Happy New Year! Writing and Allotment news.

Wishing you all wealth, health and happiness.

It's taken me three days to add the picture of River of Stones to my blog. Hopefully it won't take that long before I come up with a small stone. If you don't know about river of stones hop over to Fiona Robyn's blog and take a look. I could add a link but that would probably take me a month to work out so have a look at the blogs I follow.

I don't cope with transition well (probably something to do with my star sign) so new years eve is always torturous. Now we are in the year properly I feel fine.

I suddenly finished the first rewrite of my novel. But arghh it's only 63,000 words and a load of them are slashable. I'm not going to panic. After 6 years of producing half assembled poems I managed to finish 13 into as near as possible finished poems after attending Katherine Gallagher workshops at Torriano House. The only thing that worries me is that the poems all ended up much shorter when they were finally finished. I just hope it's different for novels.

End of the month I've got a spot reading my poetry over jazz in a pub - bit nervous as they weren't written with jazz in mind. Well it's an adventure....

The allotment has been neglected- I've not been for 3 weeks but the weather has been bad for most of that time and when it improved I got a nasty cough that required bed and films back to back (ohh it was lovely). My strawberries were terrible last year and I just let them run riot afterwards. I don't know whether to just rip them out. I keep being advised to grow them in pots but I am a lazy waterer. Any ideas? I still have some leeks and parsnips to harvest but they don't mind the cold so that's ok. I still have frozen french beans but the turn out really watery - is there a secret to freezing them that can keep them nice. They are ok in soup and stews etc.

I've ordered my seeds for spring and they have arrived. Another mother and I have been doing some gardening with the kids at school - any ideas for stuff to do in January. We've already done compost- very messy and enjoyable. Is it too late /early to sow sweetpeas or herbs?

Have a fab 2011.

Sowing seeds

The last two years I avoided sowing too many seeds early as I was worried about my lean-to being over-run with pots and trays. But when spring came around it got so very busy that I ended up with less leeks than I would have liked. Leeks are so beautiuful - their leaves a bluey green that is so calming. Also you don't have to hurry to harvest them - they can stay in the ground over winter which is very appealing when it all goes bonkers and there's so much to pick in summer and autumn(touch wood!).












Therefore am very happy that I have sown two diddy trays of leek seeds. They can be sown any time from January to March indoors. When they sprout they look like grasses and smell gorgeous (if you like leeks that is). I used an old strawberry container and a recycled half tray. The trays need to be very clean - miltons fluid will do the job well. I just washed these with washing up liquid - hopefully they'll be ok. The potting compost needs to be kept moist. The seeds are tiny and need to be planted half a centimetre deep. Now I just need to wait. The seedlings then needed to be gradually hardened off about early April, then they are teased out and the individual tiny leeks are dropped into a hole made with a big dibber (make the hole about the girth of a mature leek) and then watered. Do not fill the hole with soil. Now isn't that weird! I'll explain it again when I actually do it.

seed sowing

Yesterday I washed loads of pots and sterilised them in dishwasher ready for some serious seed sowing. Then I sowed some tumbling tomatoes in a modular tray. The try comes with a plastic roof which keeps the seeds warm and helps them germinate. I then filled some 3 inch pots with multipurpose compost and sowed one cucumber seed in each pot. They say to do two seeds in each and after they grow into seedlings pull out the weedier looking one but I find it really hard to do that. So I am just gonna try one in each. I did two types of cucumber - the first one is called Crystal Apple and they are lovely - my friend introduced me to them years ago and I keep growing them. They are weird looking as they are yellow and round. You have to harvest them when they are the size of duck eggs(yeah I didn't know how big that was but evidently they are a bit bigger than hen eggs) and before they turn orange coz they taste horrid then. The Crystal Apple cucumber is so nice that my friend who hates cucumbers loved it - almost like melon it tastes. I also sowed cucumber Pasandra (more like your regular cucumber)as they are never bitter my friend said. Last year I grew Cucumber masterpiece and was not impressed with the taste as bitter - someone said it's coz of the sex of the flowers but unfortunately I can't remember what they said to do to avoid them being bitter so i have just avoided that particular cucumber instead. I labelled the pots - unusual for me to be that organised but i did get a load of labels and pen for my birthday so decided to be good. Parsley seedlings still alive!!!! Hoorah - am managing to keep them moist not drowned. Through the post I got a five pound thompson and morgan seeds voucher - very pleased with that so I ordered some mixed lettuces and green dwarf beans as only seem to have purple ones and some chocolate coloured cornflowers. I seem to have a slight obsession with chocolate flowers. It started with some chocolate cosmos flowers i bought a few years back. They smell like chocolate and are a gorgeous dark dark crimson in sunlight and chocolate colour when it's cloudy. They are so beautiful but are not hardy. I never have the heart to dig them up while they are still flowering so the frost ends up killing them, so I end up buying new ones each year. I should put them in a pot really so that I can easily move them out of the cold.

seeds etc

A fellow allotmenteer has recommended the following sites so I thought I'd share them.

http://www.hiddeneden.com/free-seeds.aspx - free seeds(have registered for mine already)
http://www.kingsseeds.com – cheapest seeds and good.
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/ - this site has a forum and loads of tips
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/plants1/gwm.html cheap offers from t and m

parsley

I've got quite a few herbs growing in my garden and no i did not take the advice of growing it near the back door so it's easy to get at in the winter. I thought the walk would do me good though a couple of times in driving rain I have regretted it but not for long. Garden isn't that big. I've got rosemary, sage, bay, bronze fennel and caraway thyme and golden marjoram.
I had some parsley growing in a pot but it finished some time ago. I miss it so have just sown some in a pot indoors. I sowed some seed thinly in an old ceramic pot in multipurpose compost. Watered it with hand hot water as parsley likes heat to germinate. Then I put pot in clear plastic bag blew into it and tied it like balloon(homemade propagator like I've described before). Hopefully they'll germinate if they dont I'll just try again. If you are using old ceramic pots etc that don't have any drainage holes at the bottom put old broken tile, plate,cup in bottom so mud sits on top and has something for water to drain into. Used stones when couldn't find broken plates - not sure if this spreads diseases. I suppose if you wash stones first it's ok.
Seeds are different - some don't like to be buried but just sprinkled on surface and left uncovered. These tend to be ones that are fine almost look like soot. Most like to be covered with fine layer of soil. Some have thick skins that need to be nicked with a pen or safer still soaked over night in water. Now you'd think how does nature cope with that. Well of course it does -sometimes ice cracks them but more commonly I think the fruit or veg is eaten by an animal- stomach acid works on the seed then they come out the other end and if they've landed in a hospitable place they are ready to start to grow. Will try and get pictures of herbs tomorrow.

pots,pliers and plastercasts

I have started to save up used washed yoghurt pots and packaging trays (like tomatoes come in from the supermarket) as cheap containers to sow seeds in in spring. also if you've got any old plant pots give them a good scrub to get any traces of soil off and sterilise them in the dishwasher or in a bucket of sterilising fluid. More snow here doesn't look like I'm gonna get to the allotment-argh. I was going to try and change my plastercast as it is so uncomfortable. Now do I risk getting to the hospital and getting stranded there by the snow. Harbouring fantasies of getting pliers to plaster to make more room but just know it would go horribly wrong so i am going to be a good girl and get the bus up there. Hoorah snow how changed to rain- how sad I think that's a good thing. It's a sign of the times is now going through my head now who sang that.......