The news is still dreadful and if anything is getting worse, but am I only one feeling completely gaslit by our world leaders? Israel has a right to self defence but they are the only state in the Middle East that is bombing other states (and no Hezbollah is not another state and neither is Hamas – they are terrorist organisations – it’s an important distinction) and yes, I agree that the Iranian government have and continue to do nasty things, but it just feels like Israel is trying to start World War Three right now and it’s not helping
Netanyahu is using Muslim women’s ‘rights’ to justify his war. What hideous, hollow hypocrisy
Britain Braces for Its First Heat Wave of the Year It’s always good to see how we’re viewed by others, but I love that we have a set of rules for what determines a heatwave and that the US doesn’t. Seems like a pretty important cultural divide…
This season of gardening is all about small gains. I work hard but I never get everything I planned to get done, done.
The June garden is wooing…
So let’s start with what I did at the weekend.
I really wanted to get the arches up and I needed to give one of the strawberry towers some attention. So I started with the strawberries which led to some weeding. And then getting the arches built and in place and, with some help from Sue and Richard, netted. It looks much better than I expected and I have a plan for better netting next year but this is a great £70 solution for now.
Arches
I ‘paid’ Sue and Richard with rhubarb and they went home leaving me to get on with some more work. It was more weeding of the middle paths and planting in that area. First up, the sweetcorn, it’s planted way too close together but I ordered some that died. Then I ordered a different type that arrived out of its container and they send me another batch but six of the first lot survived and lots of the second batch were double planted. Which is a long winded way of saying that I have about 24 sweetcorn plants in that bed and the plant is to sow some beans (Cherokee Trail of Tears) in there too for a two sisters bed, if I had any little winter squash I’d probably try and cram it in but that’s pushing it, even for me!!
Sweetcorn
I also bought some more asparagus to fill the gaps in the asparagus patch so I put in three to fill the gaps, that leaves me with seven more in pots, I’m wondering if I should put them in the other strawberry bed.
I cleared the two beds and all the paths to the asparagus patch and at some point over this week hope to have sow chard and beetroot in them and maybe fennel with the chard.
I edged the asparagus patch with some chamomile. I had a lot of plants sitting on the table in trays and I really wanted to get most of them planted out. So I took all the heath pearlwort I had and made a ‘lawn’ next to the new herb bed and with the last of the erigeron. That part of the plot is looking really good, there won’t be any more wood chip until after the open day but I think that’s the only thing that would improve its looks!
The middle of the plot is coming together
The dahlia bulbs were all planted out, they were sale stock so it’s late to plant them so I’m trying not to be too hopeful!
A future flower bed (fingers crossed)
On Monday, I needed to go and water (I can’t remember it being this hot this early!) and got caught up in the ‘I’ll just do one thing’ trap. All the tomatoes in the polytunnel are now planted out! I’m working on, really filling the beds to see if that helps with weed pressure, so both of the tomato beds have basil, chives (bought from the herb section of Sainsburys and Waitrose and left on the plant table at the plot to acclimatise and then divided before being planted out) and marigolds interplanted. The last three tomatoes, went in the bed with the walking onions in them. This bed also had a volunteer tomato plant and a lot of tree spinach in it. The onions have been flowering like mad and have fallen over, so the bed needed some tidying up before I planted anything.
Tomatoes that really needed to go out
I have this idea that I’ll plant things next to the beds between them and the path. It’s never worked on the edge of this this bed. Chamomile, dead. Santolina, dead. Thyme, dead. You name it, it didn’t like it. What that does mean is that the soil isn’t terrible because I do keep topping it up every time, I try something new. I didn’t want to risk another dead plant, so I took a bunch of the flowering heads of the walking onion and planted them in that space (and in a corner of the actual bed) in the vain hope that I can break the curse and because I think they’ll be good there.
Onions!!
That done I also removed all of weeds and some of the tree spinach and planted the rest of the space with tomatoes, basil and, as I’d run out of chives, coriander (also from the supermarket) and marigolds. There was some coriander left and that went into the bed next door with the courgettes (but the time the courgettes are big enough the coriander will have flowered and seeded and unlike some plants on my plot (borage and nigella I’m talking about you) coriander is a gentle self-seeder, so I don’t mind so much.
A mixed bed
Lots has been done, there is lots more to do but the plot is starting to look like it’s cared for, the best medicine for the garden is the gardener!
There are only five more beds to sort, two to be planted up and three to be cleared and planted up. One of them will be easy, it’s a clear up, plant some lingonberry bushes (don’t ask but my plant buying is not out of control, I stop anytime I want!), cardboard around them and then mulch with compost. The others just need clearing and topping up in preparation for the cottagers kale and the 9-star broccoli to go in.
This is where I plan to put the lingonberries
That’s the first thing on the list for the weekend, and then the work list is long. I have three weeks until the open day which breaks down for me into two Sundays and however much I can get done in the evening before it gets dark (on Monday night I got home from the plot at 9.55pm!). Before then I would like to do the following:
Sort out those last five beds
Pick blackcurrants, which are ready impossibly early
Weed the gooseberries
Weed the paths at the front of the plot
Rehab rhubarb, this is just because is so dry, I want to pick the dying leaves, water really heavily and then mulch with compost
Weed the main path and the sides by the beds and make a dent in the cinque foil
Plant the nepeta
Sort out the broken arch by the rosemary and decide what to plant in the boxes
Weed and tidy the iris beds
Pot up the basil, coriander, and parsley
Pot up the cottager kale and 9-star broccoli
Paint the shed
It’s a lot but I think I could get quite a bit done before the open day.
Time to sort this!
I’m almost out of compost too. I had 50 bags in April and I’m down to about 16.
Also on the agenda is thinking about space, the was given two grapevines a while ago that need a spot. I do have a place for winter squash that is coming because mine died but I do also have a bunch of stuff that I have ordered with no real plan. Two kiwi plants, two climbing roses, 20 leek plants (I have a place for those), 10 kale plants. Yesterday, I agreed to take six tomato plants and six more pepper plants from a friend…which I have a plan for depending on when they arrive.
My mantra at the moment is ‘everything will be fine’!
For anyone following along with my menopause journey. The increased oestrogen patch is not working as the doctor hoped. Last Tuesday I had a migraine (and some breakthrough bleeding and on Saturday some proper bleeding and cramps. I tell you this so if you are a middle aged or know anyone middle aged, remember to be kind to yourself or them because this sucks. It’s the sheer unreliability of my body at the moment, I’m doing all the right things but they don’t appear to be solving the issue. It’s frustrating and dehabilitating and I am fed up!
That and my more scatty brain, left me thinking I’d scheduled this post for yesterday morning but I had not, so Tuesday is the new Monday!
Aside from my body throwing me curveballs, last week was fairly productive. I finished my management reporting stuff and cleared the way for a bigger more engaging piece of work this week, assuming nothing else blows up in the meantime!
Bus journey to Mum’s
I got to Mum’s on Wednesday night and the less we say about the journey home the better, but the Great West Road is not a nice place to be at the best of times and certainly not at 10:45 on a Wednesday night. I went over there on Saturday for shopping, cleaning and ironing! And of course, giving the parent some social interaction and outdoor time!
At home and on the plot I’m getting there, I had a big push on the weekend and things are starting to function as they should. I gave the plant in the bathroom some tough love in the form of a brutal haircut and a soak. Which in turn led to having to give the bathroom a deeper clean.
A view of the plot
It was fruit and veg week this week, and the fruit box was glorious. This week, as well as the usual bananas, apples, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and avocado, I got cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots. I love summer! So naturally, I’ve bought more apricots for jam and cherries for cocktail cherries and maybe jam but mostly eating
Plans for this week are more of the same. I have a first aid course on Thursday and I will be watering every day, but I’m hoping that I can manage some actual productivity, even though all I really want to do is play on the allotment!
At the weekend, Christelle and I are doing something, I find I don’t mind being outdoors when it’s hot and C wants to find somewhere with air conditioning. We’ll work it out!
Mount Etna spews huge plumes of ash. I don’t know how people live near Etna, it’s really active, but the world and most especially Europe doesn’t need a massive natural disaster to add to all the man made ones happening at the moment.
Therapy isn’t about life hacks. The best solutions are simpler – and more complex. This is lovely and so true but like a lot of things in life, sucks. I have a translation of the Book of Job, at the end of it, when all of Job’s wealth, health etc is restored (but not really because how do you restore a dead wife and kids), God is justifying what He did and Job says “As hearing but the ear I have heard you/And now my eye has seen you/That is why I am fed up”. I access my inner self via my relationship with God and I understand that I’m allowed to be fed up with having to do the work. The work needs to be done, nethertheless…
I also what to recommend this week’s In Our Time, which was about the evolution of lungs. You know it’s a good one when one of the experts on the show, gets excited about learning something new, I honestly had no idea that lungs aren’t all similar from an evolutionary point of view (the sciences have never really been my thing!).
While I’m on a R4 roll, Postwar, has also been fascinating, well the two I have heard, there are five and they are 15 minutes long so easy to dive into.
I spent eight and half hours on the plot on Sunday. Two of those hours were spent with Tom and a small person, who helped me plant out the courgettes while Tom (the absolute star) moved my compost. I have one bed of green and one of yellow. A total of nine courgettes on the plot assuming they all survive!!
A clear path at the front of the plot
They left and I spent three hours sorting out the winter squash beds. I’ve cleared the bed once, but it had grown back and bed nearest the path was just grass and it was setting seed. So I weeded the bed and the path and strimmed the bed. Then I covered the bed, with weed fabric, covered the path with weed fabric (I’ve done the cardboard and wood chip thing for over four years, it’s really improved the soil so the weeds have gone hog wild. So this is my solution for a couple of years.
Halfway there, path in place and grassy bed covered
I topped up the weeded bed with compost and planted the winter squash that arrived on Friday, (I’m not convinced they will survive, but I live in hope – in fact I’m going to stick some spare winter squash seeds in that bed just in case they don’t) and sowed some lazy housewife beans by the arches. Then I watered and strulched the bed. I left a plant in the bed because I’m not sure what it is, so we’ll see..
I had weeded next to the bed and when I returned the potatoes to their spot, I decided to make use of some of my lavender starts to make a mini hedge.
There is some grass at the edges to sort but I’m so pleased with it although there is also some weeding to do in the main path.
All done
Tom also brought me his spare french beans, there were nine plants so I decided to put them in the ex garlic bed. There are some volunteer potatoes from last year in that bed, so I just topped up the compost over them. Then the beans were planted, I also added two spare courgettes, I had and some marigolds at the end of the bed. I also scattered some dill and roman chamomile seeds in that bed.
New bean bed with some very wonky canes
That’s four beds planted up and sorting out the winter squash beds was a high impact job. My plot neighbour said that it made the grass in the rose beds and at that back look planned, like a wildlife area and I have to admit that it had a huge amount of ladybirds in it so it’s not a terrible idea.
Courgette beds
I had a bit of a tidy up, took a moment to admire my day lilies then it was time to go home.
Next week, the plan is to get the sweetcorn in its home and have a tidy up of that area, sort the paths and get the square beds sowed with carrots and beetroot. It’s also time to net the blueberries (I had my first this weekend!)
First blueberry
Then I need to clear the final uncleared beds and it’ll be all about the weeding (again!)
Full disclosure, I’m writing this on Sunday night, I have no idea if Monday will actually be happy but it is my fervent hope that it will be for me and for anyone reading this…
So last week was tricky, I’d planned to be in the office for the first half of the week but I was struggling with work and home and sleep. I was also back on the ‘throwing up in the morning’ bullshit, this has pretty much been a thing my hormones do, periods as a teenager came with a side of vomiting. I’ve been having either a very light period or some breakthrough bleeding, my money is on the period but I’m nearly fifty fucking two and I’m so over this bullshit….
Anyway, work continued to be difficult as all the reporting systems broke down and the person in change of the reporting was on leave. I was convinced it was me, not the reports, so I spent an entire two days checking my work. And it wasn’t me, it was the reporting. So I did it the old more manual way and I found a bunch of other stuff that was wrong and it was a day late. So I essentially spent four and half days, doing something that should have taken me a day and a half at most. It’s all good to keep me continuously improving (which is a huge thing in my work life) but it does mean that this week is going to be busy and full of catching up.
Aside from that, it was a very normal week. Admit the irritations, I got a new toy for making my feet smoother, it’s amazing how getting rid of the dry skin on my feet, helped my mood!
I saw Ma on Saturday and did her ironing (when we were teenagers, we were responsible for all our non uniform ironing, if we wanted Ma to do it, we paid her £1 per item) £7 of ironing! My brother did shopping with Ma last week and left me some gin, for which I was very grateful post housework.
On Sunday Tom and his daughter came for a visit to the plot and some strawberry picking, no strawberries went home because I’m pretty sure that the amount of berries a small child can eat is infinite! It was good to see them and then to get some work done.
Which brings me to now. This week is all about all the usual things. I’m missing Grace at the weekend because they are in the woods for the day on Saturday and that is my mother day! I need to make sure I exercise and get enough sleep this week because it has just gone to bits in the past week or two.
I hope to have the best week I can manage and hope you do to…
Six hours on the plot doesn’t get a lot of work done.
A view from the polytunnel
So what did I do?
I weeded the front bed of the plot and planted the erigeron, the primrose and a sweet aztec plant in that bed. Planting in this bed is tricky, I want that bed to be full so I don’t see the soil because that’s better for it but I do have plants in there that will spread and I need some space to weed the grass which is not in anyway diminished because the plants are in that space. It’s just a space that needs regular attention to get rid of the grass and I’m confident that it will look amazing at some point in the future.
From the shed door
I’ve also made a bit more progress with the grass under the plum tree, but that really is a work in progress. I’m thinking that I’ll just mow it and mulch, do some digging in autumn and sow some yellow rattle to out compete the grass. I was told that it’s best to mulch fruit trees – which I know and I did and that’s why the grass is having a wild time in the improved soil!
Planting
I planted up some of the tomatoes. This was a task, I put the tomatoes in. Watered, then I put chopped comfrey around them and added more compost to cover that, added basil and chives to the bed and watered again. At some point I’ll have some marigolds and I’ll add those too. The basil and chives came from the supermarket herb section and were left on the plant table for a week so are fine with the outdoors, I do grow herbs from seed but if you can’t or haven’t, these pots work really well, just divide them and plant.
Tomato bed 1
I looked at the polytunnel planting. I planted up the watermelons, melons and aubergines. And watered and mulched, the strulch is great and while it is expensive, so far it seems to be working well.
Everything in!
That done I picked strawberries and the weeds out of the strawberry towers. Don’t let anyone tell you that strawberry towers result in less weeding, it’s all lies. I ordered six strawberries back in January and they arrived over the weekend so I planted them up into the gaps in one of the towers and the remaining two into the strawberry bed.
Strawberries finally
That was the planting part of the work done, so then I watered everything. Which took forever and finally, I netted the biggest of the blackcurrant bushes.
Like a big blue ghost!
There is a lot more to do. I still have 12 tomatoes, the sweetcorn and some courgettes to get planted and the new herb bed to fix fill and plant up. There are beds that need clearing and the paths all need weeding again. I need to net the blueberries too and sow things.
At home I have to plant up the little basil, coriander and parsley, the kale and broccoli and summer squash need potting on too. There is a lot to do.
We are at the midpoint of the year and I am eating strawberries that I grew for breakfast. Forget Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year is now!
The last week of May was not epic, the problem was me (although I’m blaming menopause), I’m just really struggling to be motivated and focussed. I have a lot of things to do and the desire to do none of them but I’m just happy that I can have bare minimum weeks. However, there were some good things, I saw Ma on Wednesday and Sue and Kathy came round for ‘Friday fizz’ to catch up and celebrate Sue’s birthday! Sue and I are also going to the Hampton Court Flower Show in July so that’s something to look forward too!
So this week, I need to find the mojo and get all the things done. I’m in the office Tues and Wed, a visit to Ma’s on Wednesday and Saturday, the allotment needs almost daily visits unless we get some rain and I really need to catch up with the housework! Work is also busy as it’s reporting week and I need to get a grip on it.
So it’s a very non social responsible week for me, which I am going to conquer with coffee and lists. I hope you have a good week.
Finally Chelsea won something and qualified for Champions League. Of course Chelsea Women did the domestic treble this season (at some point we’ll crack Europe as well). And I will take all of that!
Tom Friedman: Will Israel’s War Ever End? I don’t agree with much of what Tom Friedman says about Israel’s attitude to what’s happening in Gaza. I think there will be no peace until they start to think of Palestinians as actual people. What’s happening now though, it’s a genocide. Even the way Friedman mentions the stench of decaying bodies in Gaza and I can’t help but think about how people described the smell at Auschwitz. Israel is a nation founded on terrorism, go and look up the Stern Gang. In trying to prevent the Holocaust, Israel has replicated it, but it’s citizens are the perpetrators not the victims. Hamas are terrorists but they are not the only ones, go and look at what the settlers are doing in the West Bank right now, with the support of the Israeli government. Doesn’t make what they are doing right but view it in all its context. Until both sides start to view each other as people with justified positions and work towards compromise, the war will never end.
Why does Elon Musk love this socialist sci-fi series? This is like when David Cameron said his favourite song was Eton Rifles. Completely and utterly missing the point. Also I’m going to have to re-read the Culture novels. But if sci-fi isn’t your thing, Iain M. Banks dropped the ‘M’ and wrote other books, The Crow Road is a particular favourite of mine…
Nic Dempsey 