Being Creative

Gutted

It was a quarter to ten on Monday evening when the phone rang. We were all watching television in the upstairs sitting room and Si' had to dash downstairs to get it before the answerphone kicked in. He missed it but brought the phone back upstairs in case the caller tried again. A few seconds later they did and the news was not good. A fellow allotment holder was calling to say that more than one of the allotment sheds were on fire. Si' asked if he knew which ones. I held my breath - one of them was ours. As we dashed downstairs to put on coats and wellies and collect the torch, two fire engines went tearing up the street, sirens blaring. As we arrived at the gates they had already located the nearest water supply and as we approached the sheds the crews were already dousing the flames and raking the debris away to get water to the heart of the blaze. The first day proper of the half term holiday, the second night since the clocks had gone back, enveloping us all in early darkness, and we were faced with this. All I could think of was how we were going to tell the elderly gentleman two allotments up from us that his shed - and all it contained - had been completely destroyed by fire. By the time we'd said goodbye to the fire brigade, after thanking them profusely, and walked round the site in search of the culprits with a member of the local police force, it was half past midnight before we got to bed. We were up again at seven in an effort to get back to the allotment before the early risers. It would have been a terrible shock - especially for our older members - to have discovered it for themselves, believing that we were unaware. Si' had to take the day off work as we set too to deal with the aftermath. Mr TB, who also lost his shed, said immediately that he thought he would give up. His entire crop of onions had been hanging in the shed to dry. We suggested that he think about it; particularly since he has already dug his plot in preparation for next year. We then visited the council - to arrange skips for the debris - and agreed a time for the local press to visit the site. The police had suggested that we ring those allotment holders whose sheds had been entered - but not set alight - to see if anything had been stolen. During these calls, Mr TB's neighbouring plotholder said he would be more than happy to share his shed - and any of his tools - with Mr TB. As we explained to the police, the allotments are not just a leisure facility for our more mature members but a central part of their day to day existence, around which the rest of their lives are organised.

 
We have learned from past experience not to lock our sheds. We live with the fact that we get occasional night visitors who rifle through the contents. If the doors are locked they rip them off in the belief that something valuable is stored within. Nothing ever is, as we take our better equipment home with us, but a door torn from its hinges takes more repairing than one left swinging in the wind. For us it was not just the loss of the shed itself and its contents but all the other things around it that were ruined by the heat. You can see at the top of the picture above how the heat melted not only the adjacent waterbutt  - standing on the bricks to the left - but the plastic dustbins alongside it and all three of our compost bins. Si' was looking forward to a few days working in the orchard this holiday but, after the skips arrived on Thursday, we spent two days barrowing all the debris into them. Just as we'd started yesterday, I could see Si' talking to a man and a little boy just inside the gate. I thought that they were there to ask about an allotment but it turned out that he'd come to offer us a shed - if we wanted it - and also some tools, having read about our plight in the local press.Talk about restoring one's faith in human nature! After that we had a constant stream of people all day coming up to give us their support, including the man and his little boy again, this time with arms full of tools. They left with the promise of allotment bounty in exchange! We didn't see the article in the paper until we got home. I'd deliberately contacted Chris - the journalist who wrote the article - as we'd worked together when I was Press Officer at the school and I knew he would deal with the issue sensitively. He did not disappoint us. It's a bit of a shock to see yourself as front page news but if it has helped to raise public awareness and to encourage plotholders on our own and other allotments in the area to be more vigilant, then so much the better. When Andy - the photographer - asked if we could stand in the middle of the debris to have our pictures taken, I asked him if this was to create a visual metaphor; that of the phoenix rising from the ashes. Because we have absolutely no intention of letting this dent our spirits or forcing us to give up. Albert Camus once said, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger". And he was absolutely right!

A bevy of beauties

In March, of last year, I wrote a post about growing dahlias. In it, I challenged myself to overcome my habit of buying tubers that never actually made contact with a growing medium, never mind the light of day. My intention was to replace the flowers I had unquestioningly bought on a whim, whilst working, with something more cost effective and home-produced. Why - I reasoned - would I want to buy blooms flown in from foreign fields that would last a few days at most when - for a fraction of the price - I could invest in a tuber that would supply a succession of flowers for several months of the year? I had intended to report back in late summer, heralded by a fanfare of trumpets, because when you've announced to quite a lot of people that you intend to do something, you really have to live up to it don't you? And I did live up to it but never got round to telling anyone. The plants were a bit late going from pot to border but flowered their little hearts out for a couple of months before an unseasonably early frost blackened the foliage at the beginning of October. So, inspired by last years efforts, I grew even more this year and it is now that they are really coming into their own.

The photo above was taken last year, in early August, and the dahlia shown is the cactus-flowered 'Nuit D'Ete'. I planted the dahlias in a mixed bed with roses and other plants but found they overwhelmed their allotted space quite quickly. Also, not being able to reach each plant from all sides meant that routine tasks, like feeding and dead-heading, were difficult. This year they are in a bed of their own - with three feet between plants - and this makes them much easier to manage. I started the tubers off in pots of compost in my tiny greenhouse at the end of April, keeping a careful eye on the weather forecast for night-time frosts. Some tubers are bigger than others so you need an assortment of pot sizes; the tuber needs to sit comfortably inside and still be able to fit compost around it and under it. My smallest tubers will fit into 2 litre pots but I pot the biggest into 5 litre ones. Also the tubers will grow bigger each season. They only need to start into growth in the pots and then they can be planted out once the risk of frost has passed at the end of May. So if you clean your pots straight after planting the dahlias out they are all ready to start again next year.

When I plant them out, I hammer in a stout stake - prior to planting so I don't damage the tuber - and mix plenty of compost with the soil as I firm it back in around the plant. Dahlias grow best with plenty of moisture at their roots but enjoy having their heads in the sun. I find the best thing for fastening them to the stake is the cut off leg of a pair of tights! The stretch in them allows the plant to move a little but without the sharp jerks caused when you fasten with string that can cause brittle dahlia stems to snap. Water them really well once a week in dry weather and I also feed about every 10 days with dilute manure water. Dead-heading helps to keep the flowers coming and I also nip out the two small buds - either side of the main one - to encourage bigger flowers. You can leave your dahlias in the ground over winter if you mulch them well but last winters frost and snow turned several of my tubers into a soggy mush. One of the ones I lost was this Fuschiana, pictured above, so this year they're all coming up after the first frost kills the foliage. Sarah Raven has a good chapter on dahlias - including growing, managing and storing over the winter - in her book Grow Your Own Cut Flowers. There's also a very useful chapter on sweet peas, another favourite of mine.

Colourwise, dahlias come in a wide range of hues although I believe someone has yet to breed a blue one. Their palette ranges from the soft and muted to the truly retina-scorching. Some varieties are bi-coloured, most often with white, while others have subtle variations of colour like this Black Narcissus, shown above. It is quite a dark dahlia yet full sunshine illuminates all its red tones. I am particularly fond of these almost-black varieties as they combine so well with other colours and prevent the paler shades from looking too insipid.

In size, they range from the tiniest miniature ball - with a diameter of just two inches - to those with blooms the size of a dinner plate. In fact, they are often described as just that -  'dinner-plate dahlias! Rip City - above - is one of my favourites. It has flowers of six inches and more across with gorgeous velvety petals of deepest maroon black. I struggled to find this one but I've noticed that Peter Nyssen Ltd  will be stocking them next year and you can order a catalogue online. Hide your bank cards whilst perusing it, though, as all their prices are so reasonable the temptation to buy is - almost - irresistable! I have one called Lavender Perfection which has the hugest of blooms. Sometimes, I find that it may take a couple of initial flowers before the plant establishes its true shape and so the two samples I've had so far of this variety have been an odd shape. Fingers crossed for an improvement with the next few!

Sadly, sometimes they are not what you ordered/bought. This one is supposed to be Pontiac but is much more like Geerlings Jubilee from the same catalogue page (NOT Peter Nyssen)! I think you'll agree that it's very lovely though, especially against the shadowy background? Not too much of a loss there, then. Also on the minus side, dahlias have no scent as such, only a strange peppery smell but with all that amazing shape, colour and an abundance of blooms, who's to notice?

Signed, sealed, delivered . . . . I'm yours!

Do you like my first attempts at willow work, pictured above? I made it at a talk on willow given by our friend, Alison, for the Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners Organisation back in April. LOGO - to use its acronym - is the organisation that held the Apple Day last October where we had the allotment apple varieties identified. We joined the group earlier this year to meet other like-minded growers and because they have a stall at Lincoln Farmer's Market once a month where you can sell your surplus produce. Also, in April, I mentioned a secret. It actually took much, much longer than we had ever envisaged at the outset, to negotiate the lease, but we are now the proud tenants of almost an acre of orchard, within walking distance of our home! It contains fifteen trees - two pear, two plum/damson ( not sure which, yet) and the rest are a mixture of cooking and eating apples. The 'orchard garden' - as it is described in the lease - runs alongside the allotments and also contains hazel which we intend to coppice to provide sticks and poles for the allotment. We even have an option to keep 'livestock', with the permission of the landlords! This brief description conjures up a pastoral idyll with gnarled old fruit trees standing proud in a meadow of grass and wild flowers, with birds singing and butterflies flitting about between the foliage. After an awful lot of hard work on our part it is beginning to look that way but it is a far cry from how it was when we first took an interest.

Do you remember the children's story about Sleeping Beauty who pricked her finger on a spindle and slept for a hundred years? When the prince came to rescue her he had to hack his way through a seemingly impenetrable forest of brambles and undergrowth. This is just what the orchard reminded me of when we first seriously considered taking it on. The picture above was taken in February this year and actually shows the clearer end. Although it is choked with ivy you are able to see daylight between, whereas the other end had brambles climbing fifteen feet up into the trees, compounded by self-seeded elder, and was too dark to photograph clearly. Initially, we had to cut a passage through with a pair of secateurs! We wrote to the landlords in early October and as soon as we knew they were willing to let - in principle at this stage - we asked if we could tackle the ivy on the fruit trees to encourage them to rejuvenate. We carefully removed vertical pieces of ivy about eighteen inches long all around each trunk to kill its top growth and effectively release its grip. We then left it until the end of February to start removing the loose dead growth piece by piece. It is quite widely believed that ivy is not harmful to trees but having dealt first hand with a severe infestation I would dispute this. Once it gets into the crown of the tree it prevents the tree from forming new growth; in addition, a thick covering of ivy stems on the trunk allows fungal spores to take hold and thrive, thus introducing life threatening infections. We have already lost one fruit tree in this way. In fact, if you look at any piece of unmanaged woodland these days - where ivy has taken hold -  the story is much the same.

 

At first, we weren't even sure how many fruit trees the orchard contained or - indeed - if they would have survived the winter. Some of the apples had borne fruit last autumn and - with the shocking statistics regarding the demise of British orchards fresh in our minds - we decided to try and save them. The two photos above tell the 'before' and 'after' tales of The Magic Tree. (No, she isn't magic because she has leant right over from one side to the other! The sun was shining straight into the camera on the second shot, so I had to take the photo from the opposite side). The magic is that she has actually survived at all. In addition to the torments inflicted on her by years of ivy, elder and bramble growth, poor Magic Tree had the limb of a large ash tree growing down through her branches, effectively pushing her over. It is just visible in the top right corner of the 'before' shot. Removing most of her entanglements only required hand tools and a stepladder but taking out the ash limb required complicated procedures with proper ladders, ropes and the chainsaw. Had Si cut the limb off in one piece it would have crushed the tree beneath as it fell so it had to be done bit by bit. You can see what was left in the top centre of the 'after' photo. Freed of her restrictions, her branches - which had previously been touching the floor as she leant - rose clear of it by four feet over two days. If that's not magic then I don't know what is? The wicker star at the top of this post hangs in her branches in the hope of imbuing its own bit of magic in the form of fruit. And guess what? She has about half a dozen little apples; just enough, I think for a tree that has survived against all the odds.If they reach maturity in the autumn we can have them identified!

The orchard itself is actually a long strip of land bordering the allotments at the bottom of the hill. No-one has done anything with it in the ten years we've had an allotment there and it has been used as a dumping ground for less scrupulous persons to dump their rubbish and broken glass. It is bordered on both long sides by hedge but whereas the one bordering the road has been cut intermittently by a contractor, the hedge facing the allotments has grown into trees. After we'd 'ringed' the ivy on the fruit tree trunks, we turned our attention to the inside hedge first as we knew how much light these saplings would exclude once they were in leaf. We cut off quite a lot to waist height but Si' was able to lay the thinner saplings back into the hedge as we worked along it. Once we had more light we started at the top end of the fruit trees and worked our way down. From mid-February onwards, I worked seven days a week on my 'mission to liberate' with handtools and a stepladder and Si helped at weekends with the heavier jobs requiring the chain saw or brute force! No wonder I had so little time for this blog, though until we had actually signed up for the orchard I didn't feel able to reveal why. At first, the other allotment holders thought we were crackers to take on such a big project but gradually - as things began to take shape - we even got a few compliments from the older members! The roadside hedge yielded some excellent poles for supporting beans and those that we did not need ourselves have been shared out amongst our fellow allotmenteers.

When we first cut our way through the undergrowth there was an incredibly eerie silence; not a single bird sang in the darkened interior and there were only signs of the odd pigeon using it to nest. As the light returned through clearing,though, so the birds began to return. It was as I was clearing undergrowth and rubbish that I first met the robin of my earlier post. He and his mate delighted in the rich pickings to be found in the cleared earth and though he has been pre-occupied with feeding his brood we have recently noticed fledgling robins flitting about the place. Birds have nested in the rejuvenated hedges; only last week we lucky enough to catch a family of wrens hopping about in a heap of bramble cuttings.

In early April, our efforts were rewarded as first we saw buds on our trees, followed by pear blossom, then damson/plum and finally apple blossom in early May. We had been advised to remove as much dead growth as possible over the dormant period but we are going to need some guidance and training on how to prune the trees back into shape in the future. It will be an ongoing project for some time as they can die of shock if too much radical pruning is done all at once. So for this year the buds and the blossom were our sign that the trees had survived the worst and were in recovery. At this stage we were pinning our hopes on survival - any fruit they produced would be a bonus.

We gave all our attention to the orchard until we had to start sowing and planting on the allotments in April. We had completed our initial tasks of hedge cutting and freeing up the fruit trees and now it was time to let nature take its course. We walk through most evenings when Si has finished work and we go up to the allotments to water. And the orchard has never been short of surprises. Just after we'd started on the hedge a little patch of blue and white chionodoxa braved the cold to flower beneath the outstretched limbs of an enormous Bramley and since then we've enjoyed sheets of pungent wild garlic followed by bluebells. Old gooseberry bushes are covered with strong new growth - and even a few gooseberries - and a deep red climbing rose has just begun to flower in an untouched area at the centre. I  caught its scent first before I ever noticed the blossoms. At the most overgrown end I discovered a large deciduous shrub intertwined with a young laburnum. The laburnum flowered in May but the shrub kept me guessing until last week. As its buds burst the heavenly fragrance of  philadelphus, or mock orange, was released onto the warm summer breeze.

Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, every single tree is bearing fruit and some of them in bumper quantities! I think that the rain came at just the right time to swell them after pollination and they grow noticeably bigger by the week. Also we're getting some idea as to what they will look like as mature fruit in terms of their size and colour. I must confess to spending quite a lot of time these days just gazing up into the branches and marvelling at such little miracles in so short a time.

So what comes next for the orchard garden? Well were loathe to do much before August, when the birds will have finished nesting but we've still got the upper reaches of hedge to tackle that extends beyond the fruit trees and then - once the brambles have fruited - we'l begin digging them out ready for planting some additional trees from November onwards. The East of England Apples and Orchards Project - the charity that identified our first apples - can supply us with trees that were originally bred to suit our area and then we want a quince, a medlar, some cherries ..... the list gets longer and longer! One thing is for sure - we are on our way to becoming just that little bit more self-sufficient, a little less reliant on the shops for our fruit and a whole lot happier about the way our life is going. I look forward to sharing our orchard with you over the coming months.

An abundance of apples

This year - in our corner of Lincolnshire at least - it has been a wonderful year for apples.There has been a paucity of plums, a dearth of damsons and not even a solitary sloe graces our hedgerows but apples we have aplenty! I had never really rated apples before. My sister and her husband are enthusiastic proponents of the British apple but I think I may have fallen foul of too many an insipid Golden Delicious which - having been picked under-ripe to help it survive the journey from France - had rather deterred me from experimenting further. That and the scrumped Bramleys of my childhood, whose luscious appearance is belied with one bite of it's mouth-puckeringly sour flesh! I suppose that my interest has only really been awakened this year because I have noticed such an abundance of quite distinct varieties ripening on our allotments, as I have walked along the path above them with the dogs each day. It brought it home to me that even though I am a keen gardener I had absolutely no idea what varieties they were, nor when they were supposed to be harvested. The people who had planted them originally are long since gone and with them knowledge of the trees identity and how best to care for them. Subsequently the allotment trees are a neglected bunch and - if for no other reason - my newly-frugal self was not going to watch such bounty go to waste! It prompted me to begin making up for lost time by finding out as much as possible about our humble British apple.

Since 1950, almost two-thirds (57%) of England's orchard area has been lost, arguably due to a lack of economic viability and the subsequent grubbing up of trees to make way for more profitable crops. All over the country, trees that had been developed to suit the climatic conditions of distinct geographical areas have been destroyed and the cultural traditions that had developed alongside them have largely died out too. The game of apple bobbing - trying to catch an apple using only your teeth as it floats in a bowl of water - has probably only survived because it has become linked with Halloween but even then has become overshadowed by the pumpkin lantern, imported from America. Apple varieties can only be perpetuated by taking graft wood from each type of tree. You can grow apples from seed but they will produce an entirely new variety as the genetic make up - a combination of both the blossoming and pollinating parents - will be entirely unique. So once the last tree of a particular variety dies out then its line becomes extinct. Though some apples can pollinate themselves to a certain extent, they all produce more fruit with another tree nearby that flowers at the same time. Diploid trees cannot fruit without another tree to pollinate them - hence apple varieties are ascribed a number or letter to indicate their flowering period - and trees that require two other pollinators are known as triploids. Given such seemingly complex growing requirements, it's a wonder then that so many apple varieties have survived until today.

In 1990, the charity, Common Ground, held it's first Apple Day to bring to the public's attention the importance of conserving those orchards that remain. It uses the apple "as a symbol of the physical, cultural and genetic diversity we should not let slip away". Today - October 21st - has become known as 'Apple Day' countrywide and is now celebrating it's nineteenth year. Apple-related events are held all over Britain during September and October and many offer the opportunity to have your own apple varieties identified. We took thirteen pairs of apples along to our nearest event at Wragby, near Lincoln, at the beginning of October. Identifiers usually ask for two typical specimens and some for a sample of foliage as well so we duly bagged and labelled our hoard to avoid mix-ups on the day. We felt a little guilty taking so many but had contacted the organisers in advance to check that this would be ok. Those doing the identifying came from the charity, East of England Apples and Orchards Project, which specialises in varieties bred within the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. Events such as these provide them with information about what varieties are surviving where within the region but also provide an opportunity to chance upon fruit of those varieties thought to be lost. When our turn came we were delighted to find that we had twelve different types of apple and amongst them two old Lincolnshire varieties. They were a mixture of dessert, cookers and dual-purpose types (those that sweeten with age) with some early and some late varieties. The British apple season actually begins with varieties such as Discovery in July/August, through early desserts, like Worcester Pearmain, to late types that have good keeping qualities like Laxton's Superb. Kept under the right conditions, certain kinds can still be eaten until the following May. It certainly makes you think twice about buying antipodean apples for most of the year with their accompanying carbon size nines! 

 

While we were at the event we also watched apples being crushed in a press to make juice, bought some quince, discovered which butterfly likes to sun itself in our pear tree and met a lady who would like to run a course in basket-making in our town. Apart from our purchase of half a dozen quince - and, of course, the petrol - it cost us nothing and made a really interesting day out. There are still a number of events on Common Ground's website coming up this weekend and beyond across the country; if you like the idea - and particulary if you have unknown apples of your own - this link will take you to the Apple Day Events page. Not all events offer the identification service so check with individual organisers before travelling.

 

Once our apples had been identified, we were free to bring them all home again and rather than waste them - which rather defeated the purpose of having them identified in the first place - we have steadily been working our way through the 'eaters' and are only now progressing to the cookers and dual-purpose varieties. The lovely man who identified our apples for us also made us a list to bring home naming each variety, it's place of origin and approximate date of breeding and when each variety was ready for picking. This has provided an excellent starting point for further research of my own into the varieties we have. Pictured above is an Ellison's Orange, named after the Reverend Ellison of Bracebridge Heath, on the outskirts of Lincoln. It should have been picked in September and we had to collect windfalls to take with us on the day. A dessert apple, it really does look like this in real life with its wonderful tiger stripes of deep red on a lighter red background. The flesh is quite soft and it is supposed to make a good juicing apple. Just as well, really, as I have a bowlful of further windfalls sitting underneath my dining room table!

 

The Egremont Russet possibly needs no introduction as it is grown commercially and is probably one of the better known British varieties. It's rough skin and golden colour are more akin to a pear than an apple and it has a drier texture than most dessert apples. We like to eat them with Lincolnshire Poacher smoked cheese after our evening meal and Hector is very fond of this variety, too. After the strong winds recently, many from the allotment tree had fallen, so I picked what was left on the tree. We have a very useful picker, which we bought to pick our pears last year, that consists of a bag held open by a rigid ring of plastic with protruding 'fingers'. Between two of the fingers is a sharp metal blade which acts to cut through the stalk of the apple/pear, allowing it to fall into the safety of the bag. This is attached to an extendable metal pole which allows you to reach where ladders can't. As I was picking one of the russets, I accidentally knocked a neighbouring one off and it hit the floor and bruised badly. Cultivating my maxim of 'waste not, want not', I ate the unbruised half there and then. It was quite delicious (even without the cheese)!

 

According to Laxton Brothers catalogue from the early 1900's, Lord Lambourne, shown above, is the best apple they ever produced. Many of their other apples are preceded by the prefix 'Laxton's' - such as Laxton's Superb, which we also have on the allotments - but for some reason this one is different. It is indeed a wonderful variety. A very large dessert apple, we almost mistook it for a cooker even though we had been told by other allotment holders how wonderful it tasted. Two trees grow next to each other, so we took fruit from each, hence thirteen pairs of apples and twelve varieties, as I mentioned earlier. Lucky is the chap who rents this plot to have doubled up on his good fortune!

 

As for cookers, we have several late-keeping varieties. There's Lane's Prince Albert,(pictured above) with it's squeaky skin and an enviable reputation for juicing and Newton Wonder, which is the traditional apple for mincemeat and also makes a mean apple sauce. We know this because we tried it yesterday with pork chops and we didn't need to add any sugar, either. Annie Elizabeth was once very popular for stewing, as it's 'quarters never break', but fell out of favour with the rise of the ubiquitous Bramley. We have a Bramley, too, but this one is a crimson type that turns very red as it ripens (see below).

 

As we become more aware of the enjoyment of eating seasonally, it would seem to have health benefits too. The Ribston Pippin, a variety bred in Yorkshire, has more vitamin C in one apple than is contained in a whole pound of Golden Delicious. Also, when you are about to eat an apple it is better to leave the skin on. Apple skin contains five times more antioxidants - which help to remove free radicals from the bloodstream - than the flesh. Farmer's markets are a good place to get hold of British varieties to try and with a bumper harvest becoming available now there has never been a better time to do so. I'm hoping to add some apple recipes to the Tried and Tested page quite soon and also to add details of a very informative book on apples to the book list.

Until then, whatever you're doing, I hope you have a ...

Beanfeast

It's been a while, hasn't it, since my last post? In my defence, members of the jury, I would like it noted that I have been blessed/afflicted* with multiple gluts on my allotment and that what seems like my every waking moment has been spent dealing with them in one way or another. (* The first of any crop is a joy; 10lb of fiddly redcurrant-picking later, you're not so sure!) In the years prior to downshifting, I always harvested my blackcurrants and the redcurrants as well if I could claim them before the birds. The gooseberries never did much and the bush that cropped most prolifically usually succumbed to powdery mildew when the weather became humid. My harvesting - such as it was - entailed one quick burst of frenetic activity and then that was it. Somehow, although I'd sown more things this year, and in greater variety, my mind hadn't quite computed that this would involve more work at the other end. I'm not actually averse to work. I read a wonderful line in a novel last night that could easily have applied to me. It read "She has two paces, fast and stop, and she hasn't located the stop button yet!" What has taken me by surprise, is that in previous years, crops have ripened in a particular order, so that you could get one out of the way before dealing with the next. This year, the gooseberries were late and the redcurrants later, so that I have been picking them at the same time as the blackcurrants and the broad beans. Added to this, the regular rainfall has ensured a bumper harvest of everything. Reading back through this, it could be interpreted as a bit of a grumble; it isn't really. I'm delighted that everything has done so well, just a little frustrated that I can't pick and process it as fast as it seems to need doing!

I am particularly proud of my broad beans. I made a half-hearted attempt at growing them last year which resulted in a paltry crop, so this year I was firm in my resolve to do better. I sowed the seeds at the end of March in a bed that had previously been occupied by a row of potatoes. Prior to sowing, I added a good bit of homemade compost, that had rotted nicely in my black council bins. The seeds themselves were the variety 'Bunyard's Exhibition' and I paid 99p for a pack of Wilko's own brand, averaging 40 seeds to a pack. Not being a seasoned broad bean grower, I sowed a double row, 24" apart, with 12" between seeds, as it suggested on the packet. Once they'd germinated, the gaps between them did look rather large and I subsequently discovered that the accepted wisdom is to sow them at 6" between seeds. However, the greater spacing seems to have allowed each plant to develop into a strong specimen, with plenty of  flowers - and subsequently, beans - on each one, and with a well-spread root system to hold it up. I was loathe to nip the tips out as the plants kept on producing more and more flowers. Only a couple of plants in the twelve foot row were troubled with blackfly and a quick squirt of soft soap solution soon saw them off.

Just as the beans had started flowering, we found ourselves watching River Cottage Spring one evening with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I must say we found the whole series inspiring but most particularly the recipes for the fruit and veg, which just happened to be the ones from which we were expecting bumper crops. Hugh was a little ahead of us in his bean harvest and we had to wait a few weeks before we could road test his recipe for Broad beans on toast. As our first pickings - in early July - coincided with my initial forays into breadmaking, I baked a sourdough loaf so we could make the type of toast the recipe recommends. I'm not a broad bean fan myself but Si' loves them and pronounced the recipe a big hit. If you try it out, just go easy on how much sourdough you toast, though, as it is very filling!

 

At first we just picked enough beans to eat at one meal, to ensure they were really fresh, but quite soon they all seemed to be ready faster than Si' could eat them, so we started picking them for the freezer. I think I am probably quite strange in that I really enjoy the quiet repetition of activities such as podding beans or picking blackcurrants. I think the pods themselves are a joy to behold with their soft, felted interiors to protect the swelling beans and they also provide an excellent bulky green addition to the compost heap. Our first 'big pick' weighed in at seven and a quarter pounds and the second one - last Sunday, when it was too hot to pick without a hat - was even heavier, at just over ten pounds. This is their gross weight (in pods) which is how we would have bought them from the greengrocer at a cost of 60p per pound. Not bad for a 99p packet of seeds!

We sat in the cool of our back garden later last Sunday afternoon to pod them and both dogs - who don't like to miss anything - came to oversee proceedings. One or two of the beans were marked so we set them to one side on the table. One of the problems of having very tall dogs is that the height of tables is no obstacle to them. They assumed the set aside beans had been put there for them and soon found they enjoyed the taste. I don't know of any other dogs who enjoy their fruit and veg like ours do, so I photographed them both to show I'm telling the truth! While Zephyr was happy to sit at our feet, nose amongst the empty pods, and have the occasional bean passed to him, Hector felt this was much too slow and decided to take to take the bean - rather than the bit - between his teeth. Not my usual standard of photo, I'm afraid, but it does rather capture the moment!

With my newly acquired 'bean grower' status, I am now planning ahead to the autumn, when it is possible to sow broad beans to overwinter, for an earlier crop in 2009. Given that our freezer is already full to bursting, investing in a chest freezer is also a distinct possibility for next season.

Weathering the weather

I considered calling this post 'Singing in the rain', as I was so delighted that we'd actually had some at last, but decided against it on sensitivity grounds. Readers living in the south and west might have sent me to Coventry, or to Hay-on-Wye, to stand on the festival site minus my wellies, as a punishment, after they've been subjected to a month's rain in a  single morning! We had rain here at the end of April, in the form of an enormous thunderstorm, and then nothing again for a month. Admittedly, the soil did stay quite moist for a couple of weeks but since then we've been watching the weather forecast in quiet desperation as all the rainclouds sailed in another direction. Such are the vagaries of the British climate, that while one half of the country drowns, the other is dried to a crisp. Peonies are temperamental plants at the best of times, and I just managed to capture the one above while it still had all it's petals. The poor thing struggled to flower through drought conditions and then the rain arrived and doubtless it is not looking so lovely this morning! The weather of the Mediterranean, with it's months of continuous sunshine, must have a certain appeal for those in the damper regions just now, but imagine all that watering? One of our allotment holders spent the first part of his retirement in southern Spain but one of the things he most missed about England was the variation in the weather and he came back here.

Our part of Lincolnshire is very forgiving with it's weather. Having lived in the north of Wales, where 'wet' was so often the default setting, rain here is usually followed by sunshine and a drying wind. This year, it seems to be accompanied by enormous fluctuations in temperature and unpredicted mood-swings. Yesterday morning, it was bright when I walked the dogs and reasonably warm; in the afternoon, I went to the allotment and could feel my skin burning within 20 minutes. As the temperatures rose, so did the humidity and it was a great effort of will to keep digging as my t-shirt slowly became sodden with the exertion. Later on, it clouded over, with a lovely cooling breeze, and in the evening it rained heavily for five hours. This morning the sky is overcast and, although the customary wind is absent, the pavements outside are almost dry already. Although the soil where we live is, historically, the silt of a floodplain, the further you go up the neighbouring hill, the denser the clay becomes.The allotments have better soil on the lower plots but the clay needs a lot of working to stop it turning into a rock-hard pan in the summer months. After heavy rain, like last nights, I always feel a desperate urge to rush up there and dig over as much as I can before the surface hardens again.

 

 As you can see here, the gooseberries have benefitted from the rain. The fruit seems to set if the weather is dry but the bushes need a really good soaking if the fruit is to swell and ripen properly. Last year, as the summer was so wet, we had an absolutely bumper crop and I made most of it into jam. The blackcurrants, on the other hand, which normally give a reliable yield of 20lbs plus, provided half a bowlful! I've given them some wood ash this season, and manure, so I'm hoping they'll be back to normal now.

I've got about four redcurrant bushes, like the one above, spread over the two allotments, and they crop well every year. The trick with them is to catch the ripening fruit before the birds see it, or they strip the bush in a greedy frenzy, wasting half the crop as it falls to the ground. This week, Si' and I have bought some tanalised wooden posts that we're going to fix permanently around each bush and then just drape the net over at the last minute to keep the birds off.

 

Our neighbouring allotment is gardened by a delightful Italian gentleman, called Lorenzo, who has given me some much-needed encouragement over the years. This is his fig tree, which grows in a circular wooden 'collar', presumably with it's roots in the ground underneath. If you look carefully, about two thirds of the way up on the right, it already has a fig growing! Si' was inspired to plant an outdoor vine, as Lorenzo's grows so well, and Lorenzo prunes it for us each year. The grapes are quite tart to eat but perhaps we might try making wine with them this year if they fruit well.

 

This year I was determined to suceed with broad beans. I normally forget to plant them early enough and they go in with the other peas and beans and do very little. This year I prepared the bed most carefully with home-made compost, sowed two rows in late March and planted a row of Dutch iris - bought from Lidl for a song - down the middle.

They are flourishing after the rain and just coming into flower. Fingers-crossed, there is no sign of the dreaded black fly yet but I'm ready for them with the insecticidal soap if they put in an appearance! (The Organic Catalogue have the best deal I've found on this; sold as a concentrate it will make 50 litres of spray for £15.85, as opposed to the ready-to- use version at £6.95 for one litre!) During the hottest part of the afternoon, I took a quick break to visit my gardening friend, Kathy, only a short stroll away. She has the most beautiful garden, that she started from scratch when her house was built, and she has raised most of the perennials in it herself from seed, or has gained them by swapping her home-grown plants, for different varieties, through a garden exchange scheme. What an excellent way to fill your garden for very little outlay but with all the fun of growing and swapping plants with like-minded people. I came away with some cactus-flowered dahlia plants, a bergenia and a clematis tangutica (the one with yellow flowers). Her family enjoy my blackcurrant jam, by way of a swap!

This leads me nicely to another exchange and that is of names on blog lists. A very nice man called John Harrison, who has the site that's featured at the top of my blog list, 'Allotment Growing', has added me to his site, on the Green Living Information page. A warm welcome to you if you have reached Being Creative from that site. I feel quite excited to be included as John's is the most popular allotment website in the UK. I first discovered it when I had delusions about keeping hens in our handkerchief of a garden. Thankfully, there is plenty of good information on poultry keeping, enough to dissuade me from such a reckless course of action. John has also published a book on vegetable growing recently and you can order a signed copy from the site or see if your local library has it in stock. From the forecast, it looks as if everyone can expect a little sunshine over the weekend; I hope it shines on you!

While you're here, be sure to enter my 30th post competition. The prize is a professionally printed copy of one of my photographs. For details, go to the end of my last (30th) post, 'A dog's dinner'. 

Be Nice to Nettles Week!

Given that I missed writing about 'National Composting Week', as it's timing coincided - most suitably - with the busiest part of the gardening calendar, I was determined not to let 'Be Nice to Nettles Week' slip by in a similar way. Nettles get a bad press. We all remember being stung, inadvertently, as children and the resulting nettle rash seemed to last - painfully - for hours. As I recall, there was never a dock leaf around when you needed one! Even Kenneth Thompson - who wrote the book I recommend on composting - has a title on wildlife gardening called No Nettles Required. I freely admit to not having read it but think I might do now to find out just why nettles are not required in a wildlife garden! Nettles are routinely noted as the Big Bad Wolves of gardening and are about as popular, yet as unwelcome visitors go, they are surprisingly useful.

The BBC Breathing Places project has an article in the Spring issue of Countryfile magazine about nettles. The aim of the project is to get people involved in creating havens for wildlife in their local area and, they argue, nettles have an important role to play:-

• Red admiral and small tortoiseshell butterflies rely on the common nettle for breeding as their larvae feed on it's leaves.
• The plant also supports over forty species of insect and a full-grown nettle can produce up to 40,000 seeds during it's lifetime, to provide food for seed-eating birds.
• Nettles make an excellent food for other plants as they are rich in nutrients. No wonder they need those stings to protect themselves! Like comfrey, they are a valuable activator for home-made compost. You can just pick them - wearing thick gloves - and add them to the heap. If you are careful not to pull the root up with them you can have your own sustainable cut-and-come-again patch that will keep providing you with new stems throughout the summer. Equally, you can make a liquid feed that's high in nitrogen. Pick your nettles, put them in a plastic bucket and cover them with water. Stir them well each day for a fortnight. The liquid is then ready to be diluted at ten parts water to one part nettle fertiliser. Strain it first or it will block up the rose on your watering can!

I have two patches of nettles on my allotments, one on each. The first grows around my plastic compost bins and when they begin to look a bit unruly, I just pull the tops off and add them to the current bin. If they look as if they are spreading, I pull the root up and add that as well, to keep it under control. They are not deep-rooted and are easy to remove as long as you are well protected from those stings. My other patch is the width of the allotment, and about 6ft deep, and grows at the far end of my first allotment, where it butts up to the path. When all the allotments at that end were disused, people would come onto the allotments from the neighbouring public footpath and just take the quickest route through to the gate at the bottom. To stop them cutting through mine, I left this nettle barrier; no-one willingly walks through nettles and I'm providing my own wildlife snack bar at the same time!

As weeds go, nettles are actually a blessing in disguise. Even couch grass can be dug out, with persistence. Just don't let me get going about bindweed ...

While I remember, I want to say a big thank you to those people who've been so complimentary about my photographs. To celebrate my forthcoming 30th post, I'm thinking of holding a little competition, with one of my photographs, printed professionally, as a prize. Do let me know what you think?

A dance of delight

We interrupt this week's advertised schedule (International Downshifting Week) not to tiptoe through but to perform a veritable dance of delight through the tulips on my allotment that I have grown myself! All too often I forget to plant them but not this time. I put them to bed in their little brown jackets in the autumn and I can hardly believe how different they are, considering how indistinguishable they were from each other when I bought them. I followed Sarah Raven's advice and planted them in a trench 12" deep lined with 2" of grit. This is deeper than is normally recommended but for several good reasons. Firstly, it seems to prevent the tulip bulb forming baby bulbs, which sap the parent of it's strength and prevent flowering. Secondly, even the largest tulips will not need staking as they are anchored so deeply in the ground and, thirdly, once they've died down, you can plant anything from a 3.5" pot on top, without disturbing the tulips underneath. Finally, at that depth, squirrels and mice are deterred from digging them up.

 

I only planted a few of each variety this time, to see which ones I liked best. I can then order them in bulk this autumn for serious cutting material next year. The Orange Emperor, above, is particularly stunning. I went to photograph them in the sunshine yesterday but it was too windy, so I brought just one home and snapped it inside this morning before the rain set in. After lunch, the rain stopped, the sun came out and there wasn't a breath of wind, so I hurried out to take as many 'Spring' photos as I could before the camera batteries ran out! I was then able to get my Orange Emperors, in situ, as I'd planned originally.

Don't they look beautiful with the sun illuminating their petals? I'm afraid that the writing has faded too much to read on some of the labels, so I can't give varieties; others just came as mixed bags. Here is another gorgeous one from just such an assortment.

I remember reading the novel, Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach that is based on the very real 'tulipomania' that struck Holland during the early seventeenth century. People from all walks of life neglected their work to buy and sell tulip bulbs for ever-increasing sums and those who had invested most heavily were left penniless when the market inevitably crashed. Thankfully, I have not reached the obsessive stage yet but you can see how their beauty could capture a person's heart.

Pretty in pink (and white)

and getting to the heart of things

au naturel

or displayed at their best in a vase

In fact, they are all so lovely that I can see I will have problems all over again in the autumn deciding which variety to have more of. All this success, though, bodes well for the dahlias. If I can achieve this with tulips then the future has got to be bright - if not orange - for their even showier relations. The pots for starting them off in are ready and waiting. Time is of the essence!

Do they know it's Spring(mas)time at all?

Despite the continuation of the less-than-lovely weather, things in the garden are starting to grow. Although I have spent more time on the allotment, I'm afraid my forays into our own garden have been mostly to clear up after the dogs. We had a (marginally) warmer day at the beginning of the week and whilst hanging some washing out I noticed, to my shame, that not only had the hostas come through but were beginning to open their leaves. How did I miss that? Some of them need dividing and I try and do it while the leaves are in bud, normally, or I end up losing a few leaves when I cut the plant up. Oh, well; if they didn't have a few leaves to spare I don't suppose I would be dividing them, would I? I've always grown hostas in pots since we lived in Wales and they proved to be the gastronomic equivalent of caviar to the slug and snail popuplation there. The pear tree is bravely displaying a veil of delicate-looking white blossom and new green leaves. It must be tougher than I think because, despite my concerns relating to the effects of a late frost, we nearly always have more pears than we know what to do with! I wouldn't normally cut blossom for the house, as it is quite short-lived and I'd rather eat the pears, but the pieces above were overhanging the neighbouring allotment, which has now been let. I was concerned that the new tenant might poke his eyes out on them, so I did a bit of late pruning.

 

It's my mum's birthday tomorrow and so on Wednesday I joined her on her annual expedition up to Yorkshire to stock up on plants for her garden. The nursery we visited is at Reighton, just below Filey (and Scarborough) on the coast of North Yorkshire. I'd heard mum rave about it in the past but have never been able to accompany her before because of work. With Lucy in the second week of her holidays, and therefore able to see to the dogs, I seized my chance. The weather forecast for that area was better than for our corner of Lincolnshire - with the promise of sunny intervals - so we had high hopes of shedding some of the Michelin-man-style layers we've grown used to wearing lately. No such luck. Although the sky was overcast, and there was no rain, the east coast had laid on one of it's infamous east winds, which in the summer is described as 'bracing' but at this time of year could be more accurately described as 'Siberian'. We went to look round the green house first, that housed young tomato, pepper and aubergine plants alongside bedding plants too tender to go outside yet. Even out of the wind I was frozen, despite four substantial layers of clothing (including a thermal vest) under my waterproof coat. Mum chose a few tomato plants and then we thawed out a little over a cup of hot chocolate and 'elevenses'. I never used to take food out with me on journeys, subjecting myself to the vagaries (both in price and quality) of train and other snack fodder and usually getting ripped off in the process. Nowadays, I get a little thrill, not only in being able to take something with me, but that usually it's homemade, too. Today we were eating the last of the Being Creative cakes - specifically the letters, C, R, A, and B - themed to accompany our seaside outing!

While we were eating them, we were joined by this little chap, who clearly wanted the crumbs. Fluffed up like a little ball, he, too, was clearly feeling the arctic chill. I have never been three feet away from a robin before, not even on the allotment, and I felt quite in awe of his fearlessness. He was not even deterred when I took the camera out to take this, so we rewarded him by scraping all the bits out of the paper cake cases to create 'elevenses' of his own!

Then we went outside again. Suffice to say, we now had to endure with the wind chill factor, but to concentrate solely on how cold it was is to miss the overall feel of the day. The nursery is huge. An area that hosted every variety of soft fruit bush gave way to two 'fields' of potted plants, first perennials and then shrubs. Once I got past trying to manouvre a wheelbarrow (for my prospective purchases) with numb hands, I realised that my mum had been entirely honest about the nursery's pricing policy. Almost every perennial, in a 3 inch pot, cost fourty pence. Fourty pence? I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! Gardening books are always keen to tell you that it's best to plant in groups of three, or five, but this was always beyond my budget, even when I worked full time. You can see, from the photo above, that we are not talking weedy little specimens here but stong, healthy plants, with roots growing through the base and in need of re-potting. Five Nepeta - Six Hills Giant were going to cost me less than I normally paid for one! I began to panic, slightly. All this space to cover and so little time! Having abandoned the cumbersome wheel barrow, I spent the next few hours working my way methodically up and down the rows. Luckily for us, my mum drives a transit van (for her business) so we weren't short of room; I have to tell you that, between us, we covered the floor with plants! At that price, I decided to buy some to pot on and re-sell at the car boot, the idea being that this would help to fund my own purchases. I 'invested' the last of my leaving collection from work so I really will have to make it work. Watch this space.

We didn't leave the nursery until we were practically thrown out and since it now seemed a lifetime since lunch, we headed into Filey in search of fish and chips. The sun had come out mid-afternoon and I just managed to capture the last rays illuminating Filey Brigg. We ate our fish and chips sitting in the van, overlooking the beach, and finished off with the last two Being Creative cakes - 'A', for aspidistra for mum and 'B', for something totally unrepeatable for me! We set off for home tired, replete and, at long last, WARM!

Digging for Dahlias

This week I have ordered my dahlias. If you have read my Growing page you will understand that this will cause a certain amount of trepidation on my part, so this afternoon I am going to clear their intended patch on the allotment and dig in plenty of nourishing home-made compost in readiness. Since I won't actually be able to plant them out until the risk of frost has passed at the end of May, I am considering growing some green manure on that patch first. This would prevent weeds growing on the prepared bed, prevent nutrients being washed out of the soil in the meantime and improve the soil structure for the dahlias. The idea then is that you dig the green manure into the soil a couple of weeks before the dahlias go in, to give it chance to break down into the soil. I buy my green manure seeds from The Organic Gardening Catalogue, the retail arm of Garden Organic (formerly HDRA).

A visit to the National Dahlia Collection, near Penzance, last summer persuaded me that I really must bite the bullet with dahlia growing this time, lest my garden should remain bereft of these brassy blooms forever!