November 2018

The weather is miserable. No ice, no snow, no freezing fogs. Just wet and cold and miserable. Yesterday, I visited the allotment and after feeding the birds ( those Thrush gangs are ruthless! ) I sat in the green house with my cup of coffee and just stared at it trying to remember the lovely summer colours.

I brought the chillies home with me and some dried off beans ready for next year. The green house feels too damp now for them to dry off any further. The beans looked good, cannot wait to get planting in spring.

French (purple), Runner & Borlotti

The chilli peppers are going to be strung up! I may make a garland to hang in the kitchen. I want the Poblanos to dry out more. The heat of the summer was great for the chillis.

Vibrant!

One of the main jobs is getting the wood chip down. We’re very lucky, in that one of our fellow allotmenteers brings huge piles of the stuff for everyone to use. So when a fresh batch is dumped the wheel barrows come out. It gets spread on all the paths just to soak up the mud!

It just seems to go on and on!

Happy plotting!

Final Flowers

After spending the day at the allotment, I suddenly came down with an attack of the blues. I couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. There are a lot of perennials on the plot. Loads in fact. I can’t be with out colour whether it’s from dahlias or salvias I have to see colour among the fruit and veg.

We had let a lot of the flowers go on for a lot longer than usual, and now with the first frosts knocking at the shed door I knew I had to put them to bed. I had dug up the dahlias – Yankee Doodle Dandy – which were grown from seed and had happily tempted the allotment bees all summer, brushed off the soil to let them dry. I trimmed down the various salvias, the air was scented with the blackcurranty aroma for ages and covered them with a mulch to offer some protection. The blackened Tithonia and Zinnias were lifted and taken to the compost heap. I mentally made a note to grow more of them next year, their tropical colouring had been as sunny as the summer had been.

The Rudbekia – Black-Eyed Susans and the giant Marmalades were looking a little bedraggled, so they were for the chop. We have an open plot, that can be savaged by strong winds, I was surprised they had lasted this long. I looked forward to the time next year when I would be carrying armfuls of them home to fill the vases.

So I got on with the bulb planting. I had already filled some pots with dwarf narcissus and tulips of various varieties, but the flower I am most looking forward to seeing is the bronze iris. I must have planted over thirty bulbs and my back was hurting the next day, but it’ll be worth it next June when there’s a new blaze of colour on the plot. A good contrast to all the aliums out there.

 The flowers that did not get mulched were placed in a bucket and brought home, ready to be put into vases. The final flowers from the allotment for 2018. No wonder I felt a bit down. They looked so beautiful – different varieties and colours and scent, that I think they can stay together in the bucket! Roll on 2019.

D.C.