Monday 15 March 2010

Allotment

Friday I had the loveliest day with my eldest. On Thursday he'd gotten into trouble for chatting and laughing. He'd said he'd been distracted and that he'd found it impossible not to laugh. Friday morning he had a stomach ache and was really wound up about what he saw as the injustice of being told off the day before. So I took him to the allotment instead of school. He wasn't well enough for school.

At the allotment we dug up potatoes. We had a fork each and I told him to feel around them to check the potatoes hadn't gone mushy and to put the good ones in the bag.

We planted raspberries then I got him to cut them down above a bud. He asked what a bud was. I told him to look up the stem and see if there were any places from which there might be signs of life emerging and he spotted the buds straight away. He pruned the raspberry canes.

He dug and found centipedes.

I've started chitting potatoes - charlotte and desiree.

Mothers Day I went back to put some manure around the newly planted raspberries and got led astray by fellow allotmenteers barbequeing chicken which they served with beautiful turkish bread and salads. I sampled various drinks- homemade cherry brandy, plum wine, whiskey and a german spirit. They seemed a bit surpeised when I went back to my digging. I was glad I hadn't cycled as I hink I was over the limit. It was so lovely standing in the sun drinking and eating.

I planted some onions but still have more to put in. One of my fellow allotmenteers has started off carrots in toilet rolls in the greenhouse which he will plant straight in the ground once the frost passes.

I feel so much better when Ive been to the allotment. Happy growing, happy spring!

6 comments:

  1. It is fun to see such a different blooming schedule. Around here we call the first flower of yesterday's blog snow drop. It blooms long after the crocus is gone and right after my early daffodils. I can't plant annuals until May 15 and our Mother's Day is in May. Thank you for some beautiful blooms to brighten up a dull gray, rainy week.

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  2. you are welcome. That flower may well be a snowdrop here too - the sign said that the area contained snowdrops and snowflakes. i thought it looked a little different from the snow drops but there was so many different kinds there it got confusing. Annuals need to wait here too till last frost has past which can sometimes be as late as end of May. interesting to hear about when your flowers bloom. crocus and snowdrops are out the same time here.

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  3. It makes me happy to read about you gardening and chatting in the sun. Here we are still buried under rotting snow. Every time we have a few days of melting the temperature drops and we get a few more inches.

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  4. lovely to share it with you. gosh we feel like we've had a really long winter - we just don't know how lucky we are.

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  5. gosh sounds brilliant, how busy you've been the barbequed chicken experience sounds great, it's inspiring me to do a similar thing sometime soon...!

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  6. annie- feeling a bit tired - think bit too much busyness and not enough chilling. need to go dancing soon. still i am pottering about slowly this am and planting a feww cucumber seeds.

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