The Return of the Unpleasant Pheasant

I sowed 60 aquadulce broad beans back in early January.

Ever so gently nurtured them on windowsills.

Very carefully hardened them off in the cold-frame at home.

With love, braved the mud, and planted them all out in neat rows at the allotment.

Only to see them decimated this week by the resident pesky allotment pheasant.

And for what? The darn thing doesn't even eat the shoots - just idiotically pulls them up in the hope of the odd worm maybe, if it's very very lucky, making an appearance.

Wanton vandalism that leaves me dreaming of shooting the darn pest....

Spring And I Are Nearly Sprung

Like many things I like to grow, I've been quietly hibernating since last Autumn.

Well, by that, I don't mean literally gorging myself, hiding in a cave, slowing my heartbeat and going into a semi-comotose state while simultaneously devouring my fat reserves (now that part, I wish).

No, I mean I've just been plodding along through the depths of winter, getting up 6am in the dark, working dawn to dusk in the much-maligned public sector, coming home again at 6pm in the dark, spending the evenings munching on (probably more than I care to admit to) packets of Bombay Mix and downing (probably more than I care to admit to) glasses of red wine in front of (probably more than I care to admit to) way too much TV. Talking of which, increasingly throwing (probably more than I care to admit to) my slippers at said TV at the rot and nonsense spewing from assorted politicians mouths, in a middle-eastern fashion of disdain or disgust.

Yeah, specifically, anytime David Cameron, Nick Clegg or  George Osbourne try to justify any of the drastic public sector cuts they are making. Anything that impacts on or damages the arts, museums or libraries is of particular significance and importance to me at the moment.

But on a more personal note, for the last few months, it seems that weekends have been all about about catching up on housework or DIY.

But as the month of February marches on, I'm feeling the sap rising once again, and along with the urge to haul myself back down to the gym, there is the need to start planting seeds again and get things growing. But equally I feel the urge to get my arty expressive juices flowing once again.

This year I have a second new half-plot to develop on the allotment (though it's been too wet and muddy since November to be able to do much yet). But more importantly, thanks to completed DIY projects at home I've finally been able to turn a room over to become an art studio.

I cannot begin to express what an utter joy this is....  it's been about 16 years since I last had a dedicated space to make art - a space that isn't really normally a kitchen or living room, so needs everything tidying away at the end of a painting or drawing session.

To get myself back into the regular habit of drawing and painting (so yes, I confess to spending several weeks so far looking at the room with a great deal of trepidation and a not a small amount of fear, noodling about in my "studio", pretty much terrified of all the clean paint brushes and white paper and blank canvasses I've lined up) I'm determined to spend some time in there every single day drawing or painting anything at all - anything just to get the creative sap flowing again. To get going again after what amounts to several years of doing very little creative work (bar this blog which I started last year to kick-start myself drawing again), I've promised myself I will spend at least 30 minutes a day in there doing something/anything creative.

Obviously, I have more time at the weekends.  I bought myself an assortment of yellow flowers this week to paint, so I've been struggling with that today. I quickly realised that it really is almost impossible to paint sumflowers without referencing Van Gogh. But his work is always such a pleasure to look at (I had been reading about him recently, which might've influenced my choice in flowers?) so I got some books of his work out and couldn't but help making the sunflowers I was trying to paint even more Van Gogh-y in style than than the painting was going to be anyway. But his work is such complete joy to look at, and a real challenge to even attempt to emulate.

But besides all of this, seeing as how March and April are the key months for getting seedlings going, I'm just duty bound to end up drawing and sketching these...

Denuded Parsnips

It's just a little bit early perhaps (as we haven't had any frost yet, and I know frost improves the sweetness) but I've been eyeing up the parsnip bed for a number of weeks now, so I thought it was time to give one a go. Gently scraping away the earth around the tip of the roots, I spied one that looked enormous. So thought I'd lift it. It's been very wet lately, so in my minds eye, I pictured myself gently tugging, and up it'd come.

Oh bugger.

Just like a lizard will lose it's tail to escape predators, my parsnips have an inbuilt defence to greedy people like me, I discovered that it will shed it's greenery.

Scratch my head a bit, and out comes the fork.

Gently as I can, I fork all around the parsnip, loosening it's grip on the soil. Then I start to apply upward pressure, slowly does it....

Oh bugger.

Hear an onimous wet crunchy cracking sound, and know I've broken the root.

So finally I resort to digging it out by hand.

I manage to get out the top half.  What's left behind looks split and damaged by my efforts to fork it out, and is left behind, as if I try to dig it out I'll disturb it's neighbours.

It's huuuuuuge! If I'd got the whole thing out I reckon it would've been a 2-footer. Can't help thinking it looks a bit like a coy denuded squid. It looks nothing like the parsnips our allotment neighbour produces - he spends days rotivating and sifting his root beds, till the soil is a fine tilth. We just chucked the seeds in to our stoney flinty soil and hoped for the best.

Right now, I just wish computers had smellovision so you could get a whiff of the strong sweet perfumed smell of freshly dug-up parsnip.

And I know I need to do some research & come up with a better method for lifting the rest over the next few months...

Pumpkins

Our Marina di Chioggia pumpkins, which've been spreading their tendrils all over the back half of the plot are finally about ready to pick.  All these might be better left on the plants for a few more weeks, but gangs of teens have been seen climbing the fence and roaming the site, last week smashing a load of pumpkins, so thought best to harvest ours this weekend.

We had 2 plants on the go, one planted in the soil and one in the manure pile. The manurey plant has been much more productive, giving us 4 pumpkins that are between 5 and 12 lb each so will use that trick again next year if I can get hold of another truck load of manure. The one planted in soil gave us 3 fruits between 4 and 5 lbs each. We tried the first one last night - sliced and gently fried in butter this one tasted amazing - like a cross between pumpkin, chestnuts and chicken flavoured crisps.

Butternut squashes plant gave us about 7 fruits, so looking forward to trying those.

And we left the last 2 trombonchino squashes on the plant till the skin yellowed and hardened (the rest we ate as green courgette fresh fruits), so should be able to store those for a while. Yum.

Birds versus Cats

For the past seven years, thanks to the threatening presence of the cat next door, birds visiting our back garden have been a very rare treat indeed. But quite frankly, our next-door neighbour owned the ugliest tom-cat in the world.

He (the cat, not the neighbour) used to squat on our back garden wall and stare at us in a beefy threatening way until we dropped eye contact and sidled off furtively back into our kitchen in a diminuitive manner. He was the kind of cat that just looked like he smelt funny (I say this as a cat-lover). Sometimes, if I felt a bit cavalier and derring-do I'd pet him till he purred and rolled over to invite a belly-tickle, which oddly enough, I always declined with a "Ummm, uh, yeah, errr, thanks, but no thanks, ewwww". And I always felt the need to immediately wash my hands afterwards.

So, birds were a rare treat. Oh, except of course for the herring gulls squawking from nearby roof-tops who thankfully never visited the garden, though would always seem to make a special flyover visit just to crap on any bed-linen I might have dared hang outside to dry. Sheets to a seagull are obviously like red rags to a bull.

Last year, sadly, the bruiser (still talking about the ugly cat) moved on to the cattery in the sky. I think in the end my neighbour was somewhat relieved to see him go - he only ever came indoors to poo on his carpets (the cat that is, not my neighbour).

Since then I've spent a fair amount of time, money and effort over the past year making my garden bird-friendly. A carefully selected bird table, bird treats, nuts, fatballs, you name it, I had it. Nothing happened for weeks. Then months passed. But finally, they flocked. Blue tits, sparrows, wrens, robins, the impressive looking red-legged partridge. I can't say I relished the daily visits by the idiotic wood-pigeon - bird of fat body and tiny brain that would perch on the roof of the bird-table and seemed unable to figure out how to get to the seeds on the table below. But when it finally did figure it out it'd stay and scoff the lot.

I specially welcomed the gardeners friends, blackbirds and thrushes, who came and hung out daily hopping in and out and round all the containers and pots, dining on all the spiders and snails. My heros. Specially on the spider-munching front.

But it's all over now. Another set of neighbours have bought two kittens. Like I said, I love cats, so I'm quite  pleased to have them visiting our house and garden. Though now it's strictly supervised house-access only, after the recent muddy-paws-all-over-the-bathroom incident.

But I'm very sorry to find that the birds no longer feel safe to visit. Can't think why.

Mooning Sunflower

All of our tomato plants are keeling over from blight. I got away with it last year, but not this time. Perhaps we were too greedy with a dozen different varieties growing, so we had a total of 24 plants on the go. There are sprays you can use, but although not overly fussy about the food I buy from shops, I do try not to spray the food I'm growing myself with chemicals. Ignorance is bliss, in other words.

Some tomatoes ripened before the blight struck or are ones that we've caught early when plants were only just beginning to keel over. These have been placed in a fruit bowl packed with bananas, the ethylene gas from the bananas helping our toms to ripen. Though we do need to keep a close eye on these, as some do rot thanks to the dastardly blight.


But we've too many to save, so the remainder are being made into green tomato chutney. We've cooked up about 6 kilos so far, using 3 different recipes. I reckon I need to cut down the remainder of the plants tomorrow, and think we'll salvage another 4 or so kilos for yet more chutney.


Tomatoes. Looked forward to them all summer. Got very excited about the first pickings, and enjoyed the first few plates made up of lots of varieties. But now I'm bored of them already (oops - did I say that out loud?). I really wanted to eat them back in the height of summer, with leafy salads. Now the weather is starting to cool, I'm eyeing up all the comfort foods. Hey ho. Guess I need a greenhouse so I can start them off earlier in the year.

I've also been roasting the last of the sumer squashes & marrows, and cooking them up with some minced lamb & bechamel sauce & making them up into lasagnes stored in the freezer, to take to work for lunch. And we're still picking runner & borlotti beans a couple of times a week - most of these are bagged up in the freezer to eat later this winter.

I've just got to share with you a picture of the most amazing sunflower that's on the route into the allotment site, so it cheerfully greets all arrivees. It's a mutant double-headed sunflower. Now, just what does that remind you of?

Ways to Weed

I'm a diligent weeder. To give my vegetables the best possible chance I do my best to remove all competition from competing weeds. At the moment, I reckon my average visit to the plot is split into time segments of 80% weeding, 10% planting, 10% sipping tea & admiring the views and watching the weather rolling in across the sea views.

But boy-oh-boy, do my calves ache.

A booming red ant population (multiple nests in most of my beds, probably due to lack of any rain in April) and ongoing general arachnophobia, mean I take a squatting pose rather than a kneeling one. I can manage about 10 minutes at a time before needing to stand and stretch. Sometimes wish I could semi-metamorphose into a squatting frog-like creature. Could squat for hours and deal with the greenfly all in one hit.

When weeding, my mind usually floats off into the oddest thoughts. Listening to the magpies crawing, wish I could lasso them to help me out a little.















Or best of all, I dream of channelling Maya from Space 1999.







Then I'd change myself into a weed-loving snail and solve all my problems.

Could do without the weird eyebrows though.

Punishment to fit the crime.

Have allotments always been targeted by vandals, or is this a relatively recent development? And how have we got to the sad state of affairs where it is just a matter of time before it happens? We were advised last Autumn when we first took the plot that it was best not to lock the sheds otherwise they'd be damaged by forced entry (did we listen? - no).

Arrived at the plot yesterday to find lots of sheds - including ours - had been broken in to. Not too bad for us, just the padlock ripped off so some damage to the doorframe & just one smashed pane of glass, nothing taken. But I do feel really sorry for one or two people who had more solid metal sheds - their doors have been thoroughly kicked in and are damaged beyond repair. And not nice to have your shed spray-painted & tagged - no matter what repairs you do to the damage, you're left with a more permanent reminder that's tougher to get rid of.

If I could only get my hands on the vandals, I'd get all medieval on their asses, and invent a punishment to fit the crime. Bury them up to their knees and stake them to the ground using a variety of garden tools, spread them with treacle, scatter them in birdseed, and shout out "RELEASE THE CROWS!"


And, of course, invite my fellow allotmenteers to pelt them with rotten vegetables and douse them in stinky fermented nettle tea.

Or maybe I'd force them to eat my radishes.

Ahhh, yes, about my radishes..... I grew some beauties as you can see (they were ultra-organic, something feasted on the leaves before I could pull them, as you'll see from the holey leaves).

Not sure why I grew them - can't stand them. Never buy them. Don't eat them. But I knew that they're quick easy growers, and I hoped that maybe they'd taste amazingly different.


But no, still distinctly and identifiably radishy. Bleugh.

And there was me, laughing at the couple on the plot opposite who had an emormous bed of spinach on the go last autumn, who when I commented that given the amount growing they must love the stuff, they replied "No, can't stand spinach, but there's not much else will grow this time of year and we like to have something on the go".

I'm not laughing now.


But we did pull our first few leeks today. They've been in since last October, courtesy of our kind allotment neighbour who gave us some of his extras to plant. I've no idea what variety they are, but they were the first thing we planted so we're enormously proud & protective of them. And we've been drooling and salivating at the prospect of eating them for 7 months now.

I think we have to get on with harvesting & eating them now, beacause as soon as it warms up a little they will flower and become inedible. Though leek flowers are stunning - will look like an Agapanthus - so I will leave some to go over.

The ones we had for tea were really tasty - I knew they would be, as the minute we pulled them the oniony leeky perfume that filled the air was very intense.

They tasted like nothing I've ever been able to buy from a supermarket. And I like the imperfect shape of one of them - it just reminded me how all the supermarket food we buy now is all about appearance and not at all about taste.

But the food I am growing is all about the taste. Not that I will be above posting photographs of any rude or lewd vegetable shapes that I might accidently grow.

And please don't say anything about the oniony leeky perfume attracting every onion fly for miles around. I'm hoping that if plants are several weeks behind thanks to the cold winter, then so are the pests...

It's not a pleasant pheasant

Arrived at the allotment site a few days ago (on a rare mid-week day off work) to be greeted by the sight of a pheasant casually, methodically, destructively and horridly working it's way along someones planting row, pulling whatever it was up one by one and tossing aside. I reckon it's the site dominatrix. Some fool had planted their runner beans way too early, and the pheasant is here to teach us all a lesson. "Haven't. I. Told. You. These. Beans. Will. Not. Survive. Planting. Out. In. April. See? Told you so".

I ran towards it flapping my arms like an ungainly emu to chase it away, off it flew with an indignant gutteral squawk. I think my card is marked - it'll trash my crops in revenge sooner or later. Word is out amongst the pheasant mafiosi. But revenge is a dish best served cold, so I'm probably in for it much later on, just as I'm about to start cropping. Pheasant season doesn't start till 1st October, so it has a full 5 months to wreak havoc. Not that I'll be shooting it. I've only had pheasant once - too gamey for me, and it almost took my back teeth out when I bit down on a piece peppered with lead-shot.

Still, good to see that whoever it was had replanted by yesterday morning, but this time their row is protected with what looks like yards of streaming video tape and lots of shiny CDs dangling from strings. I need to make something similar for my plot - so far it hasn't found my 4 short rows of peas, but both you & I know that it will.

Think I'm going potty

I'm living in conditions where I can't do anything without first considering the health, safety & wellbeing of hundreds of plants scattered throughout the house, hogging all the light coming in through the windows. Cannot open windows without moving trays of tomatoes & chillies. Cannot boil the kettle for tea without shifting aubergines. Cannot wash up without relocating the cucumber seedlings. And as for watching TV... well, let's just say that gymnastics are involved.


And that's just indoors. Out in the back garden there are the 2 mini 4-tier greenhouses to consider. Temperatures are warming up nicely now, so I noticed at the beginning of the week that everything was starting to look a bit wilty - so fresh air being the order of the day, each morning before heading out to work I unzip these, and I zip them back up of an evening when I get home.

I also have to remember to top up the food on the bird table. Two enormous big-bellied wood pigeons (is it me, or do they have teeny weeny heads?) have started visiting daily and gorging themselves on the seed that I put out for their smaller cousins. They're a bit of a pest and I don't like to encourage them - but now I'm on a chain-gang of endless seed provision, or my brassicas will get it in the neck.

Time to take some of this hardier stuff down to the plot this weekend - the 10-day forecast looking good, so worth taking a punt at planting some of it out now.

Those pesky curvy straight lines

Now, I've been gardening for about 20 years. I thought I knew what I was doing, but the plot..... oh, the plot.... Different kettle of fish entirely. Allotment gardening is all about straight lines. I had visions of vegetables marching smartly up and down the beds. All my plans were drawn with pen and ruler, vegetables stretching away to infinity & beyond. But now my onions & garlic are coming up, it's clear that everything I've put in so far has a distinct... how shall I put this?.... wobble. Mr SNAH says "why don't you just use 2 pegs and a bit of string next time to mark out the straight lines before you plant/dig?" and I wail back "but I diiiiiid!".

And as for my potato trenches....oh dear. Everyone else's at the site look like this:

But mine look like this:

Actually, I'm probably being a little kind to myself there.

Nevermind. My first earlies (Maris Bard, Vales Emerald & Homeguard) & seconds (Edgecoat Purple, Wilja) are in. An iffy planting line isn't going to have any impact on the taste, and with a bit of luck maybe it'll confuse any slugs intent on burrowing into the tubers before I dig them up. As I'm sure I read somewhere (ahem.... cough cough) that slugs working their way through underground crops only work in straight lines (couldn't possibly offer a citation on that). Least that's what I'll tell everyone, until I can get up there again to rig up a set of curtains around my potato trenches. I'll invest in some flowery Cath Kidson ones and maybe no-one'll notice - they'll blend in with the general springy springiness springing up everywhere. Oh the shame.

So, busy week ahead. I plainly need to redraft my plot plans, banishing all straight lines, I'll be going for the circular wavy look, by the way. It's the way forward.

Behold the poo mountain

Arrived at the plot just after the delivery of 15 tons of beautiful dark well-rotted hot n' steamy horse manure, all to be shared between 5 plot-holders. Spent 2 hours wheelbarrowing our share across to our plot - reckon we've got enough for the next year or two. Finished just as the heavens opened. It's only late afternoon, but today's been the best & most productive Good Friday EVER.

Crunch Point

My windowsills are now groaning under the weight of seedlings reaching for the light and I'm starting to feel like I'm looking at the world through a pair of green-tinted spectacles. Obviously space is limited (I don't live in a giant greenhouse, nor do I have a house with full plate-glass shop windows). So an interesting hierarchy of favouritism is developing. Tomatoes aubergines & chillies are all top dog in my house - right there living it up on the window sills. But I foolishly also sowed a few squashes & pumpkins - take a quiet moment to watch these, and they grow right in front of your eyes like stop-animation of the kind you see on a nature programme. Oh Lordy, I am undone.


I confess, the pansies (first time I've ever grown these from seed - previous years I've always bought these each spring as plug plants) are probably furthest from a window - indeed, they're currently sitting on a kitchen work surface in front of the boiler. These are (oh, how embarrassing to admit this) more leggy than Elle Mcpherson (or some other 6ft giantess 1980s supermodel type with pins insured for a million dollars). If my pansies were people they would look like this.

How will these survive? As soon as they go outside, one gentle hint of a breeze and they'll be over like a teen that's had one too many alchopops - stems snapped & dead as a dodo.

What to do?

Methinks a re-shuffling is in order. A trip to the pound shop is to be had on Monday, for half a dozen nasty plastic 12" pots. Squashes are going to have to take their chances down at the allotment shed. I call it a shed. Actually, it's more of a summer house affair with plenty of windows, frequently used as target-practice by the local yoofs roaming the allotments on a Saturday night (good grief - is that really the best idea they can come up with to entertain themselves?). Glass windows are pane-by-pane being replaced with perspex. Hopefully, before the final piece of glass is broken whatever the yoofs are lobbing at my windows will bounce off the perspex and donk them right back. Right back atcha.

Chilli & Chitting

Sowed a number of chilli seeds mid-Jan in a heated propogater - these are popping up nicely. Have a mixture of indoor and outdoor plants. May try one or two up at the allotment, though think conditions may be too exposed up there. Will mainly have them in my back garden. I've never been a huge fan of eating chilli till a holiday to Mexico last year - suddenly I got chilli.






I return from work anxiously each evening expecting to find a parcel of seed potatoes ordered back in November, but still no sign. But found & purchased 3 varieties in a local pound shop yesterday. Ok, these are not exactly the varieties that I'd spent careful hours selecting & choosing on the basis of reported disease resistance, taste and productivity, but at least I now have something chitting on my windowsills.