A lovely sunny-if-windy day; Maggie at preschool; Tamsin miraculously asleep in the car on the way home from Rhythm Time. Too good to miss: I zipped home for seeds, tools, gardening clothes and to neck a quick coffee then up to the allotment. Sowed a 1.5-m row of parsnips – my books say to do it on a still day as they dislike wind (light seeds, might blow away) but the people who write these books do not live in the real world – and little gem lettuces evenly spaced in between, as much to provide some distraction for the slugs as in any hope of producing edible lettuces.
The obligatory 20-minute coffee break in the conservatory – the social side is important too – then I moved a piece of carpet and forked over the area it had been covering, pulling out as many weed roots as I could. I then dug up all but the remaining two Jerusalem artichoke plants on the old patch (noting they are starting to re-grow so it is definitely time), offloaded a bucket load onto the old boys and re-planted some on my forked patch.
My purple-sprouting is still neither purple nor sprouting but a fine leafy green. The gooseberry bush has leaves coming so it wasn’t killed by the move (hooray). Rhubarb leaves are showing all crinkled and pink, and the garlic is looking ok.

It was good for the soul to get out today.

We have always been very dismissive of people who told us not to add meat to the compost as it would attract rats. Bah, we said, slinging everything in, there are rats everywhere anyway so why would we care. And it’s true except. Except. I lifted the lid of the compost bin yesterday to check its progress*, and there are tunnels. Large ones. I dropped the lid sharpish – and, while I am still unbothered by the presence of rats in principle, I feel rather uninclined to turn it or even to pull compost out to use.

*it’s doing really well: in fact all 3 bins are composting fantastically just now. Rotting even faster, it seems, than they did in the summer. I wonder if they reach a kind of critical mass then just take off?

Sunshine on Saturday saw M and I at the allotment with eight very heavy bags of cow manure (“it’s poo but it doesn’t smell like poo”!). If you are really interested you can click on the photo to go to the original, which is annotated: you can find out just what is in those pots and whose shed that is in the background.

Shortly – literally minutes – after this picture was taken I did a deal with the chap on whose plot I was standing to take the shot (I really must figure out all their names. I am utterly hopeless, and they are all men of the same sort of age: I know Ken, Mike, Colin and Peter but can’t tell Steve, Geoff,  or the chap in the corner plot apart). I casually mentioned that I was considering a gooseberry bush: he said he was going to get rid of some of his as there are really only so many gooseberries one can use: there is now a very large, old, thorny bush right next to those PSB plants at the bottom of the photo. Hoorah!

On Wednesday, assuming Cameron doesn’t spring a surprise business trip on me, I am supposed to be going to the pub with the allotment gang (better work on those names). I am a bit nervous: we might talk about slugs and beans all night. Or it might be fun and to be honest it will do me good – the less I go out, the larger the inertia becomes. The fact that I am already thinking about it shows how out of practice I am: without practice it becomes more and more difficult to speak to people one doesn’t already know well.

I spotted this cow parsley looking all fresh and newly unfurled and spring-is-on-its-way-y at the allotment yesterday, so took some quick photos (just before I yanked it up by its roots and added it to the compost pile). Is this more evidence for global warming, I wonder (actually I have no clue when cow parsley is supposed to start flowering). Either way, I was glad I had waited until the last day of the holidays to get down there as I spent a glorious couple of hours in the sunshine: by the time I came home the plot was looking uncharacteristically neat.

I had a small dilemma: should I make the most of my child-free time to listen to my nice new Christmas ipod, or should I stay unplugged and enjoy the birdsong and whatnot. In the end I plugged myself in but compromised by keeping the volume low enough to hear the birds singing and the clock chiming, and listened to the wigglywigglers podcast to keep it topical. I pulled the netting back over my purple-sprouting broccoli, which is starting to look pleasingly purple, and dug some Jerusalem artichokes for a gratin later in the week. I then started hefting about the bits of carpet we laid a year ago, to uncover what should now be weed-free (or at least relatively less weedy) ground and cover up the weediest bits again. I have some plans in progress, so if you are really interested watch this space. I also uncovered lots of slug eggs – left them out for Mr Robin – and an army* of frogs. I knew Cameron was bringing the girls down to visit so, once I’d realised there were 10 or more frogs in two colonies** under the edge of one of my carpets, I left it in place until they arrived, expecting them to be interested. Which they weren’t particularly (but Cameron and I were very interested indeed so I was glad he saw them).

*This is a proper collective noun for frogs, I checked.
**And this is another.

OK, I’d like some menu ideas please. I have post-Christmas catering fatigue (we had takeaway for New Year and have been eating “simply” since – unagi for tea tonight, which just needs to be put in a bowl of boiling water. Yum.): I don’t want to make anything that requires effort; I don’t especially want meat; I don’t particularly want to have to go and buy anything, but accept that I probably must. Maggie went back to preschool today and Cameron and I celebrated with a bacon and egg sandwich from the B&Q carpark, which really hit the spot.

Still quiet here. Cameron shampooed the carpets today, while I taxed and insured my car (woohoo) and shoe-horned toys into unyielding and over-full toyboxes. Tamsin is coming on really fast: having people around constantly has provided an adoring audience for her attempts to walk, spurring her on to longer and longer efforts. She really can walk well now, although crawling is still faster and therefore the default. We call her tornado Tamsin for her ability to rocket through the house leaving a trail of havoc and devastation.

Little other news. Am turning my mind once again to the allotment: this year’s plans are Bigger and Better (and hopefully More Realistic) – last year’s were hampered by Tamsin’s metamorphosis from sitting still and watching baby to marauding crawler just at prime planting season: next season she should be stomping about in wellies which, at least in theory, should be easier to work with. I’ve had carpet over the unused bits of land for a year, too, so they should (touch wood and cross fingers) be rather more weed-free and easier to plant in.

Lastly, we have discovered the Mighty Boosh. Why didn’t anyone tell us before?

If I was able to remember where I kept my allotment diary, I would note that on Friday 16th November I planted one of my three garlic bulbs. I put them in pots last year: they grew most successfully, liked it when they finally were planted out, seemed quite happy – but produced virtually no useable garlic at all. This year I am trying one half-row in the (cold, waterlogged) ground over winter, without very high hopes; I’ll put the other two bulbs out in the spring with fingers crossed.

I also have good intentions of planting broad beans to over-winter (but given that I haven’t done it yet this also may not happen).

A productive Saturday, though – not at the allotment but in the garden, which is now all tidied away for the winter. It looks uncharacteristically neat and the (one, small*) flowerbed is manured and everything. Maggie helped me plant tulips and I finally brought in the houseplants, which had been put out to get some air in about August but seem none the worse for a bit of frosting.

*digging out more beds and borders has been postponed again.

I feel like I’ve been accepted: I was invited to the allotment conservatory for coffee this morning. This sounds misleadingly posh – well we are in Cheshire darlings – where in actual fact it is some old lean-to that has been cobbled back together in the best allotment spirit. And a chocolate biscuit (a kitkat actually; I judged it best not to discuss the ethics of Nestle if I was to be invited back. And I secretly enjoy a kitkat as long as I haven’t paid for it).

My PSB is looking gorgeous and we are entering the time of year when I am convinced I’ll stay on top of it all next time. I have Plans (they’re multiplying). Next summer is bound to be less wet and T will be walking (I haven’t been able to take her for several months even if it hadn’t been raining: it’s one thing taking a stationary baby who will sit on a mat and play*, or a toddler who can run about in wellies, but quite another to contemplate taking a crawler) and I’ll just be able to get loads done. I got a good weedy bit (three barrowloads) cleared today while she snoozed in the car, ready for garlic, I think, or broad beans.

Good not to be too excessively tidy anyway – a bonus today when the “brambles” I have been eyeing with intent for, ooh, about a year now turned out to be raspberries! How fantastic is that. Only 4 berries, but that is 4 berries I hadn’t planned for.

In other allotmenty recycley news, I appear to have inadvertantly acquired 17 demijohns. Anybody want one?

*In theory.

Every year, we make cider. We had two lovely apple trees at the last house and  – what luck! – we have two here (also we have a source of boxes and boxes of pears so we’ve recently been adding them to the mix. A kind of perry-cider combo). The best ever was a batch we thought had gone wrong but didn’t get away to throwing out before we moved to Japan. On our return, Cameron eventually decided to empty the demijohns that had stood undisturbed in the garage for all that time. As he was pouring it down the sink he though hmm, doesn’t smell too bad. We bravely tried a bit (expecting instant blindness and insanity to strike) and it was fantastic! Clear and sparkly and not too sweet.

This year, it has gone mad. There’s a vague fermenty smell to the entire house and the kitchen is full of plop-plop-plop mad-sciencey noises. Whether we* moved it from brewing bucket to demijohn before it was really ready to go, I don’t know (perhaps sitting on the underfloor-heated tiles in the kitchen has had some effect?) but every time we turn our back it escapes up through the traps and spreads over the table.

*When I say we, Cameron is i/c brewing.

Good

• Potatoes, beans (broad, french, runner), mixed salads, peas
• Jerusalem artichokes. About 15 foot high and just thinking about flowering (nobody seems to know whether this should be permitted but unpreventable without stilts). No idea what’s going on under the ground but they have certainly provided a talking point! Next year I must stake as I plant rather than trying to deal with 7-foot stems, and with something more sturdy than a bamboo cane and a bit of string.
• Slugs. What whoppers. Shame they are inedible.
• Frogs. Yay!

Bad

• The “two sisters” idea of planting beans in with the sweetcorn – maybe I have unusually vigorous beans/weedy sweetcorn but the former is pulling the latter to horizontal.
• Tomatoes (blight); courgettes and squash (slugs); carrots (didn’t germinate or, more likely, got eaten as soon as they did. I had some lovely if minute carrots in pots on the patio – 2″ max of pure carrotty yumminess – so I suppose something down the allotment munched them); garlic (rotted); spinach (bolted)
• Borlotti beans: only one plant made it. Darn slugs.

Intermediate

• Cucumbers: those fruits I got were fantastic but I never got around to potting the plants on from the 4″ pots they germinated in. Poor things died.
• Shallots: grew well, tasted good, shame they got drenched the day I harvested so mostly rotted.
• Sweetcorn: not ripe yet so the race is on. Could do with an indian summer, please. Brought two weeny cobs home yesterday because they were almost nearly sort of ripe if you squinted sideways at them, and they were excellent.

Next year

Raspberries, more herbs, a proper salad bed. Gooseberries? Flowers for cutting. Parsnips. More peas, sugarsnaps too. More muck and slug prevention. Squashes. Possibly asparagus. More time**. A shed, so I don’t have to cart all the kit about in my car. My own runner beans: I wasn’t going to grow them but Dave down the bottom had some spare plants which I found a home for. Feel a bit guilty because his beans drowned in the rain (he’s down the bottom) while mine thrived on it (up the top), so will buy my own seed next year.

*ha ha ha.
**any suggestions gratefully received.

My poor little tomato plants have blight. My potatoes succumbed some time ago (though the actual tubers seem OK so far touch wood). Blight loves it warm and wet so I don’t expect to be the only one hit (expect chip prices to rise this autumn). My cucumbers are starting to show signs of powdery mildew, which scuppered my courgette crop last summer (it likes it hot and dry: we’ve had no rain for a mammoth 4 days).

Tomorrow I must go to the allotment and find something undiseased to cheer myself up.