What allotment holders do when it rains

And rains, and rains and rains …

Well, some of us are honing our crime-scene skills like Garden Punks Chris and Katie who’ve been on the trail of a seed thief. Others are counting their seed potatoes or weeding out the couch grass.

We are trying to re-roof 201’s shed. Compared to the tiny shed on Duncan’s plot, 201’s shed is palatial: we’re calling it ‘The Swiss Chalet’ – but it don’t half leak! There are three reasons for this:

1 – the holes rubbed in the roofing felt by the branches of the pear tree means that the rain comes straight through the roof and drips down the rafters

2 – the blocked guttering and stolen water butt that mean a trickle of rain runs down the side of the shed and seeps mordantly into a puddle that then travels up the side of the shed by capillary action

3 – the eejits who nailed a batten to the shed roof, with three nails, meaning there are three routes via which miniscule amounts of water can sink through the roof and drip to the shed floor.

And a wet shed is a miserable thing. So we’ve spent the weekend trying to lay roofing felt in the driving rain, while getting our eyes (and other bits of anatomy) poked by sharp bits of pear tree. Which makes it all the more galling when you see that one of your neighbours is so far ahead of the game that they’ve dug over all their summer beds already … honestly, some people are just too organised for their own good!

Labels: allotment-autumn, allotment-beds, allotment-rain, allotment-shed

Curry, National Allotment Week, August sowings

Well the curry was good – not superb but definitely good. Since then I’ve tried the Green & Black’s courgette cake, which IS superb and been introduced to the sneaky world of ‘extending’ meat.

Sounds very dubious doesn’t it? But our grandmothers knew that meat was the most expensive part of any meal, so they worked out many sneaky ways of stretching the meat to make it seem like more to the hungry mouths around their tables. One way was to grate vegetables and mix them with minced meat … and I have discovered that if you grate some peeled overgrown courgette into beef mince, it makes a very nice moist cottage pie and nobody is any the wiser!

But back to allotmenteering – did you notice National Allotment Week? No, nor did I. It’s a shame not more is done to celebrate allotments on a national scale, I think. Perhaps next year we could have a blogfest for National Allotment Week, with each of us showcasing our allotment site – what do you think? We celebrated in style, if very locally, because Duncan’s shed arrived! It’s got to be wood-preserved before it goes up to the allotment (my job, as I love painting wood) and we’ve also got to clear the ground and put down some kind of hardstanding but it feels great to know that we’re about to set up our very own (well, Duncan’s very own) shed.

Seeds I’m planning to plant this month:

• Mustard greens – because they are hardy and keep producing new leaves, assuming you harvest them regularly, even in terrible weather
• Kale - to overwinter in a polytunnel because that way we’ll get for delicious green stuff through until next spring
• Winter radish - for soups, stews and stir-fries

Labels: allotment-august-sowings, allotment-autumn, allotment-courgettes, allotment-kale, allotment-mustard-greens, allotment-shed, allotment-winter-radish, national-allotment-week