The Good Life

Bobbed over to the allotment tonight. Loads of stuff to take. Got sweetcorn, courgettes, a deformed cucumber, a lettuce and the surviving cabbage. Top nosh.

The cucumbers are coming along nicely. Still no sign of any squash other than the flowers though.

We might also be in luck with the tomatoes. Im not sure if the blight has got bored of killing or whether me chopping off most of the afflicted parts has stopped it, but we have quite a few unblemished tomatoes and the remaining plants don’t appear to have got any worse.

We get a manure delivery once a year and the notice has just gone up asking if we want a load. Must remember to put our names down.

I spoke to Mrs Hancock about the offer of a plot swap. The reason behind the swap offer is that Judy and her mum want to expand and get their other half. We are sticking put. If only to see Judy and her mum having to huff and puff down the hill to tend to their other plot ha ha.

Mrs Hancock amazed me with her teen texting skills when she contacted me to see about the swap. I was so impressed I saved the text and I reproduce here in full:

“Pleez cood u contct us re ur psbl plot change cos we hav 2 finalis b4 rents due on oct 1st.thanx. sandr hancock”

Now I don’t know about you but im sure it was more effort to type that than just use proper English. Or perhaps her phone has an auto word mangle option. Either way it’s not bad going for a senior citizen.

Anyhow we’ve not been down the allotment for a week or so so I expect to find giant courgettes and cucumbers roaming the land when we next go.

Unfortunately this doesn’t mean we’ve gained extra land.

Rob went down the allotment on Sunday and Mr Hancock the allotment manager asked Rob if we wanted to swap our plot with fag bloke who is giving up his bottom half. Apparently the ground is well cultivated and will suit us better.

Thing is, I was talking to Edwin (finally I’ve just remembered fag blokes’ real name) a few days before this and he was telling me how he was getting rid of the bottom half of his plot because it always gets flooded and he loses most of his crops there.

So, is Mr Hancock unaware of Edwins reasons for giving up his plot or are more evil plans afoot?

Maybe they want us to move away from Moira’s bees, or maybe Judy and her mum want the other half of their plot (our plot). Im going to give Mr Hancock a ring this week and tell him thanks but no thanks. We’ll see what he says then.

There’s been a bit of politics brewing recently down at the allotment association. And here’s me thinking allotments are for relaxing when you’re old. Oh no, it’s a horti-cutthroat world down here.

We arrived at the allotment two sundays ago (26th Aug) with the intention of giving the allotment a good clearup. Good job we did as apparently letters have been sent out to those with unkempt plots warning they will lose them if they aren’t dealt with. As a result the allotment was busy with people mowing and strimming every bit of stray vegetation.

After talking to Moira and fag bloke this is down to the fact someone had an accident but is also being used as an excuse to free up plots to ease the groaning waiting lists; since the world became environmentally aware (approx. end of last year) every man and his dog now wants an allotment.

Problem is that because of this years floods a lot of people have given up on their allotments for this year and just left them. So it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

Anyhow, apart from a good cleanup and weeding, our plot has been ticking over nicely. More courgettes, more lettuce on the way and the sweetcorn are rapidly approaching saucepan status.

The cucumber are now appearing and we are going to have loads. Same for the squash. Im considering building a little climbing frame for the squash as they are rapidly advancing shoots all over the ground and they may benefit from the fruits being off the ground.

Our brassicas were in a pretty shabby state – most had gone to seed or been eaten. Would you believe the slugs had been crawling along the top of the netting and nibbling the plants from above. I cleared all the plants out except for one lovely cabbage speciment which is surrounded with slug pellets and netting in a dome shape to foil their climbing antics.

The only major cloud on our silver lining is that it looks like we’ve lost our tomatoes to blight. Some of the plants have been browning off recently and this has spread to most of the plants – mainly because we didn’t really bother checking up on them early.

I did a quick check and it looks like we’re buggered now it has taken hold. It’s a real shame because whole bunches of perfect fruits have browned and died off. I’ve trimmed most of the affected branches off and we culled any badly affected plants so fingers crossed to see if they survive.

Here’s some pictures of the allotment. I’ve got a new camera now, so expect weird angles and ‘arty’ pics from now on.

How the world would look if you were a tomato.

Sweetcorn, almost there…

Some carrots from a pot on my balcony. I think ill grow carrots next year.

 Our surviving cabbage. It is now under it’s own protective frame.

 The allotment cat. Apparently keeps the mice/rats in check. I wish it would eat slugs.

Finally the water butt next to our plot.