London is getting pretty hot this week and I’ve been doing the traditional Nic thing of falling asleep and then waking up an hour later and then taking an hour to fall back to sleep. And repeat all bloody night…
On Sunday night I when woke up for the first time, The Moth Radio Hour was on and the theme was ‘the struggles, support and safety provided by family bonds’. Now it happens with it being July and godchildren 2 and 3 being ready to leave home we’ve all been involved in some end of an era thinking. 
Obviously, Ma has given me a full measure of ‘struggle, support and safety’ and it’s entirety is too full to list here but as well as all of that Ma gave me books.
It wasn’t just actual books although she did and I still have them but she taught me the value of reading. Like most kids I don’t remember the bedtime stories, I do remember that when we did the school library trip, I was the only kid that already had a library membership and was familiar with the children’s library at Fulham library.I was given books for Christmas and birthdays and they all had a message from Ma. This was huge for me as I also had Ma’s books from her mother (and others) which for me were a link to people that I would never meet and to Ma’s childhood. It’s one thing to know that your mum spent time convalescing in Broadstairs when she was a child, it’s another thing entirely to see the message that the grandmother that you never met wrote for your mum at the time. Also please note that in the same year when she was 9 and just 10 Ma was given Good Wives and Great Expectations!
So actual books are one thing, my love of Jane Austen, the Chalet School and Georgette Heyer are all because they were things Ma liked to read. What she gave me was more than that. It was the love of reading, the permission to read and lose myself in a story and that it was ok to do that. All of that comes from Mum, who would often say “I was going to hoover/wash up/change the beds but I had a book” because who wouldn’t read instead of doing housework.
I remember Ma removing lamps and lightbulbs from my room to stop me reading at night. And while I know that it was more than awkward to have a kid that had her nose in a book at very given opportunity, she never made me feel that reading and wanting to read was a problem. There were lots of other people in my life who did but in that I always felt Ma got it.
Of course she did, if she had a minute she’d be reading..
We’re due a mini heatwave this week, which as we know from previous heatwaves, we just don’t cope with, it’s not going to be as bad as it was in Europe or what’s happening in the US, but 34C is hot in the city. So I really need to make sure I leave the house at a reasonable time so I can get the slow but air conditioned district line instead of the fast but hotter than Hades central line. I also feel like that sentence needs more punctuation but I really am too tired to think about it!
On Tuesday, I was at Jo’s in the afternoon and I didn’t get home until nearly 9pm, so it was melon.
After last week’s excitement, the plot really needed some attention. As ever this time of year, both the weeds and the things you want to grow are all thriving. So we picked: beetroot, carrots, salad, gooseberries, I gave the mint a haircut (because you’re supposed to give it a hard prune when it starts to flower) which Ma took for tea, the last bag of potatoes, the last rhubarb and two courgettes. In the week, I’d picked four courgettes and some sweetpeas. I’m not doing a running tally of everything we harvest (but I am thinking about it for next year!) we are doing it for courgettes and we’re at 15 so far this year
We are also at the stage of the year where it seems to take as long to wash and sort the produce as it does to pick it! Especially as I made pesto out of the carrot tops (much to the disapproval of some of my facebook friends!).
Anyway, after the harvesting it was all about tidying. We decided to take the sweet peas on the edge of the carrot bed out. Ma weeded around the courgettes and the bits of Joe’s plot that he hadn’t got to and for me it really shows that no-dig reduces weeds, I’m not saying we never get them because we do and we need to spend some time on the edges and paths but compared to Joe’s dug over plot, our weeds are so much lighter and that’s a good thing because my weeder is not getting any younger!
I did the watering and feeding, I’m very excited to see the candy roaster and the uchiki kuri start to set fruit!
I also planted some things. The boysenberry went in. There was some space up near the courgettes so I stuck the cucamelon in there. 
I also planted out my new pink next to the other one and repotted the lavenders. So I have to find space for the leeks, some curly kale and the ammi visnaga next week. I’m also waiting on an order of kale and brassicas to arrive. We’ll use the kale but I’m going to ask Joe if he wants the brassicas we can’t use in the space that Ma has just weeded. It’s always better to have something in!
I also tidied up the tomatoes (they do need attention, there’s no getting around it).
Oh and finally, we’ve had some success with the cucumbers and the seeds have come up. I’ve decided that I’m not going to start them off indoors any more, next year I’ll either plant straight in the ground in May with some plastic over them or I’ll start them in pots but in the cloche because they really don’t seem to like being transplanted from my living room to the plot!
We also have nasturtiums, rocket and coriander doing its thing, mostly on my path. The borage is all over the place, including coming out of a compost bin and in my white flowers (I don’t know if I mentioned it but I bought a load of discounted seed from Wilko a while ago mixed it altogether and threw it in some soil near what it now the french bean bed, and most of the flowers are white, but some of the seeds were wildflowers and the borage looks nice there. 
We also have mystery squash, one growing with the french beans and another on the path. I can only assume it’s from a bird but I’m going to leave them to see what they do They’re only weeds if they’re plants you don’t want!
It’s doing well and it looks pretty good. I can’t believe that we’re in July already and I’m thinking about autumn planting already. Because there is so much to do, we have the return of the list.
So after a late night on Friday, it was allotment on Saturday and food processing on Saturday night. All that food needs to be washed and sorted, this week I also made another batch of pesto.
I was completely uninterested in the cricket, glad England won but I don’t really care about the cricket or the Grand Prix or the tennis. I was delighted to see that the Algerian football team beat Nigeria and will play Senegal in the Cup of Nations final on Friday. I was also delighted by both teams nicknames, the Senegalese are ‘The Lions of Teranga’ and the Algerians are ‘The Warriors of the Desert’ although both names probably sound better in French!
Taking on the plot has had so many benefits, for me one of the unexpected ones has been the community we’re a part of now!
As I harvested the beds, I watered and fed them and then we got on with the work. Ma did some weeding, and I attacked the tarragon and planted the two blackcurrant plants, I’d bought a while ago. So with the boysenberry that’s going in the last of those longer beds. Our soft fruit expansion is done for 2019. I may end up with two more blueberry bushes next year and if we end up with more space, I’m going to have at least three more rhubarbs (we can always use more rhubarb, there is no such thing as a glut!)
Then it was past time to deal with the tomatoes. They needed a trim and tying up onto canes. We did all three beds and planted the basil plants into the cherry tomato bed. The other two beds have calendula coming up so there wasn’t enough room.
That done we had some basil plants left over and 12 plants that hadn’t been given out or planted in the beds. If I was a sensible person I would have thrown them alway. But we had a spare bed, so we planted them up in the bed and in one of the green boxes. Which means that we have 45 tomato plants this year. Given that I didn’t eat raw tomatoes until three years ago and now I’m really looking forward to tomatoes on toast in August, I find this hilarious..
I’m not quite done with tomatoes either. We have a section of Joe’s plot that I’m calling the ‘courgette corridor’ and one of the crooknecks didn’t make it (at the top of this photo). It’s getting a bit weedy so I’m thinking that if the unsold plant sale tomatoes are being given away as they were last year, I’ll clear that section and bung them in there, I really don’t like wasted space. I also watered Joe’s tomatoes and I’m going to give that a weed if he’s not been up during the week.
So on Saturday night we had a cucamelon and some kale that hadn’t been planted out. Then on Sunday, I bought some more plants. I’ve already mentioned the boysenbery, but I also bought some lavenders (I don’t know which type but I’m loving the ones we have on the plot and the more the merrier!), another pink to go with the one that I bought last year.
Finally I bought two ammi visnaga, which I’d never heard of before but they look pretty. So eight plants, which isn’t too bad. 
So I want to do a bit more grinding it out with the housework so that I can rest better. Because August is always a more social month. Already we have family lunch and a trip to Newcastle planned and there are so many other birthdays and anniversaries in August. I’m informed that Ryan is going to be in London and we’ll probably have the boys while Ben and Laura go out and celebrate being married for 12 years (and yes I did just have to check that on Facebook!) for lunch and someone is coming to fix the kitchen ceiling and the lights in the living room (though I’m not at all sure when that’s happening!).
Nic Dempsey 