Starting the winter work and a Noob mistake

I’m back again. After a very wet weekend, I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to do on the allotment this week, but it’s not been too bad.

I’ve removed the netting from several beds and stored it away for the winter, I’ve also composted my runner bean vines and stored the canes they grew up. I’ve had quite a good crop of beans this year, but the vines had stopped flowering and the bean pods were no longer developing. That bed will be dug over and prepared for garlic to go into the ground for the winter.

I’ve trimmed back the grass around the strawberry beds and cut away the excess runners. I’ll be mulching them with straw in the next week ready for the winter. I still have leeks in the ground close by the strawberries, which I’ll be weeding around tomorrow weather permitting, but the next years crop will go in the ground in the same bed as the garlic (I like onions, garlic and leeks to be in the same growing bed)

The National Allotment Society which my site is a member of have told us we can have fires on site on November 5th (Bonfire Night here in Britain) so I’m busily trying to get as many perennial weeds as possible out of the ground and into my burnable weeds pile ready to go in the incinerator. There’s a lot of grass to cut back.

My sunflowers have done me proud this year. Half have now gone over for the year, and I’ve left the stems for insects to hibernate in. The marrow and butternut squash and courgette in the same two beds did produce but not quite as well as I’d have liked. I definitely will have more courgette plants next year, I’ve decided that courgette jam is delicious and worth growing lots of courgettes for!

My Noob mistake today was to put my charging cable for my phone in my sweatshirt pocket rather than my gardening bag before I left home. It fell out of my pocket on the way to the allotment and an enterprising local clearly claimed it in the hour or so that it was lying on the ground before I retraced my steps looking for it.

I think that’s all for now. My darling man is home from work, my phone is charging and my coffee is delicious.

Planning for 2020

I’ve been away from my allotment for about six or seven weeks due to health and poor weather through November. It has been awful. My plot is mostly clay with whatever compost and organic matter previous tenants have been able to add over the years. That said, the last few days have been dry and cold (as in what I’d call winter cold, at or below freezing), so I decided to be brave and have a look at the patch and see what storm Brendan had left me

I found this. Two panes of glass smashed. Truth be told it isn’t really a lot of damage, but still, I now need to find the resources to replace that as well as glaze the rest of the greenhouse where glass got broken in the transport and reassembly process.

Anyway. Whinge over. The title is plans. I’ve taken a set of pictures of the plot as it looked this afternoon. My plan is to print them out, set them in plot order and make notes about last years crop, current tasks and this years planned crop. I’m full of ideas but none of them will happen unless I find a way to get them out of my head and onto the ground; and for me, notes on paper tends to be a good route.

I’m definitely doing tomatoes and they are likely to be grown outside as it’s probably going to be a while before the greenhouse is ready to be anything more than a dutch barn style rain shelter.

Beans and peas have got to be in there, carrots and radishes, lettuce, pumpkins, cabbage, onions, garlic… You can see where this is going!

Time I went. I know it’s a much shorter post than I planned, but I asked my brother to heat me up a coffee and he’s such a pedant that he did exactly that, heated it up and left it with no milk or sweetener! Men, eh?

Happy new year, and may life be kind to you this year

This week on the allotment and other news

I’ve now had my allotment two months. It goes without saying that when an allotment becomes available for a new plot holder, it’s generally in a state of some neglect and mine was no exception. Half of it had seen some work but the other side had clearly been pretty much abandoned for a couple of years. I’ve spent most of my time on the better side of the plot with it’s clearly defined beds pulling up grass, transplanting strawberry plants, digging up nests of bindweed roots, sieving compost for raised beds and on the list goes.

I’ve got onions and garlic in two of those beds, and some strawberries in another two. My potting shed is currently my balcony; and I started runner beans there before planting them out in their newly weeded bed. I’m patiently waiting for two varieties of sunflower to grow big enough to plant out.

Having started the weeding and been caught out by rain I decided a greenhouse was a must, and about a month ago I managed to locate one on Gumtree. Thanks to my Dad and several friends and a car with a trailer I got it collected. Then another friend heard me musing about bricks or slabs to create the base for it to stand on and remembered he had a friend with some slabs to get rid of; so one month later I’m now the proud owner of a greenhouse and the slabs to stand it on, and none of it has been bought new (good, because I can’t afford new and have never pretended otherwise)

I’m routinely frustrated by how slowly I seem to be getting on at the plot, but I’m just as frequently calmed down by one or another of the “old boys” reminding me that I’ve only just started and that it takes time for things to come to the stage the other plots are at.

On the note of my Balcony Potting Shed, I sowed some Calabrese Broccoli two or three weeks ago, and they germinated beautifully, and I was starting to think it was time to thin them when I noticed that quite a few appeared to have been pulled up or knocked over. I was a bit surprised but blamed the local birds looking for easy green food. Today I discovered the real culprit; a small, elderly tuxedo cat who has been the light of my life for 14 years! Caught with her paws right in the seed tray, there was no way she could attempt to plead innocence. My naughty Jewel!

Learning to FLY

I rarely talk about my home. It’s been a horrible mess for years and it truly does embarrass me. However, I have in the past been introduced to FLYlady. At the time I was pretty badly depressed and trying to achieve anything more than getting out of bed and drinking coffee was sufficiently overwhelming I would simply cry.

However. I’ve revisited this good lady, and between my healing brain and her kind words, my home is becoming a place that is more of a work in progress than an example of a burglary scene. The kindness starts with being kind to yourself, being methodical but not trying to do everything all at once. I’ve even reopened my diary and started scheduling things so they are spread through the week in a manageable way.

Dear FLYlady, thank you. I’m coping with myself and my home better. It is unlikely to reach perfection but it will reach a stage where I’m no longer embarrassed to have visitors or take pictures indoors.

To everyone: have the best possible day today.

This week in my world

It’s been a busy one, I had planned on posting midweek but I was just far too tired to string a sentence, without trying to put together words that made sense for a post on here.

Monday and Tuesday I was working hard. I’m still trying to settle in to my new job and I’m getting really tired while I get used to the really early starts. I’m no early bird unless I’m off on holiday and I promise you, this place isn’t a holiday. I definitely know I’ve earned my wages by the end of the day.

I struggled the rest of the week getting up. I’m more of a late person than and early one and my body clock has been really thrown.

My Dad is back in hospital. His surgery several weeks ago was successful but since then there’s been a lot of pain and fevers and more than one infection.

My newest nephew currently does not have a name, and as of yet I haven’t met him. That’s life, his parents are busy and tired and I’m quite a way away and don’t drive, and I’m busy and tired for my own reasons.

In happy news, train tickets for the September holiday have been paid for and delivered and the campsite has been booked and the deposit paid. Paul and I are most definitely going away this year. We are taking out bikes so we will be able to get farther afield than we have done previously, and with less need for buses.

We travel on the Riviera Sleeper and it may sound silly but it means the holiday starts as soon as we get on the train in London. Last time we went, we were so excited we barely slept, this time I sincerely hope it’s a better night’s sleep. We are cycling from Penzance to Sennen Cove once we get off the train. That’s quite a bike ride on not much sleep!

For today, I’m doing a little housework, a bit of laundry and getting rested. I’m hoping to go to church tomorrow, I’ve not managed to get there for several weeks and that annoys and bothers me in equal measure. I miss seeing the people I fellowship with.

Take care one and all 🙂

With Deepest Sympathy

I can’t blog about what I have done this week without acknowledging the horrors of 13th November in Paris.

I’m angry over the fact that terrorists can take a faith and twist it so that they truly believe their violence has Divine approval. It does not.

Today I have candles burning in several windows as my personal sign that only light can drive out darkness and only love can destroy hatred.

I have faith in God, and as such I pray that the authorities do come up with an effective plan to stop this senseless violence once and for all.

To Paris, with love and tears and prayers, from Me xx

The best laid plans and all that

It’s been an awkward week. I’ve been struggling for sometime with a couple of health issues and one of them decided to really kick off this week.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking of projects and how feasible each one might be currently, and then yesterday I was late to work. I ended up sitting in the kitchen unable to function, felled by the mother of several migraines. There’s nothing quite like swallowing painkillers, waiting for them to work and then realising that nothing is going to happen because nothing is controlling the pain. I was taken home and spent the next 14 hours mostly sleeping.

When I did finally wake up this morning I seemed to be pain free, so after a gentle start I got dressed, collected my bags and went shopping for glassware for my next two cooking projects, and the bits that got missed off the main shop. Half way through I realised that actually I was not fit for this and had to forget about half of what I’d planned.

When I finally got home and was able to sit still I picked up my knitting. I’m making a shawl. Not a lacy one (I’ve made several of those), this one is a very simple shape and should be ideal for keeping the cold off my throat and chest on the way to work over the next few months. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow, and there should be a picture because it’s almost finished.

For now, good night. More tomorrow!

Tomato relish to a bass beat

I have been making tomato relish on and off for years. I picked up my recipe from a friend who is now very elderly. I’m a bit funny about textures so I usually end up blending the finished product to a smooth ketchup texture and eating it that way.

I’ve got six old fashioned bottles from IKEA. The sort that have the stopper attached with a wire contraption around the neck. According to my dad its the same design as the post war lemonade bottles. I like them a lot, they seal well and look good, so as far as I’m concerned, if it aint broke don’t fix it!

I used to complain lots about my previous upstairs neighbour playing music loudly. My friends and family would chuckle into their cups of tea about my shouting about “M and her plastic pop” on a regular basis. If anything my new neighbours play music more often, and its much more bass and rap (rap being a genre I have made no secret about really disliking) but the attitude of these people is vastly different to “M”. She was rude to everyone and didn’t care who she offended in the least. To be honest I think she had alienated so many people I don’t think she had many friends. These people just appear to live life. They like music but just live their lives, and I’m pretty sure that if I were to meet them they’d be really friendly.

So yes, Today I’m boiling up the ingredients for tomato relish/ketchup to some very bass-y music courtesy of upstairs. It’s all good fun. The flat also reeks of vinegar and the tall one has complained and shut his bedroom door!

Final note, as I’ve been blogging and boiling, I have got my six bottles of ketchup. it all looks fantastic and it’ll be ready to eat in a few weeks.

A dream ends, but no regrets

Many moons ago I started this blog on another site and titled it “Raecheybaby’s Allotment” I was going to grow all sorts of things and I waited some years to get the chance to do that.

Finally last year that chance came and I bought tools and seeds and began to make a start. Unfortunately one of the key things to have when you are allotmenteering is a passion for growing things; and uniquely in my family I don’t have it. I think my family were good to let me try and wise to not help as much as I would have liked.

As is often the way with me I was felled by a combination of low mood, busy life and viruses, and so i didn’t/couldn’t attend to the allotment as I should have. The people who keep an eye on the plots to see that they are being cultivated and looked after decided that I wasn’t looking after it properly and advised me to hand back my gate key. Silently I agreed that keeping an allotment was really not for me.

I’m on the waiting list for a smaller plot but I suspect that when my turn rolls around again I shall decline and someone else can have the opportunity.

I think I had to try, because I have heard time and again that the thing most people regret in later life is what they didn’t attempt, and I wanted to be able to look back and say that I tried and realised it wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t, I’d probably have spent the rest of my life wondering if it could have been for me.

No regrets. I tried. Growing veg isn’t my shtick, much as I’d like it to be, but there are plenty of other things that I do that I am good at. I shall keep doing them.

Something to ponder on

I’ve been generally trying to get on with life lately. It hasn’t always been easy.

One thing recently has stood out for me and has been a lesson that’s taken some learning.

“There are many things in life that are beyond your control. Your attitude is not one of them”

It was said to me when I was in a very slightly odd mood. I wasn’t feeling malicious as such, but I was being mean to someone and it wasn’t needful. Having had it pointed out to me, I realised it was a very good point and have spent time since assessing my attitude to quite a lot of things.

It’s not galling so much as humbling. Being reminded that I’m no better than anyone else and that I can afford to be a lot more gracious than I have been to a great many people.

I pray that I’ll not forget the lesson.