice straight edge.

And all the raspberries have a nice little hat of manure. Tasty! Actually, it's so well rotted down it doesn't look like manure any more, just like really fertile soil, which should percolate down to the roots by the combined action of rain and worms. Just remember that when you're eating raspberries this summer.

Not much action.....

.....on the blog, because there's not much action on the allotment, it being cold and wet and snowy etc.

But it's still producing Leeks


, and the Rhubarb is coming back
- don't forget the Wakefield Rhubarb Festival (24th to 26th Feb in, funnily enough, Wakefield).

Despite snow still on the ground and it being pretty cold it feels a bit as though the year has turned a corner; it feels poised and ready, just waiting for light and sunshine. I'm about as prepared as I can be at this stage:

• Garlic is up and growing in the greenhouse
• Shallots and Onion sets are bought
• seeds are all bought
• Raspberries are pruned
• Blackberries are pruned and tied in
  

Bring it on; I'm ready!!

Base over Apex

That's what happens when you're pushing a wheelbarrow down a slope, the slope is "reet clarty" and your feet go from under you. And you lurch sideways through the raspberry patch and come to rest sitting in the contents of the wheelbarrow. Yep, you guessed it. Manure.

Hey Ho.

Done it now!

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time will know that it's masthead has had the aspiration to become a vineyard almost from the beginning, along with a stern Memo to Self to get on and actually buy some vines.

The plot itself could hardly be better. It faces due south, gets all the sun, is sheltered behind by a bank of huge trees but is open enough for plenty of air circulation. And it drains freely. What have I been waiting for? Not sure, actually. But I do believe, without in any way being a fatalist, that things happen when it's the right time for them to happen.

Well, today must be the right time because I finally did something about it.

10 Rondo red grapevines are on order from Marshalls, for delivery in late Feb to early March. I could have got 25 for not much more money from another supplier but that would have tipped me over the edge from being an "allotment with vines" to a micro-vineyard. Perhaps a bridge too far at this stage! And the Council would no doubt have had a view.

Anyway, that's another strand of allotment life to report on in 2012. More later.

2011 - Good Year or Disaster?

On balance, a Good Year.

Things I'd been on the point of giving up on finally came good.

So who was in the Hall of Fame? Step forward proudly:

Plums, Sloes, Onions, Asparagus, Strawberries. Leeks were good too, but then they always are.

And I finally gave it all some much-needed manure. Need some more now!

And who was in the Hall of Shame? Slink forward with your heads hung low:

Peas, Beans (a pretty mixed year for everyone I think), Cucumbers (what were you thinking of, Cucumbers?; pathetic) and Kale. I really miss not having Kale (yeah, I know, get a life) but a combination of me sowing it late, it germinating slowly and Cabbage Whiteys feasting on it meant it never made it through the summer.

But 2012 will be better. It's gotta be; I'm retired now. No excuses; Onward and Upward!!!

No vampires here

I've just planted next year's Garlic, rather later than I like but still [just] this year so it can have a good dash of cod weather before planting out next spring. I'd had difficulty getting it locally but got some eventually from my old favourite Seeds of Italy. Here they all are, in the greenhouse.


There are 105 cloves, of three different varieties. Assuming they all make a bulb and that each bulb has on average 10 cloves we're looking at 1050 cloves of garlic next year. Yummy! Vampires beware!!

Pidgin for Xmas

BigFella bilong NorthPole gettin’ antlers polished an buffin’ up red weskit. Chimneypipe bilong me all swept out bi urchins an ready for BigFella bilong NorthPole. Turkey bilong me getting fat and headin for neck wringin’. Any day damn soon!!

And a Happy Xmas to you all; you’ll never get a Xmas message like that from Her Maj.

The shortest day

Today is the shortest day of the year; tomorrow it starts getting lighter again. Yippity Pippity! More allotment time coming up soon (well, soonish)

And this may, just possibly, perhaps, and all fingers and toes crossed, be the last year when it gets dark [here] at 4 o'clock. I'm supporting the Lighter Later campaign and the Daylight Saving Bill, so we can have longer, lighter evenings throughout the year. The obvious downside is darker mornings and I don't discount the effect of that. But, on balance, I'd still prefer lighter evenings.

There is a key Commons vote on 20th January. If you are at all interested in the campaign there's a link here.

A very sad story from long ago

The last post introduced you to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanist. Joseph had an older brother, William, born 4^th April 1816. It’s a very sad story. William contracted ‘consumption’ and in 1839, aged only 23, (the same year as Joseph sets sail for the Antarctic on the Erebus voyage) William is sent off to Jamaica for the good of his health. The arrangement is that Willie will go out to Jamaica, build up his medical practice and then send for his wife, Isabella. There is family strife from Isabella’s parents who say that a young married couple should not be separated (they had only married in April 1839) and that if she stays [in Britain] they will not be responsible for her. Isabella says she will stay. Isabella is pregnant.

Quoting directly from Mea Allan’s The Hookers of Kew (wonderful title!!) “Only Isabella went to Greenock [outside Glasgow] to see him off, for these were their last hours together. The farewell was almost unbearable. Willie knew he would never see her again.”

Willie died on New Year’s Day 1840, aged only 24. The Hookers took Isabella in & she gave birth to Willielma on 6^th March 1840. Isabella lived on until January 1880, never re-marrying and outliving Willielma by 6 months.

Blimey, they knew how to do tear-jerkers in those days!

Willielma married in due course and had seven children, the youngest of whom died only in 1960.

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker

Yesterday, December 10th 2011, was the centenary of the death of one of the greatest botanists Britain has ever produced.

A long Wikipedia citation tells us that Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was one of the greatest British botanists and exploreres of the 19th century. Darwin's closest friend, he was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for twenty years, in succession to his father, Sir William Jackson Hooker.

From the age of seven Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University, where he was Regius Professor of Botany. Regular readers of this blog will know of my travels in the footsteps of another eminent botanist and plant collector, David Douglas (1799-1834). Douglas was mentored by the elder Hooker in Glasgow and in the later part of his collecting career all his collections tended to go first to Glasgow for Hooker's examination. There are many letters from Douglas to Hooker, and Douglas certainly knew the infant Joseph Dalton Hooker

The leadership of the Hookers of Kew led directly to Kew Gardens having the status and pre-eminence it enjoys today. Although burial in Westminster Abbey was offered to Sir Joseph, close to Darwin's grave, he is buried alongside his father in the churchyard of St Anne's Church on Kew Green, only a short distance from Kew Gardens.

Kew's own site also summarises Hooker's career (of course), here, and there is a further very comprehensive wesbite devoted to Hooker here.

Hope you find this interesting; all blogs need a bit of erudition from time to time!