Drouth

Drouth: Scots word meaning "a terrible thirst"

And that describes my allotment plot.

It also described me the day after D and I went out for our anniversary...! Oh, it was a GOOD night. In a dress for once, as I spend my life in jeans, we went (First Class!) to Glasgow and to a wine bar for Champagne! A wine bar!!

To let you understand, D is an old rocker, long hair, tattoos, a penchant for loud rock music and so when we go out we invariably go to a rock pub where the music is good but the wine is like vinegar... And I have to say I am a terribly conservative drinker and about the only alcoholic thing I'll drink is Chardonnay and I am fairly particular (read snobby) about what kind of Chardonnay at that. Now, when we're in the USA or Canada, their range of Chardonnays is phenomenal (I discovered Okanagan Valley Chardonnays a year ago in Canada and was just blown away by how delicious they were), and so I am spoiled for choice whenever we go there. In Scotland though, unless you're in an actual wine bar, you only get offered red or white wine, or if you ask for Chardonnay, they usually just give you the house Pinot Grigio and it's pretty grim stuff.

But, sorry, enough of my drinking habits, we had Champagne! And then, after a few glasses we yomped (that is another feature of nights out with D, walking miles) to a fish restaurant where we were thrilled that our waitress was from Minnesota and chatted to her for a while about places to visit at some point, and then enjoyed a sensational meal.

Back to the wine bar for more Champagne and then train back and to bed.

A really wonderful night out, but the next day... We were droothy neeboors* indeed!

And, despite the amount of rain we've had, the allotment is still dry as dust. It's just so strange. HOWEVER, and I'll pause here for a fanfare, we have growth! Seedlings making a tentative appearance! I have resorted to plastic bottles covering as many seedlings as I can, especially the turnips and peas.

Talking of peas, have a look at this picture.

See the nibbles around the edge of it? I'm guessing it's mice. I don't really grudge them, they were there first, but you know, I'd quite like to give the seedlings a chance so at least for their first few leaves I'll cover them up.

This is how the allotment is looking just now. It's getting there but taking it's time, and I think the funny weather has a lot to do with it. It rained a LOT yesterday but I still had to water the plot because the wind was so strong it just dried the ground out again almost instantly.

Anyway, at least it's a lot less weed-y than it was thanks to hours spent after work on my hands and knees! I don't mind weeding like that actually as it gives me a chance to really see how things are doing.

We took some chard the other day for a chicken, tomato, bacon and cream dish, and it was really lovely, cooked down a treat, and added some gorgeous colour. It's chard ruby-lights so there are some of the plants that glow like a light's being shone through them.

Gorgeous.

More allotmenteering this weekend as we plan on constructing big tunnel-like structures for the brassicas so hopefully it'll stay dry and calm enough for us to put them up.

Tonight though, to celebrate Friday and the fact that D is in Glasgow to see a band, I have a bottle of wine, something lovely for dinner planned, Downton Abbey on Blu Ray, and I'm all set.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you end up doing :-)




*Droothy neeboors - from Robert Burns' "Tam O'Shanter"

Confetti

One of those near perfect days today. It's sunny and warm, and the garden is a real sun trap and is blocking out the worst of the breeze which is cool on the exposed fields of the allotment.

I was along at the allotment this morning and planed out the broccoli seedlings, and covered them with the cloche tunnel. I also riddled over the soil in between the broccoli and red cabbage, since the Cavolo Nero and spinach seeds seemed to be doing precious little. The bed was planted with potatoes last year and there seemed little point - or indeed time - in riddling out that enormous bed, so the soil is pretty rough: stony and lumpy. But now part of it at least is soft and crumbly and just begs for you to plunge your hands in it. Or maybe that's just me! Anyway, I've re-sown some spinach and Cavolo Nero, making a note for myself here that I really must cover the kale plants when they grow this year, as last year they were absolutely decimated by caterpillars.

Speaking of caterpillars, we've been seeing a lot of the woolly bear caterpillars around the house. They seem to be migrating just now - we stood and watched one very determined one make fairly swift progress across the street and up onto the grassy verge. They're funny looking things, like their hairy bodies should be poisonous, but they're innocent enough. Apart from wanting to eat my plants of course.

Gardening work is over for today, and probably for a few days in fact as I'm pretty much on top of things for the moment. I've grown impatient at the lack of progress with the peas I planted at the allotment and have sown some in pots in the greenhouse to see if I can start some of there. It could be that it's just a bad lot of seeds - it happens. It happened sigh the sunflowers (Velvet Queen) - only two of them have germinated :-(

A surprise to me in the garden was the emergence of a plant which I'm pretty certain is Bergamot. It certainly has the same kind of foliage and the leaves smell faintly of orange. But I didn't label it, and chances are that it was a seed I sowed last hear and forgot all about it! If it is, it should have the most gorgeous raggedy pinky red flowers and be a real bee magnet.

My laissez-faire approach has spread to some self-seeders in the garden: acqueligias, or "granny's bonnet" as we call them here. I've tended to just let them settle where they may, and they're springing up in between paving slabs and at border edges, and since they're so lovely, and varied, I'm content to just leave them be. Sometimes a haphazard approach to gardening is one that can bring real joy and delight in my eyes. If gardening is humans shaping and controlling Nature, then it's only right that Nature be allowed free reign to some extent :-)

So just now I'm sitting out in the garden, with Classic FM playing out through the open patio doors. The hens are industriously digging through their run - except the one who's in lahiniv and chatting away to herself. The cats have chased off the mouse for the time being. Swallows are nesting in the eves and swooping up and down and chirruping noisily, and blossom petals from the pear tree and one of the apple trees, is floating off in the breeze and covering the patio and beds in a soft sprinkling of confetti...

First Harvest

We've been blessed the last couple of days with the most gorgeously unseasonal weather. Temperatures reaching for 20 degrees - at the start of April! Amazing!

Yesterday we went to the Farmers' Market in Stirling and picked up pigs' cheeks and bacon, and a piece of hot smoked salmon. Delicious.

In the afternoon, I went to the allotment. I was delighted to see that an allotment holder a couple of plots up, has returned and seems to be working on her plot. We thought that last year she had given up after being told that she could not paint her shed pale blue and had to paint it brown again. Which might come as a bit of a shock to her neighbour, whose young girl was gaily personalising their shed by painting flowers, handprints, squiggles and her name. I have to say, I really love those allotment plots I see from other parts of the country where the sheds and other buildings are a kitcsh, higgledy-piggledy and eclectic mish-mash of individuality. Alas, the planning permission for the field our plots are on, were specific in their rules about what is and is not allowed. So no trees, no painted buildings, no structures over 1m tall (more on that in a sec) and no livestock. That last is a disappointment, I had harboured hopes of a bee-hive...

The rule about 1m tall structures - being conveniently overlooked by the allotmenteers. Walk-in fruit cages and greenhouses etc are appearing all over the place as people plan a little bit more permanence and possession over their plot. Be nice to see them remain, but I know the people who live round about the field being quick to complain about any infractions to the planning rules, given they didn't want allotments there in the first place. Apparently there were vociferous objections to turning the field into allotments - living next to a farm I honestly am bemused by this: allotments are a darned sight quieter than a field that needs plowed, fertilised, harvested, cleared, etc etc.

Anyway. The highlight of the visit was taking a couple of rhubarb stalks which I stewed today to have in a crumble for breakfast tomorrow. The first harvest of the year! Very, very exciting! And, a purple sprouting broccoli plant that's been growing in the garden doing absolutely nothing, has now, suddenly, sprouted purple broccoli! I know that theoretically that's what it should have done, so hardly a surprise, but yet it is. So in another couple of days it'll be ready to eat. Makes me think I really should grow some at the allotment.

Update on the mice, the peppermint essential oil was an absolute... failure. It achieved absolutely nothing. They still seem to be there - at least, the cats are still enthralled by some of the clumps of geranium and the flap of the compost bin, and when I sowed sweet pea seeds this morning, one of the clumps shook violently and I thought I saw something flash by out the corner of my eye. *sigh*

Weather's supposed to break tomorrow, I'm not too disappointed in a way: Summer here is too brief most years, you always worry that a spell of good weather in advance of the summer months means it's peaked too soon! We expect cold, windy, even snowy weather in April, the last few days have been a welcome respite from the Winter we've endured, but I'd hate to think that this was as good as it's going to get!

Grass

I garden organically. It's because I believe in beneficial planting and in a fairly "live and let live" approach (or, as it's also known, the "oh, can I really be bothered doing that?" approach). It works quite well, but it does mean that when I do knuckle down and weed, it's fingertip weeding that gets done which is time consuming and difficult at times.

I don't mind weeding, it's one of those jobs that you can really see a difference when you do it and makes the place look neater and more organised. In the allotment there's a wide range of weeds to cope with, but the one that really, really does my head in, is the grass. It is just impossible to eradicate. The roots run so deep and so far that no matter how deeply you dig, and how "rooty" the clump you haul out, you're not even scratching the surface. I swear, if there was a nuclear explosion, in addition to the cockroaches, grass would still be thriving. The allotment holder on the other side of us sprayed his plot with weedkiller last year (yeah, thanks for that), and he had I think a blissful week of hiatus between the dead grass and the new stuff coming up. So hauling up grass is a full-time job at the allotment.

It's a job that needs done, but I admit to feeling guilty at un-housing the ladybirds who shelter in the clumps of grass. And there were a lot of them today. I've ended up leaving a patch of ground wild, just so they have somewhere to shelter. I really want to make sure they hang around - they were terrific last year at keeping the aphids etc down.

We "bracketed" the allotment work with a visit to Craigies Farm Shop at South Queensferry and a visit to the new Dobbies Garden World in Livingston.

We'd heard great things about Craigies from friends, and have an order in for mutton, so thought we'd go and see. It was great - very well laid out, with a field full of free-range hens, an orchard, couple of (frankly enormous) pigs (thankfully sound asleep) and some cows. The shop has a great butchery bit full of Puddledub pork and beef, and a terrific deli. So we bought some pork stir fry, stroganoff meatballs, venison salami, free-range chicken liver pate, and some boar, cheese and tomato sausages. Delish.

Dobbies in Livingston is brand new and was absolutely heaving. Much bigger than the one we usually go to in Stirling, it certainly has a much wider range, and is much more geared towards the whole home-furnishings thing with furniture and - strangely - wall-mounted fires.
I think though I prefer the one in Stirling. Call me parochial, and a bit of a bumpkin, but I love the location of it and the fact that you're closer to hills.

Back at the ranch, I found the bag with seeds-to-be-sown in April which I had lost. I've searched high and low for the last fortnight and, whaddya know, as soon as I asked out loud, I find them a minute later. Handily "tidied" in a bag I was going to take with me to the allotment and then didn't take...

I also bought some peppermint essential oil and soaked some cotton wool pads with it, and scattered them about the garden where the mice seem to be. I'll let you know how that goes,

Tommorrow I am therefore going to start sowing April stuff: chamomile, courgette, kale, beetroot, etc. Looking forward to it :-)





























In the garden it

Wind, rain, sun - and mice

Wild weather the last few days - fluctuating temperatures, torrential rain and howling wind. At night we've been woken by the wind moaning, and venturing out in the street is an obstacle course with wheelie bins blown into the road. The other day was 6 degrees with a significant wind chill, today it's 14 and the wind feels warm. And the sun has now come out. It's like there's a battle for Spring and we're caught in the cross-fire!

The rain's been enough to keep me mostly indoors over the last couple of days, which has been fine because I've not been feeling great. Today though I feel marginally more like myself so decided to take the opportunity of dry weather to repot some seedlings. Potting delicate seedlings with those micro-fine trailing roots, and trying to gently ease them into new pots while the wind whips at the plant is a task that takes practise. Fortunately I get plenty of it! Of course, if I'd had my head screwed on I would have moved the pots that take up a shelf in the greenhouse and potted in there, tight a squeeze as it is. But I don't have my head screwed on just now which is why it takes me twice as long to do anything. Yesterday, driving to the agricultural supplies shop in Stirling I had one of those "tra la la... pretty birdie, gorgeous hills...  -  Whoooops, I'm driving, aren't ?! moments" I can tell you this because you don't live/drive near me so you can feel both safe and relieved... :-D

The greenhouse is starting to fill up nicely now. The planters for salad/tomatoes is doing the job of acting as a ballast to hold the greenhouse down and there are seedlings coming up. I ran out of plant labels so I can't remember what got sown in what part of the planters - it'll make a nice surprise I suppose!

The butternut squash is still living and the chard seedlings seem to be okay - bit shell-shocked but I'm sure they'll be fine, they're fairly hardy plants. I'm not sure how many chard plants to have... Never having grown it before I really don't know how much we'll use... I admit I'm growing it as much for looks as eating, the "Rainbow" variety looks so gorgeous and glowing jewel colours that even if I don't manage to eat all of it, it'll look good.

Elsewhere in the garden it's looking good. Bit drookit (soggy) but good.  Shoots now present in all the potato bags, hopefully at the allotment they'll be starting to come up there too.

But - oh - nightmare, we have mice. Just in the garden, they were there last year and seem to be back. We live in a fairly rural area surrounded by farms, so it was inevitable, but still... The concern is more the neighbours and whether they'll point the finger at the bird feeders, compost bin and of course, the hens... The last thing we want to be accused of is being an environmental nuisance. It's difficult to see what - apart from dig up the garden and concrete it, get rid of the hens, discourage birds etc, we can really do. The cats are pretty good at harassing the mice (if not actually killing them, apart from on one occasion), and when they're in at night, our neighbour's cat seems to take over. The hens I'm not worried about - omnivores that they are, they will eat mice. Thinking about it, it's probably more the bird feeders that would be the cause: there's no food left out in the hen run once they go in for their roost, but the birds are messy and scatter seed around. I've found some sunflower seedlings coming up from discarded seeds. I hear that cotton wool balls saturated with peppermint essential oil and scattered round the garden is effective as the mice can't stand the smell. Will see about doing that.

Allegedly, it is to be dry tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it, but if it is, then I'm off to the allotment to plant the onions which I sprouted (and are sitting in the seat-well of the car after I decided not to plant them the other day), and to measure my rhubarb leaves to see if they're long enough for me to take a couple of stalks to stew...