Tinkerbell

The tiny shed really needed some form of adornment, and at the bonfire party I decided on a bell.  It would have been very useful if visitors could have rung a bell when they arrived, so that I could have politely greeted them.  Not just any old bell though.  A bell emblazened with roses and with a dainty fairy on top.  I'd had my eye on it for a while, but didn't have a place to put it. 

The tiny shed really has character now.  The bell has a beautifully clear brass tone, and is surprisingly loud.  I hope it's not too loud for the fairies. 

Wotya gonna do with all that junk...

all that junk dumped in your plot?

For quite a while I had no idea.  I just let it all pile up by the front gate.  And pile up it did.  I marvelled at how much junk the previous owner had managed to accumulate in such a small space.  At least all piled up in one place I felt I had it pinned down and manageable. 

In the end I started to rationalise it by sorting it into types of junk.  One bin liner full recyclable plastic, another two full of non recyclable.  Four triple bagged bags of broken glass.  I loaded the whole lot into the back of Charis my trusty Yaris Verso.  I was surprised at how much I could get into the wheelie bins at home. 

I donated the plastic compost bin to the new people opposite.  People new to gardening seem to like those plastic compost bins.  I really can't see the point of them myself.  In the past I've got so frustrated at how impossible it is to retrieve the compost from the small hole in the side that I've taken the whole structure off and cast it scornfully away. 

A fellow allotment holder is confident she can find a home for the mouldy old plastic sand pit that was used as a pond.  It seems rather unlikely to me. 

So that just leaves  the 4 trailer wheels complete with tyres, and the two rusty trolleys.  I suppose I might be able to use the casters.

Lost twin

I was clearing the old broken panes of glass from the side of the compost heap in the new allotment yesterday.  Whilst cutting back the nettles growing through them, I spyed an intriguing sight in the allotment next door.  It was a chair.  A chair face down in the mud and leaves, with hawthorn saplings growing through its slats. 

The saplings were about four years old, and had pushed and bowed the slats, so the chair was cruelly impaled right through.  It looked very uncomfortable, and was probably in pain.  I wish I had my camera, because it would have made a good, if weird, photo. 

However, I had to act immediately.  It took a lot of energy, but I managed to saw through all the saplings, and release the chair from its bonds. 

I could then see that it was the twin of the chair that my old neighbour had given me, instead of burning it.  This chair is scorched along its frame, and has a part of a foot missing.  What tales it could tell.

 So now it has a new home, and a new purpose in life.  It has taken up company with the delapidated wooden table in the annexed allotment, and provides a restful place to eat apples.

Moving on

The wren has a new roosting pocket.  It is the prettiest little home I have ever seen.  It is like a country cottage for birds.  I had to harden my heart and practice tough love.   I've dismantled her own roosting pocket in the shack, and have hung the new one in its place with a few of her leaves in it.  I'm hoping this will acclimatise her to it.  In a couple of days I'll move it outside onto the tree.  It's the kindest way I can think of to put an end to the poo problem.

Size matters.

I've just bought an enormous padlock for the new shed.  I didn't realise how big it would be when I ordered it.  It is really ridiculously massive, the sort of padlock a man would buy if he was lacking in confidence about his masculinity.  I decided to keep it, because it made me laugh.  The new shed is the tinyest shed you can buy, and now it has this padlock on it. It looks like a kind of blinging gangster rap chav shed now.  Maybe I'll pimp it up along that theme.  The thing is, there's nothing worth stealing inside anyway, just old tools. 

I think there's a kind of comedy quality to the new allotment.  I started tuning into it when I made a smiley face for the crater where the frog pond used to be.  Apples for eyes, a nose shaped stone for the nose, and a terracotta pot rim for the smile.  Then a creature ate the eyes in the night.

Black magic

Against my Godmother's wise counsel, I have smothered the weed infested growing area on the annexed allotment with yards and yards of black plastic.  It would have made a gorgeous wedding dress for a goth. 

My Godmother said I should be rather cunning and circumspect, and not tidy up the allotment too much in case the present incumbent returns and thinks 'oh good she's tidied it up and now it's much easier to maintain.  I'll keep it.'

You see, I'm not the official tenant until March, when rent is paid.  However, I am on the plotholder plans, and have had official sanction to tidy from one of the allotment officials.  I found it impossible to resist, because I love creating order where there is chaos.  Also it is the ideal time of year for clearing and structural work.

So, all the raised beds are now a pile of useful timber in one corner, and the land is a sea of black.  It looks rather sombre, and is not a sight that lifts a pixie's heart.  I'm thinking of painting big flowers all over it.  The original allotment has a similar appearance, only there it is a river of black bordered by grass. 

It is strange how the black over the land seems to affect my spirits.  I'm recalling all the trials I had this year with pests and disease, and how hard it was to dig the land.  Maybe it's just SAD.  I think massive flowers painted over the black will get me through the winter, and may be a magickal way of encouraging fertility.  My soil needs all the help it can get.

I am a firestarter

Well, in the end the bonfire started itself.  I hadn't added enough cardboard, and we gave up.  We turned our attention instead to the rather pleasant bonfire feast - home made toffee apples, parkin and mulled wine.  Then there was suddenly a beautiful flare of fire, and the bonfire had come alive.  The flames were gold and red and purple, and as it matured it became a golden circle of fire, which I had great fun dancing around. 

I put tea light holders in and around the trees, but the wind blew most of them out.  I'll have to resort to solar lighting next time, and those flares you can stick in the ground.  I moved the tea lights to our seating area, where they stayed alight mostly, and added a magical glow to our conversation. 

We were the only people at the allotments.  It would have been great fun if there had been lots of us down there.  If I was retired I'd enjoy organising allotment events. 

raising the dead

Today I started to raise the dead raised beds. They are totally overgrown, and look like a neglected graveyard.  I really can't see the point of raised beds.  Proper two feet high ones for disabled people, or for long rooted vegetables, yes.  However in my view there is little advantage in raising the earth by 5 inches.  It might look tidy but that's about it.  Actually raised beds always remind me of freshly dug graves.  Especially the little ones you can buy in kit form in garden centres.  The annexed allotment has 9 of these graves, although they are home made from old bits of decking.  It probably took a long time to do, but new life is pushing them up from the earth, helped by an Irishman's shovel. 

One poo too many

Really I need to evict the wren.  It would be ok if she just stayed in her roosting pocket and was shack trained.  However, she is always discovering new places to leave a little white surprise for me.  Today it was my heart shaped cushion that my Auntie gave me.  I've had to get rid of the chopping board, because she likes to decorate that most days.  So enough is enough.  The trouble is it's the wrong time of year for eviction of unhygenic wrens.  I don't know if she'd find another place to roost, and the blue tit has taken the nesting box.  I'm looking into buying some roosting pockets. 

greenhouse greening

Today I sowed my first seeds in the new (well rather old actually) greenhouse in my annexed allotment.  It's a very characterful greenhouse.  It has moss on its frame, and lots of cracked, bowed or completely missing panes of grass.  It still does a good job of keeping the rain out and the warmth in though.

I cleaned and oiled the door frame the other day, and it now opens and closes like a young greenhouse. 

I've started to put plants in there for overwintering, and today I sowed some medlar seeds.  It was a kind of greenhouse inaugeration ritual.  The medlars were very interesting.  I was rather taken with the smell of the decomposing flesh.  It had a musty smell, rather like linseed oil.  It reminded me of my art studio.  I wonder what type of creature would find this smell appealing enough to eat it.  I couldn't really think of one, other than the thing that lives under the greenhouse, and perhaps myself. 

That made me wonder if the flesh was actually to aid germination of the seed.  So I've done an experiment.  I've planted one medlar straight in the pot with the flesh still around the seeds.  I've also taken the seeds out of the flesh and planted them separately in compost.  It was rather delightful squishing the seeds out of the medlar.  I also enjoyed labeling the seed tray with a little tag with medlar written on it.  I feel I've established myself as the guardian of the greenhouse. 

We'll see what happens...

Safely gathered in

I've been making modifications to the gates on my allotments.  I've given the chicken wire gate of my original allotment a smart wire loop to close it with.  This won't wear away like the various other things I've attempted to secure it with. 

I've also cleared around the Heath Robinson gate in the new allotment.  It is some kind of tubular metal and mesh framework, perhaps an old mattress base?  Who knows.  I removed the clumsy wooden posts holding it in place, as they didn't get on with the wheel arches of my car.  Instead I made two wire hinges and a wire hook for it. 

In the process of clearing access to the gate, I discovered that I appear to have my very own quince tree.  How lovely.  I had adopted the quince tree outside my first allotment, and then I realised it was actually somebody's property.  That was after I'd rather ruthlessly pruned it.  It produced a very beautiful quince this year though, so perhaps it benefitted from that or the ash feed I gave it. 

Recently I found a whole cache of fallen medlar fruit from a tree I'd never noticed before near where I live.  The fruit was gorgeously rotten and ready for planting.  If the medlar seed sprouts, I'll have two interesting heritage fruit trees to care for.

I've sneekily annexed the land of the new allotment by making a wheelbarrow sized gateway in the chicken wire fence between them.  It's a lot easier to work there now, as I can just wheel the wheelbarrow through the gateway.  A lot safer too, as it was only a matter of time before I lost my footing while negotiating the fence with a sharp tool in my hand. 

boundaries

It seems to be a time for defining boundaries in my allotments.  The other day I tried to move the oversized and rather wobbly table from my shed to the recently acquired greenhouse.  It didn't survive the journey.  I felt increasingly like a murderer trying to dispose of a body, as I dragged and rolled it over to the annexed land, and then partially dismantled it in order to get it in the greenhouse.  Something had to give, it was either going to be the greenhouse glass or the table.  Finally I heard the sound of splintering wood, and I new it was the sound of a table passing over. 

I had become quite attached to it.  I even developed a fondness for its cobwebby underparts.  I particularly loved the evidence of the many years of service on its top.  There are all manner of different paints, and some rather beautiful stencils of fleur de lis, made when someone had resprayed something like an iron fire grate front perhaps. 

I was loath to burn the top, and then realised it would make a good front defence for my heap in progress.  Making the heap is a bit of a balancing act, and things are forever rolling off the top.  With the table top completing the square, the heap's digestive process is contained.  It acts rather like a hernia gauze. 

I was pleased to discover that the fleur de lis pattern is much more visible with the table top in its new place.  I might even add some stencils of my own.

new bird

I was able to watch the early evening moon today.  It was set like a piece of ivory in a pale lavender sky.  It was a sky that almost smelt of lavender, with whispy white clouds.  There was a pure clean light shining all through the sky from the moon. 

I was sitting on my bench by the shack, letting the sky untangle me, when a bluetit flew down to the nest box on the shed.  It was about to go in, but saw me and thought better of it.  What a shame.  I got the impression it wasn't the first time it had made that journey though.  I hope it's just using it for roosting, and is not totally confused by the weather and is starting a family.

Topsy turvy

It's all going pear shaped.  The poppy seeds I sowed recently are already germinating, and it looks like some of the Alpine ones are too. The garlic I planted to get the benefit of the winter frosts is sprouting as well.  I'm just going to have to leave them all be and hope for the best. 

A better surprise is that the grass seed I sowed too weeks ago has turned into beautiful young grass. 

Giant mole?

I've now cleared most of the junk from inside the greenhouse.  I can now see the floor, and it is worryingly uneven.  There is a large boil-like mound in it, and when I lift the black plastic covering, the earth has large fissures in its surface.  I wonder if something subterranean and menacing has made its home down there.  Something with musty fur, sharp claws and breath like comfrey juice. 

The only way to find out is to start digging.

duplex

I've discovered there's a mouse living under my shed.  The other day I was relaxing in my chair in the shed, and I saw a little brown shape on the floor.  I looked down, and it was moving.  With my surprised cry it vanished. 

Then for the last few days I've noticed a half eaten apple nestling against the shed base by the front door.  I can see in my mind's eye how the mouse has huddled there near the protection of its basement home, nibbling at its enormous harvest, too big to drag under the shed.

Well, I don't mind this way round.  If it was above me scuttling over my ceiling it would be another matter.

Vegetable guardian

I carved the largest pumpkin from my allotment into a guardian spirit for Samhain/Halloween yesterday.  It had a happy smile with cute little fangs, and its eyes were appealingly lopsided.

feathered friend

Yesterday I and the robin in the new allotment got to know each other a little better.  I think he must live inside the shed, because twice now I've startled him when I opened it.  Yesterday he sat scolding at me in the plum tree for a while afterwards. 

I was admiring the new clean cavity where the weird fetid pond used to be, and there he was eyeing up the earth for worms and insects.  I'd disturbed the earth quite considerably, so I expect there were plenty to be had.  He was leaping and darting around, and every now and again he would pause to eye me up with his head on one side.  I could see how curious he was.  He could tell I wasn't food, but he just kept hopping nearer and nearer, evidently just wanting to understand what kind of creature I was.  We sat for some time in a peaceful mutual silence, and I admired how the breeze ruffled the grey softness of his feathers.

I felt a bit silly when some fellow allotmenteers said hello, as it looked like I was just perched on a plant pot talking to myself.  I suspect that there are plenty of people in my allotments who are partial to that kind of behaviour though, so perhaps they understood.

No more drowned voles

I managed to extract the lurid green plastic monstrosity sunk in the earth in the new allotment today.  It is in fact some kind of child's sand pit in the shape, I think, of a frog.  I discovered the lid on a compost heap.  It had staring white eyes. 

It was like extracting a huge green rotten molar from the mouth of the allotment.  It was full of fetid water and slime.  There were many flints in it, which I shovelled out with the handy broken up concrete encrusted old Irishman's shovel.  It is particularly good at heavy work, because it has weight behind it. 

As the water got shallower, I uncovered strange prehistoric looking creatures.  They had the bodies of immature froglets, but had six legs.  They crawled out before I could photograph them.  I think they may have been just waterboatmen, but out of the water, crawling instead of swimming, they looked entirely different.  They certainly fitted with the character of the pond, crawling out of the stinking slime like some lost ancient form of creature.

I realised too late why the flints were there.  One morning there was a poor dead vole lying in the murky water.  It had no means of escape, as the plastic sides would have been too slippery to climb. I covered the pond with its hideous green staring lid, and weighted it down with a couple of bricks.

Yesterday though I was once more greeted by the luminous glaring eyes, and knew that the time had come.  I had to get rid of that pond, before it came alive on Halloween and cursed my garlic. 

I attacked it with my Irishman's shovel, biting round the mud until I exposed the plastic rim.  then I levered it up all round, until I felt it give up with a foul mouthed sigh.  It was a good feeling to feel it come away from the earth, and feel the air running into the gap between earth and plastic. 

So it won't be perilous to voles or any other creature now.  It is resting on my ever growing pile of junk in the middle of the allotment.  The pile is looking more like a Tate Modern exhibit every day.

Up on the roof

How luxurious, I have a roof that doesn't leak.  No more little pools of water in strange places inside.  The fluid loops and undulating lines of white chalk are all that remains of the damp patches that taunted me from above. My only defence was to make marks round them, in an attempt to determine the source of the leaks.

Getting to the source of the leak problem was a gradual process.  I wasn't quite sure how to go about it.  I armed myself the best I could, with an offcut of roofing felt and an aluminium ladder.  Then the whole thing seemed to carry me along with its own momentum. 

The first lucky break was the discovery that the piece of thick plastic sheeting I had found in the new allotment's shed was exactly the right size to fit over the entire roof.  So much so that I wonder if that was its original purpose. 

I relished climbing the ladder and swinging myself onto the roof with the aid of a helpful branch.  Those childhood tree climbing days were very valuable.  I took my witch's broom up there and had a good old time cackling and sweeping all the debris from the roofing felt.  The sun was shining, so I sat on the roof for a while to drink in the view.  The ashfelting was beautifully warm.  I looked out across all the allotments, and the fields beyond them.  It was a very liberating and peaceful experience.  I felt quite like some creature of the woods surveying its territory.

It was time to investigate thoroughly the nature of the leak.  I saw that there were quite a few layers of roofing felt along the apex of the roof, some of them quite rotten and loose.  I peeled off three layers of differing qualities and states of decay.  I was reminded of tv diy programmes, where people peel away one layer of wallpaper after another.  Each layer is original and unique in its beauty.  In my case all the layers were equally disgusting.  One had a coating of wood lice on it. 

Three further layers remained, but I could now see the problem - there was a crack through all the layers of ashfelting, so that the inside of the shed was in fact exposed to the elements at the roof apex.  I suspect it was due to the psychadelic nature of the shack.  It is always ready to party.  The slightest wind will set it off, rocking and rolling.  Only the length of orange baling twine tied to a bolt on one of its corners, and to a sturdy tree, prevents it from totally collapsing.

My plan is this - seal the crack with tar.  The offcut of roofing felt I found in the garage is the ideal size to lay over the apex .  I'll stick that down with tar too.  It won't last for ever, but will buy me some time.  I'll lay the thick plastic over the whole lot and staple gun it down. Then when I have some money I'll buy enough roofing felt to go over the entirity of the roof, leaving the plastic in place. Either that or I'll just buy a new shed. 

So at the moment the roof is waterproofed by the plastic, strategically staple gunned and held down by LBC bricks.  Excellent, and vaguely reminiscent of Alpine chalets.

A kind of magic

I'm busy planning what I'll be growing in my allotment next year. I've been on an internet surfng extravaganza, gathering in all the names and images of what I would most desire.  It's a lovely feeling, like I'm building up a big sparkling wish, ready to breathe it out into the world of my land.  I can see it all in my mind - gourds, peas and beans winding round tripods, rainbow chard, beetroot and purple potatoes. 

Also all the rainbowy flowers that I've scrounged from other allotments, along with some alpine seeds I brought back from Chatel in France.  I've already sown them directly into the soil.  My theory is they need the minus temperatures then the warmth of spring to stratify their seeds. 

I've also sown some luscious multi petalled coral red poppy seeds that my neighbour quietly posted through the door one evening, in little envelopes decorated with sparkly flower stickers.  I tried to grow them last year, and tenderly sowed them in the spring in the greenhouse.  None of them germinated, so I think contrary to their overblown drama queen appearance, they must respond to rugged weather conditions too.

Autumn's warm smile

I've been enjoying the Autumn sunshine today.  I forgot to put suntan lotion on, and now I have a face like a strawberry.  I didn't realise the sun would be so strong at this time of year. 

I spent some time tidying the sunflowers.  The frost is sending them to sleep, but they still have their petals on.  I gave some of them smiley faces. 

There are still strawberries ripening.  I have to share some of them with slugs, but if I'm quick they're mine, all mine.


A friendly robin has appeared.  He seems to have a connection with the new allotment. I've seen him perched on the apex of the greenhouse roof, and by the composting bins.  Perhaps I'll get some meal worms for him. 

There is a lot of birdsong at the moment.  I wonder if the birds are confused by the rapid changes in weather, and think it's spring.  Yesterday there was rain, a rainbow, hail and sunshine in the space of about half an hour.  All my primroses are in full bloom.  It's like adolescent weather - all mixed up. 

I've been enjoying the autumn colours lately.  In the low golden light everything glows, especially when there is a blue sky.  There are a lot of yellows and chartreuse greens.  Then there is a kind of rainbow theme going on with all the strong flower colours - cosmos, dahlias, nasturtiums.  It would make a lovely painting.

I've just discovered my squash crush on the internet - it's a mushroom squash, and I can buy the seeds from Amazon!

Squash crush

I'm developing an obsession with squashes.  It started when I stayed in a farm in France which had magnificent displays of them all around the courtyard.  There were so many fantastical and bewildering shapes and colours and textures.  I meant to ask for one, but forgot.  That led me on a quest to find the seeds for sale on the internet. I've come across wonderous varieties, and ornamental gourds are definitely going to feature in my allotment next year.  star shapes, cog wheel shapes, curly shapes, white luminous ones; there is an endless range. 

The variety I most fell for has however eluded me.  It was half smooth deep orange, and half stone beige roughness, kind of like an angel and a devil combined in squash form.  I'm sure its out there somewhere.

Tales of the unexpected

There is definitely something mischievous in the air.  I suppose I would be disappointed if there wasn't at this time of year.  Just now, for example, I was in my art studio and decided to tighten the lid of my primer pot.  The whole lot went everywhere.  It looked like the king of the birds had been visiting. 

It's been a similar story at the allotment.  First of all the strange transformation of the green chair.  Then yesterday, I lifted the rather sad garlic specimens to discover they'd changed into spring onions.  Then today, I was minding my own business in one of the chairs when a pigeon tried to land on my head. 

Today I thought I would treat myself to a bacon sandwich, and would fry the bacon in the griddle we found locked in the ski locker in France.  Strange thing to do with a griddle, but after using it all became clear.

It's a sturdy cast iron flat pan with a useful fold in handle.  It has a ridged surface to make stripes on beef steaks.  I started by frying an allotment grown shallot in it, and all went well.  Then I added the bacon, and its true character was revealed.  In the manner of a cast iron fiend it shrivelled the bacon into small pieces on contact.  I could almost hear it saying 'bah, les Anglais!  Du bacon maigre! Horreur!'

It will be very good with steak though, and I think a good old English sausage will be more than a match for it.

Hunting and gathering

I feel as if I'm really one with the changing seasons this year. In particular at the moment, as I've been busy harvesting crops and gathering seed for next year. 

I've gathered in my pumpkins and butternut squash. There's just the leeks and the parsnips to water now. I also went on a little tour around the allotments, craftily collecting seed. People have grown very pretty cosmos, nasturtiums and dahlias, and it would be rude not to help with their propogation next year. I've also collected seed from my sunflowers, including the huge one in my new allotment. It was so tall I had to stand on one of the plastic chairs and hold a bucket under the seed head while I prised the seeds out. 
I've made a good start on the bonfire. I've been on the prowl for dry old wood and scrub.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm turning into an old wild woman.  Ah well, at least I'm happy.

There was a large amount of old wood in the new allotment, plus a good deal of scrub, which will make fine tinder. My bonfire is a structurally balanced layered design. I started with a pile of dried grass, balls of paper, and stems, then added a layer of sticks and small pieces of wood. then I added a layer of brushwood and stems, then another layer of planks of wood. I'll keep repeating these layers until I run out of material. This won't be for a while, as there are loads of tall dead stems in all the untended allotments, and my Dad has an old shed he wants to burn. I think it's going to be an impressive sight when it's lit.

To everything there is a season

Two of the pumpkins had adventures today.  One of them became a very hearty pumpkin soup.  Delicious with a little chicken stock, orange zest and nutmeg.  The other became a gift for the lady who gave me the chairs. The last time I saw it, it was waiting proudly outside her front doorstep on a bright red horse chestnut leaf, a little note tied to its stalk with raffia.  I wonder what the others will get up to...

Today was the first day I was able to see my breath drifting all white and smokey in the air while I was sitting in the shack.  I'll have to get the ashfelting patched soon, before the wet weather really begins. 

There seems to be a little roosting indentation in the wren's leaf mound.  Perhaps there is method to her madness after all.

mmm bonfires

I'm starting to smell woodsmoke.  The leaves are turning golden, and the light contains a magic like windchimes .  It's time for bonfires.  Mmm lovely.  I do like a nice bonfire.  This year I have the space for a massive one.  I'm going to start creating it tomorrow, and it will grow for a whole month until it becomes a beautiful towering inferno on 5th November.  I'm planning a bonfire party, with jacket potatoes and fairy lights, and possibly bonfire toffee.  How exciting.  I do love a good old primal ritual to celebrate the seasons and turn with the earth's cycles.  For me it will be a time for ceremonially burning all the stuff I don't want in my life, to make space for the things I want to welcome in.  Can't wait.

snake in the grass

It was one of those days today.  I thought things had been going rather too well lately.  I started to have my suspicions when I lost the car keys. 

I didn't notice at first what had disappeared.  I noticed what had appeared instead.  A pile of junk items which were all very familiar, because their usual home was next door in the allotment I had just acquired.  Then I saw the beaten up old concrete encrusted barrow from next door by my heaps.  Then it hit me - THE GREEN CHAIR WASN'T THERE.  Instead there was the pile of junk.

I had a feeling I was on borrowed time with it.  I'd tried to contact the owner to see if it was ok for me to adopt it, but the phone number didn't work.  So I thought I would give it a loving home anyway, as it was lying on its side in a most forlorn way, surrounded by junk.  I tied a note to it explaining my actions, in case it was wanted.  Just as well as it turns out.  So, I was fostering, not adopting. 

It was an unusual and stylish chair from the late 50s Eames era.  I loved the way its green plastic string, which formed its body support in the manner of sunrays, became luminous when the sun shone on it.  Ah well, salut green chair I shall miss you. 

I returned the junk to the allotment which had belched it up.  It left me rather crestfallen and unmotivated about the whole land expansion idea.  The new allotment really is a dump.  I chopped back all the mugwort stems and similar today to see just what I'd taken on.  There are four old car wheels with tyres, a child's plastic table and chairs, two beaten up barrows, a pile of broken bricks, and everywhere covered with weeds and grass. 

I had an informative chat with my mate Brian, who is now a neighbour as well since I've taken on the new allotment.  He said what I needed to do was spray the whole lot with weedkiller.  He also told me that he is growing the very long stemmed wheat that I have wanted to grow.  It's ideal for corn dolly making.  I do love the whole ritualistic and primal corn dolly creative process, but haven't been able to make one properly since the farmers started growing short stemmed wheat. 

I proudly showed him my comfrey crop in the new allotment, and he said he hated comfrey, because it harbours snakes.  His mate was bitten by an adder as he backed into a clump of comfrey while strimming.  Dearie me.  I'll be much more careful in future. 

The other misfortune today concerned my apple crop.  I was disturbed to discover that several of the apples had large nibble holes in them, some with droppings on.  It was unmistakably a mouse.  So, I'm in the process of moving my whole crop into the garage at home.  It makes me wonder who I will be sharing my shack with in the winter.

New territory

Both I and the wren were having fun exploring the new allotment today.  She has been inside the shed searching for grubs.  I surprised her and felt her whirring above my head as she made for the door. 

There is a huge amount of stuff for burning. It would make a spectacular fire for bonfire night.

I've had my eye on the huge lush comfrey plants in this allotment for some time.  Today I felt I could legitimately harvest some of it.  I want to give my butternut squash all the help they can get poor things.  I didn't water them as well as I should have done earlier on in the season, and they're quite small. 

I treated them to some liquid comfrey too.  I was surprised to see a colony of miniature mushrooms growing on the surface of the liquid in the bin. 

Croquez moi

Today has been a day of apples.  Apples on the ground all wet with dew, apples nestling together in a barrow, apples on the Heap, and apples in storage.  It was a very hot day to be apple harvesting, but I had to get the crop off the ground before the slugs and birds had a feast. 

It took me a while to work out where to put them all.  The coolest, darkest place was the floor of the shack.  I spread paper over the shady side and carefully arranged the apples so they weren't touching.  I worked at an apple farm once, so I know what to avoid when storing apples.  None without stalks, none with holes, none with bruises.  I was a bit lax with the stalks rule, as I hope to be quite soon turning most of them into cider anyway. 

hummm buzzz

I'm so looking forward to reclaiming the new allotment from the wilds of nature.  I am full of new plans.  Many of them are buzzing like bees, as I hope long term to keep a hive there.  It seems a very involved process, but I'm still not put off, even though I do have a strong reaction to bee stings.  I hope to go on a local beekeeping course in January, which should galvanise things for me. 

Dearie me

For a few minutes I thought I'd deleted this blog by mistake.  I was trying to link two together, and I assumed the first stage was to delete an account.  I can see my mad medieval studies teacher now, her eyes bulging, shouting at me, 'NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING!'

It's taught me to make a copy of everything. It's also made me realise how much I've written, and how awful it would be to lose it.

After a lot of searching, I found this wonderful step by step guide:
http://tinyurl.com/mergeaccounts

I also discovered that I can, if I want to, use the address of the account I deleted, if I undelete the account and merge it.  However, I like the new address better!

Anyway, I've managed to create a sister blog to this one, to showcase my paintings and share my 'process', as they say.  I find art can be a very insular kind of thing, which is perhaps why I haven't done so much of it lately.  Being an allotmenteer is much more sociable.  So it will be healthy I think to write a blog about my painting. 

www.atelierclaire.blogspot.com
Actually I'm hoping that in the end the two activities will come together, as I'm going to recreate my main allotment next year as a kind of natural resource for artistic inspiration.   I'm hoping that in this way I will bring my painting out into the community, so that I'm not shut off in a little studio, or in the seclusion of my parent's garden, but in a place where people will see what I am making as I am making it.  This might be a little difficult in the winter of course.

Empire building

I've just acquired another allotment!  It neighbours mine, and has a greenhouse and a small shed on it.  It also has raised beds, and a strange pond made out of a tortoise shaped paddling pool.  Not sure what I'm going to do with that.  I know I'm going to find a use for the goodly quantity of black plastic covering a large part of it though.

I plan to grow fruit there, and use it as a prep area.  The greenhouse is going to be especially useful for propogation and protection of seedlings.  My Dad is going to have a lot more space in his next year!

I now have my eye on the one next door to it.....

green blaze

My allotment had many surprises for me today.  I came across another when I was noticing how almost the entire crop of apples on three of my apple trees was on the ground.  They had all ripened themselves off the branch while I was away.  I was focussing on the quantity of apples, when suddenly I realised the colours of the apples were being set off by the bright emerald background created by the fine and juicy new grass underneath the trees.  I had sown grass there just before leaving, and now it was a brand new lawn.  It needed little lambs to gamble on it.  However, it just had rotting apples.  Ah well, they'll make good cider. 

Another surprise was my encounter with what must be the hugest apple in all the world.  My friend Pete showed me a very fine cooking apple tree in the communal orchard.  The apples on it were a goodly size, and so I collected some at my Dad's request.  He does love a nice apple, and baked apples with raisins and maple syrup in particular.  I needed three, and was searching for the biggest, when I met with an apple so big I thought there must be something wrong with it.  It fell easily into my hands, and then I could see it was a perfect apple, only with giantism.  Of course this could only be meant for my Dad, so he will have a hearty pudding tonight.

I love d major 7

I had the good fortune to meet my mate Pete today down at the allotments, and he gave me a bit of a guitar lesson.  I have a very beaten up old 3/4 herald with lots of smiley face stickers on it.  I bought it off ebay for a fiver, as I wanted to have a go at learning guitar, but didn't want to waste £200 on a proper new one without being sure I wasn't going to tire of it.  Anyway, it has a surprisingly mellow sound.  The allotment is the best place to explore it, as it is a peaceful space condusive to chilling out with a guitar, and I like to think the plants enjoy it.   I've been practicing basic chords, and gradually linking them together, but it's hard in the same way as dancing.  With dancing apparantly once you've done the move 24 times it will be in your muscle memory.  I must have played those chords much more than 24 times, and they're still rather tricky for me!  I've been exploring other chords lately, and discovered d major 7, which is a blues chord.  It is the most gorgeous sound to me, and it is very easy to play. 

Pete did some very melodious country and blues trickery with my simple little guitar, and made it sound like a real guitar for once.  It was very encouraging.

dirty protest

I really do wonder about the wren.  I've been in France for a while, so she's had free run of the shack. When I opened the shack door today for the first time in three weeks,  I was greeted by a pile of dry leaves.  She's obviously still got the pecking at her funny nest OCD.  Then I saw that she'd done some contraversial concept art on my chopping board.  Lots of tiny wren poos in a random dotted pattern.  Then I discovered a single one on my Learning the Guitar for Dummies book. Luckily I had covered it in glittery gold plastic wrapping paper. 

There were some other surprises too.  I seem to have acquired another chair.  It's one I've been coveting for a while, in my neighbour's allotment.  It  is like a deck chair, but with a slatted support for the body instead of a fabric one.  I had borrowed a chair that was near the same allotment, but outside it.  I was unsure of ownership, so I thought I would give it a change of scene.  it fitted like a dovetail into the bottom right hand corner of my allotment.  It gives a fine view of my land, and it is here that I see the interesting rainbows and light effects when the sun goes down.  Well, on my return I suddenly saw that it had a partner, the slatted chair, which was now in the corner position, with the other chair placed at a pleasing symmetrical angle beside it.  Who knows what chairs do when no one is looking.  They look a very well matched couple I must say.  I was delighted to discover that the slatted chair is in fact a rocking chair.  Lovely on a hot Indian summer's day. 

In actual fact, I suspect that its appearance is due to the kindness of my neighbour, who must have given me the chair, along with a huge tub of chicken manure which I found by the side of it.  I was going to buy some to give much needed nourishment to my land, so it is very timely.  It is very lovely of her, and I'm going to give her one of my huger pumpkins as a thank you. 

Another surprise was that the sunflower which was cruelly decapitated by the slugs has grown many heads in place of the one that was taken, and will look much more beautiful now when they all bloom. I'm glad I didn't pull it up now.  I'll know next time not to pull up decapitated sunflowers.  The slugs did for most of them along the maze fence.  I'm going to buy some oyster shells in bulk for next year.  Also I'm going to experiment with lambs' ears.  The velvety fur on their leaves is like spines to slugs and snails, so in theory will be an effective deterent as well as a pretty one.

Meet Penelope

My first born pumpkin.  I am very proud of her.  She is such a sunny orange colour, and did very well to grow at all.  It has been so dry, and the pumpkin leaves have suffered badly from mildew.  I gave the plants a top dressing of comfrey leaves, and have been treating them to home made comfrey liquid feed, so maybe that helped.  I stewed lots of leaves in water in a recycling bin the council gave us to put food scraps in.  We don't have any food scraps in our house - we eat it all like labradors.   It is ideal as a liquid compost bin though. It has a lid which locks when you put the handle down. 

I knew the brew was ready by the smell.  It took about three weeks.  I could describe it, but I don't want to offend anyone.  I felt like an old witch as I stirred it with a rotten stake and choked on the fumes.  All plants with developing fruit love it though.  It encourages fruit to set from flowers, and to grow healthily.  I diluted it 10 parts water to 1 part comfrey juice. 

Penelope is one of the smaller pumpkins on her patch, but I knew she was ready because the leaves of her plant drooped overnight.  She has nothing to be ashamed of though; she is just the right size to make a fine pumpkin soup.  The trouble is I don't think I have it in me to cut her into bits. 

Introducing the Shack

I love my shack.  It's a kind of magical beach hut, only on an allotment.  In fact her full name is Psychadelic Shack, after the Temptations song.  It looks just like an old shed on the outside, but inside it is a riot of rainbow colour, flowers and stars. 

I came across her first of all when I was out on a walk, before I was even an allotment holder.  It was one of those days when I needed a space to think, and I find walking very good for that. I found myself sneeking into the allotments.  They looked so intriguing, and I wanted to get a closer look at all their varied characters.  It was a Winter's day, but even so there were some beautiful structures created by the things people had used to support plants, and sometimes even the plants themselves, crystalised in frost, looked fascinating and dramatic. 

This was the case in the plot my shack was in.  There was what appeared to be a kind of fairy ring of lavender, and I felt impelled to trespass and stand inside it.  Then there was the shack itself, unlocked and with some of its shiplap fallen off.  It looked very desolate and unloved.  I thought I would go inside to explore and give it some company.  I discovered an old bird's nest that someone had put on the table, with four perfect pale blue eggs in it.  It was a lovely space just to sit and think. 

I came back several times afterwards, and put my name on the allotments waiting list, in the hope that it was available, as it looked so neglected.  In March I was taken to the allotment allocated to me.  We turned down the familar pathway towards the shack, but still I couldn't quite believe it.  My surprise and delight knew no bounds, as my plot turned out to be the one I most wished for.  The previous tenant had just phoned the day before to say she wanted to give it up.  Was it fate, or the fairies?  From that day on the Shack and its Land have become transformed, and so have I. 

One of the first things I did for the Shack, was to give her a blue ceramic doorknob with white stars, and two brass door knockers.  One is in the shape of a Pixie, and is for humans to use.  The other is in the form of a horseshoe, and is placed at Fairy height, just in case there are any around. 

The next thing I bought for her was a rainbow fly curtain, which totally set off her plain exterior, and suggested the whole theme for inside.  From then on it was a kind of rainbow rollercoaster than I couldn't step out of. 

My shack mate the wren

I share my shack with many creatures - including numerous sadly misguided insects and recently a mouse enjoying the sauna-like warmth of a plastic bin liner.  My most frequent visitor however is a wren.  At first I was quite surprised by her presence, but now I happily accept her as a shack mate, and we live a peaceful existence together. 


My first clue to her claim on the shack was the sudden appearance of a carefully structured and tightly packed cluster of leaves above the door lintel.  It happened after a period of wet weather, and I thought perhaps the leaves had been dislodged by the rain, as my shack is a friend to the elements, and likes to welcome them in.  I knocked the leaf structure down, and noticed that there was a quantity of moss in the centre.  My immediate though was, 'oh no a mouse nest', and I was careful to clear the whole lot out.  I am a little bit squeamish about baby mice. 


The next day when I opened the shack door, I noticed a tell tale sign of leaves on the mat.  I looked up, and sure enough there was the pile of leaves back again.  I immediately responded with my broom.  This went on for a few weeks.  The strange thing was, it didn't look like a nest - there was no entry or exit hole, and there were no signs of life from within it.  Some scratch markings appeared on the lintel, and a white deposit that looked more from a bird than a mouse.  Or perhaps a bat.  Nothing makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck than a bat. 


Then one day I opened the door and there she was on my table.  She quickly flew past me and sat on the fence for quite a while twittering at me in a way that sounded very much like scolding.  So that changed things.  I was concerned that if the wren was trying to build a nest, she would desert it when the young were born because of the disturbance I would create on a daily basis. 

I put a bird box up on the shack, and tried to encourage her in by putting some of her leaves in it, and draping the moss on the perch.  I even staple gunned some roofing felt over what I thought was the access hole.  The next day the leaves were back in their usual place, and I worked out that she was probably coming in through a tailor made little doorway at the bottom of the shack door, just below the fairies' door knocker.




At that point I accepted the inevitable, and decided to live alongside her in a companionable sort of way.  The leaves never did turn into a nest, and I wondered if she was suffering from ocd, or was mentally challenged in some other way.  Some trauma at birth when she was prematurely evicted from her nest, or perhaps she was a lone bird who had the nesting urge, but hadn't been able to find a mate, so the nesting blueprint in her mind wasn't fully formed.

Then I discovered that is was most likely a pair, when I saw them hopping quietly about in the tree next to my shack.  I wondered if there are same sex couplings in the bird world, and this was what they created as a kind of nest. 


Then just recently I was lying in my hammock reading the Heap's Lush Times ( I got him a new one), and she fluttered in and perched on the hammock pole.  I watched fascinated as I was able to witness her whirring, hovering, fluttering progress from hammock pole to table, then from table to lintel.  Once there she proceded to eye up the pile of leaves for some time, head on one side then the other.  Then she chose one leaf, picked it out of the pile, and discarded it so it landed on the floor.  That explained the leaves that had been appearing there for the last few days.  Then as quickly as she appeared she whirred out again. 


So I don't know what's going on now.  Perhaps she was alone, and now she's found someone she doesn't need an almost-nest any more.  Anyway, I've enjoyed our time together very much, and maybe she'll come back next year and make a proper nest with her man in the bird box. 

lost in music

I often have a song in my head as I work on my land, but today I had two totally possessing my brain.  Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made of Sand pirouetted around my brain with the Black Eyed Peas' Where is the Love? the whole time I was there.  I think I'll have to get a ghetto blaster so I can exorcise songs when they become too persistent. 

Perhaps it was to do with the repetitive nature of the task in hand, which is currently moving a large pile of clods of earth and grass from the surface of an expanse of black plastic, which is acting as a floating mulch over a large overgrown bed which I hadn't had time to deal with in the Spring when all green things were taking over.  There were too many clods to put on the compost heap, and anyway there was a large amount of couche grass and bindweed in them which I didn't want to recycle.  I hoped that by spreading them over the plastic the sun would dry the weeds to crisps.  It didn't quite happen that way.  The weeds just took root and carried on regardless. 

This month I had more or less got through all the top soil in the top soil bin, so it was the right time to transfer the clods there.  As I began to work though, I realised that in fact rather a lot of decomposition had taken place in clodworld.  There was now much more topsoil there than weeds, and on closer inspection quite a bit of it seemed to be rather good compost.  So I began the task of sifting through it all, placing all the humous and still green stuff on the compost heap, and all the topsoil on the topsoil heap.  It reminded me of those moralistic fairy tales in which a girl has to do painstaking and repetitive tasks in order to be transformed into a golden haired princess or suchlike.  Not quite like that in real life, but the end result was nevertheless very rewarding.  I have now almost finished, and I have two piles of very useful growing aids. 

I took care to layer the heap with green and brown matter alternately with the humousy clod matter as the heap took shape.  I had enough green matter, but didn't have any spare brown.  The only candidates being the teasels, and I like to preserve their structural beauty in situ until I need to use them as firelighters.

My heap is a very learned erudite one, and does like some good reading material when he is busy digesting himself.  I like to provide him with only the best literature printed with vegetable ink.  A great favourite is Lush Times.  I know I stored one in the shack for just such an occasion as this, when I had run out of brown matter.  I looked everywhere but it certainly wasn't in the shack any more.  I wondered if the heap had sneaked in during the night and taken it.  So I had to look elsewhere, and suddenly I realised that there was in fact brown matter right next door in my neighbours' allotments.  Neither of them spends very much time in them at all, so they are totally overgrown and neglected.  My good fortune though, as I was able to gather a plentiful supply of old brown stalks of cow parsley and tall daisies and create lovely aerating layers with it on my heap. 

It now looks like a layer cake, but for plants to eat not humans.  A bit like the pets' cakes on Blue Peter.  Looks weirdly edible, but you know it would be a mistake to try.

Pickle me beetroots

One of my more successful crops this year has been the beetroot.  The seeds were a donation from my Dad, and we both thought they were probably past it as they were two years old, but I had more seedlings than I knew what to do with, and unfortunately had to sacrifice a fair few in the thinning out process.  

The remaining plants developed well, and I watered them diligently, until I was called away for a while.  Unfortunately my absence coincided with the most dry period of the summer, and when I returned I noticed how the leaves were yellowed, and the tops of the roots were all brown and woody in appearance.  I got them out of the ground as quickly as possible.  I recycled their leaves on the Heap, which was very satisfying.  The compost heap is developing very nicely now, from being nothing but a pile of old nettles and grassy clods in March. 

Then I realised what I had done.  I had an enormous quantity of beetroot to somehow consume before it went all soft if left in its raw state, even in the fridge, in a few days time.  I knew I had to get pickling, fast.  I went home in the manner of an established allotmenteer, carrying a lumpy plastic carrier bag.  I felt rather pround of myself. 

I found a recipe on an allotoments website for pickled beetroots, and for spiced vinegar:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipe/356/pickled-beetroot-recipe/
http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipe/157/quick-spiced-vinegar-recipe/
They both seemed really easy, and I was inspired to create my own flavour combination - ginger and chilli, with a bit of cinnamon.  I hurried to the storecupboard ingredients, but there was no vinegar!  Well, only a small bottle of table vinegar.  I needed a good litre of it. 

That meant a fair old trip in Charis the Yaris to the nearest supermarket, which luckily had a wonderful range of vinegars.  So many in fact that I was spoilt for choice, and I crouched in the isle dithering for some time, until I decided on the Sarson's pickling vinegar, mainly because it was a huge bottle and the cheapest.  I think next time I'll experiment with organic vinegars, maybe cider vinegar or red wine, but this time was an emergency and I had to get them in the jars in the most reliable manner. 

There was a little girl there who was wondering in a loud voice what to do with her hair at nighttime when she was staying with her Dad, as her hair was curly.  I think she had noticed my large quantity of unruly curly hair.  I would have liked to have told her the best way I have discovered to tame curls at nighttime, which is by plaiting them.  I was a little shy of making contact though, as I was a stranger after all.  So, if you're reading this blog little girl, that's what you do. 

The actual pickling went very smoothly.  I was pleased to discover that the woodiness was only skin deep.  Beetroots have a lovely earthy smell when cooking, and the juice is a most gorgeous vibrant magenta.  No wonder people use it as a natural dye.  Shame it is so fugitive though.  I had a good old time staining my hands magenta and watching the beautiful magenta patterns swirling round the glass bowl I drained the beetroots in.  So I suppose if magenta had a taste, it would be the taste of beetroot, a kind of fruity earthiness.  Or perhaps that is just its taste in savory form. 

So now I am the proud owner of two kilner jars full of beetroot.  I've yet to taste them, as I have to leave them at least a week, for the flavours to infuse. 

I love split bamboo

Fencing! Loads of fencing.  That is my aim.  My allotment borders an area of public land.  It is very pleasant with a maze and a sundial, but it can also be rather noisy at the end of the school day, and I am on full view through the wide mesh. 


I like to consider myself a sociable kind of person, but my time in the allotment is a private time, to relax and reflect away from the hubub of daily life.  Tending my land there is a peaceful active meditation.  When in the middle of this very different kind of world, I find it disconcerting to look up and see someone watching me from the other side of the fence. 


I seem somehow to become on these occasions a kind of therapist.  I suppose I am a stranger and people find it easy to tell their troubles to me, but the harsh truth is I don't really want to hear about them.  So fencing is the solution, even if it makes me look a miserable antisocial allotmenteer.  It also has a sound horticultural function of protecting the crops from the frosts that drift down from the nearby hills, and will reflect and contain the sunlight and heat from the south.


Luckily split bamboo fencing is relatively inexpensive, even full price.  I've been able to source it half price, so now have several cumbersome rolls of it loitering along the hedge in my Dad's beautiful garden.


The problem is they will have to loiter for a while yet, as access by car to the allotments is at the moment impossible. The gasmen are laying a huge yellow pipe all the way down the lane.  This has had its exciting moments.  The other day for example, I heard a manly exclamation of surprise, followed by the words 'Did you see the size of that one?', leaving me wondering what it was that had caused such a hearty reaction.  The image of a huge rat persisted in my mind. 

Lady of the Land

I sometimes find myself drawn inside the second hand shops in my village.  I usually try to resist, as I invariably come out with something old and glittery that I don't really need.  I have occasionally however found some real beauties, and today was such a day. 

She called me inside and there she was, in all her turquoise and opalescent glory.  I like to think of her as folk art, but everyone else seems to think she is gaudy tat, which both she and I find most offensive. 

I tried to resist, as I thought she was rather overpriced, and walked out of the shop once, only to be drawn back again.  You see, I knew she would be perfect as a wall ornament on Psychadelic Shack.  Immediately, I recognised her as the angelic personification of my Land.  Not only that, she has also generously gathered up the folds of her gown into a most useful bird waterer.  The trouble is, it doesn't actually hold water at the moment. All she needs is an interior waterproof coating, with which I can easily provide her.

I love the way the artist has styled the garment around her arms to suggest the presence of a heavenly zephyr.  How wonderful to be bourne up by nothing more than your spiritual grace.  She has no need to worry about her carbon footprint at all. 

I am still slightly puzzled over what deity she is supposed to represent.  She has the appearance of a Catholic finger dipper thing, but is certainly not the Virgin Mary.  She reminds me of Botticelli's Venus, which made me wonder if she was a Theosophical representation of some kind. I did some research, but she doesn't resemble the traditional Theosophical depiction of Lady Venus. 

I am still in two minds about whether to plant viola heartsease in her gown instead of waterproofing it.  I can imagine they would look very pretty trailing down around her.  I know how earth stains porous ceramic though, so if I did that there would be no going back. 

My parents' expressions of horror when I unwrapped her from her modest brown paper packaging reminded me of the stylised and exaggerated mannerisms favoured in the performance of Greek tragedies.  It's all good - if that is the average response, she will certainly act as a deterrant to intruders. 

Should I buy a scythe?

Unfortunately the allotment doesn't look its best at the moment.  Due to circumstances beyond my control I wasn't able to tend it for a whole month.  When I returned, the grass was like an ocean, and the beds were full of weeds.  I have a small push mower which I usually find adequate, but the grassy waves were calling for powered machinery.  I couldn't afford a petrol strimmer, so today I decided to take my petrol mower on a little trip.  Her name is Jenny and she is an Atco.  She tackles all reasonable work without complaint, but this time I'd pushed her too far.  Too many stones for her blades, and then the petrol ran out.  I think she was trying to tell me something.  So I reverted to Quentin the Qualcast.  I must admit I was glad to hear the gentle whirring of his hand powered blades, but I'm going to have to sharpen them for this job.

Frog in the bath!

I consider myself very lucky to have a bath on my allotment.  It's connected to a central pump which is powered by a lawnmower engine.  I've never been brave enough to start it myself, so whenever I hear the pump start to cough into life I run to the tap to take advantage of somebody else's muscle power. 

By chance I have planted my pumpkins in the ideal location, in the bed nearest the bath.  They're always thirsty, and they enjoy it immensely when the bath overflows.

When I took on the allotment in the spring, the bath was full of fowl smelling green water, so I emptied it and took great pride in scrubbing it clean so it totally changed its colour from yellow to white.  However, now in midsummer the water is an opaque brown, covered with leaves and the sad corpses of ladybirds, butterflies and bumblebees.

The pump hadn't been used for a while, so the water level in the bath was getting low.  I filled my watering can and observed the unmistakable movement of a live creature in the water. It was both a joyful and perplexing sensation.  Was it a fish? or a snake?  I filled my can again and this time it was unmistakable - a frog.  It couldn't cling to the smooth walls of the bath, so was trapped.  I searched for something it could climb on to put in the bath. I found some green plastic mesh, which made an ideal climbing frame for a frog.  I watched it climbing slowly and carefully out of the murky water.  It rested on the rim of the bath for a while.  I could see how beautiful it was. Its skin was shades of green and brown with a kind of white opalescence to them.  I could see the white sunlight pulsing on its body where its lungs were overworking with the shock of it all. 

I've left the mesh in place so it doesn't happen again.

Dainty ladies

One of the reasons why I became so attached to the allotment, even before I was its official tenant, was the mini apple orchard to one side of it.  There are four apple trees, and each has a different size and shape, and flowers at different times. 

I have always loved apple trees, because they are beautiful whatever the season.  They seem to me to be gentle and benevolent, giving beautiful blossom in Spring, peaceful shade in summer, and delicious fruit in Autumn, which can be enjoyed in multitudinous ways all through the winter.  I love the traditions surrounding apple trees, and how they are deeply involved with human culture, in a similar way to horses. 

It was the death of a particular apple tree of mine which led me outwards on the path that would lead to the allotment.  It was a mature apple tree which provided a beautiful sanctuary for me during the summer.  I would tie my hammock to its trunk, step aboard, and be lulled into a state of grace, letting all my worries drop from me like swaddling.  I developed a bond with this tree, and was deeply saddened when its elderly system was no match for surprise frosts, and it fell permanently to sleep.  When we removed its remains, it was clear that it was a natural passing, as it was mostly dead wood, full of insect holes and fungus.  So surprising then that its last two years had been its finest in terms of blooms and fruit.  I wish I’d kept seeds from those last fruits so it could have lived on through progeny, but it wasn’t to be. 

I only realised how much I had come to rely on this tree as a place of safety and spriritual nourishment when it was no longer there.  I became permanently uptight, with no other means of travelling to that meditative state I had come to love.  So I began to go on long walks around and about, and that led me to the allotment. 

None of the Dainty Ladies is big enough to support a hammock, but they do remind me of my apple tree, and lift my heart, particularly in Spring when they are at their most splendid. 

When I first encountered them however, they were in a sorry state.  They reminded me of those distressing pictures in adverts requesting donations for donkey sanctuaries.  Please help a little apple tree in distress.  They were incomprehensibly bound up in orange bailing twine, and ineffectively and unnecessarily staked by it to metal posts, which I later discovered to be markers of an old boundary.  They had never been pruned, so were all tangled up in their own branches.  The land around their bases was a mass of heaped up grassed over clods of earth, and there was no space around their trunks for feeding.  I was glad to see a few primroses around two of them, a little splash of lemon and white hopefulness.  

The first thing I did when the allotment was mine was to give them a thorough pruning.  I cut them free of their bailing twine shackles, and evened up the earth around their trunks.  I cleared space around their trunks and gave them a good feed of ash from my first bonfire.  Already they looked happier.  I could see that they all seemed to be different varieties,and gradually over the year they revealed their true identities.  First with the blossom – each tree had a slightly different hue of pink and came out at a slightly different time.  First the largest tree, and then as if taking the cue from her, the smaller ones followed.  Then finally the apples were all beautiful but in entirely different ways, reds, russets, and oranges. 

As I worked with them I formed a bond, and from the beginning they brought into my mind an image of four dainty young ladies, like flower maidens, as if dancing in a circle and caring for the land around them.  I was inspired by this to give them ornamentation with wind chimes, and a green bird on a spring which resembles an apple in its roundness.  I have plans to wassail them, as soon as I manage to acquire a cider press. 

I also wanted to give them a pleasant place around their bases.  I first created circles of flints, as numerous as the slugs in my plot.  I soon realised how impractical this was, as the mower constantly bit against the flints as it tackled the uneven ground and grass.  I planted wild garlic, cowslips and violets around them, and divided the clumps of primroses so each tree could have a share of the brightness.  I reseeded the grass to they now have fine lawn instead of couche grass around their trunks, although I wonder how long it will be until the couche grass takes over again. 

My plan is to turn the area around the Ladies into a medieval greensward, as described in the literature and poems of the day.  I turned to my old copy of the Roman of the Rose, not opened since my university days, and took note of all the flowers mentioned in the description of the garden there.  Almost all of them were already in the land – periwinkles, forgetmenots, pinks, violets, primulas and daisies.  I want to add wild thyme, and wild strawberries, which I hope to acquire during my French Alpine holiday.  So really then my apple trees will be dainty Medieval Ladies, and I expect they will be able to speak French, because the Alpine flowers will teach them.

Black gold

When I first took on the allotment in March, I was bewildered by the amount of black plastic sheeting skulking all damp and morose about the land. The previous owner had evidently been much attached to it.  So much so that I was unearthing fragments of it for some time, together with orange bailing twine, which I was able to pull from the earth like strange orange earth worms.

I had no idea why anyone would want such a quantity of black plastic, especially as it seemed to be in such a poor condition, full of tears and holes and caked with mud.  In the end I disposed of it in recycling. Now the weeds have really started to bolt I have realised too late the true value of what I threw away. 

There were two large beds I had yet to excavate, and the only realistic line of defence against weeds was total suffocation by black plastic.  I had kept several pieces, which were killing the nettles and couche grass in the compost heap, but I needed more.  Much more.  There was no other way forward but to go on a scrounging mission.

There is a communal area in the allotments where people put things they don’t need, and I was delighted to discover a large piece of plastic just the size I needed to cover the remaining bed.  I dragged back my prize like a cavewoman dragging back dead prey.

I kept the plastic in place with the old heavy logs I’d found on my allotment, perhaps their original function.  I also found large flints worked well.  So I’ve learnt the hard way the true value of black plastic sheeting, and will never treat it with disrespect again. 

Ultimately I intend to experiment with green manure and mulches to both feed and inhibit weed growth, but for emergency situations in the spring there is no substitute for black plastic.