Moving Swiftly On

The achocha is very pretty but it's not produced a lot yet and a good puff of wind will have the whole lot over if we don't put a bit more support in.

These are grass peas from Italy, an experiment. You let them dry and treat like chick peas.

These are fingers from Scotland. You put them on a Celtic harp and they produce utter magic. But who's are they? The give away is below.

Fungus Talking

Autumns fingers creep over Clougha and finger the plot imatiently. Enough of early springs and late Summers 'it's my turn now'.

Gaze at our Big Brassica Bed. Doomed, all doomed. What a bummer!

A sniggering laugh from the shadows
'you bet they are'

In the gloom twixt shed and greenhouse a fleeting movement

'You're Clubroot aren't you, why don't you just fuck off and leave us alone'?

'That's not my real name', the shape drifts back.

'Oh, I know your real name and I know (spit) your pH and I almost saw you then'.

'Oh yeah! What do I look like then'?

'Sort of a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and that big eejit in Little Britain'.

Clubroot grunts, irritated now. 'Hmmphh, well I'm stopping anyway and this Globular Warming will help me nicely thank you....think I might just spread out a bit too'.

'It's Global Warming idiot and don't even think about it or I'll push your pH up to 8...maybe even 9 and starve you to death'.

'Globular Smobular whatever. I don't starve easily and where are you going to get your brassicas from then'?

'Sainsbury's'

'Oh, that'll be satisfying won't it', Clubroot sarcastic now.

A shed plank whacks Clubroot where it hurts.....'OUCH'!

'Thanks Shed'

'No Problem'

Twilight deepens and children gather to play hide and seek on the allotments, careless like the fairies from the bottom of yer garden.

Tangled Up In Red

The camera had not crossed the event horizon after all. It turned up down in the cellar in the side pocket of a rarely used rucksack. No one knows how it got there or no one is telling.

Because we did not pick out the side shoots the tomatoes are now in fall me down tangled up mode and we can't risk raising them coz the stems will just break. However incompetent it all looks it will give the other plotholders a good laugh and there will still be masses to harvest. The spare plants we had after filling the greenhouse were put outside and they too are very productive.

Big Brother

While we've been away the eejits at work have clearly been misbehaving as the powers that be have now limited network access to a variety of internet sites on the grounds that too many staff are wasting time and bandwidth and hampering legitimate work related net access. The list of sites blocked includes:-
Online auctions Online gaming Pet sites Sports sites Sites kids often waste time on Sites about and selling clothing Sites about going on holiday Webmail sites Big brother.

Clearly then allotmenteering is not one of those categories people 'waste' time on and I may possibly be the only one who looks at these sites. You may think well why aren't you working instead of reading the muppet or mildew or horticultural or whotever. Well quite. In my defense all I can say is that I'm often at work till 11 at night when other network users are either tucked up safely in bed or in the pub and a large part of my job involves waiting for mayhem or chaos to break out and then dealing with it when it does. If nothing happens then nothing happens and so I may kill some time on finding out what killed my garlic. On the downside of this new regime is that they have also blocked pictures displaying so all I can get is your words of wisdom but not browse the often beautiful photography that goes with it.

Oh yes and that brings me to another whinge for the day. I have turned the house upside down and my camera has just vanished into a black hole or has at least crossed the event horizon and it's beginning to look like it's gone forever. I will send a jar of our finest preserve to anyone that comes up with the correct wacky location for my errant camera.

Blighty

Back home now and the plot looks good but since I seem to have lost the camera d'oh I can't put a picture up. We didn't pick out the tomato side shoots enough and the weight of fruit is now pulling some of them over. Everything else seems to be doing OK so there must've been a fair bit of rain over the last fortnight while we we're galavanting in Portugal.

I notice BBC News Magazine are running an allotment article today.

The Festival was completely bonkers as ever with far far too many nights that stretched into mornings and a bunch of folk that really have to be seen to be believed. Instead of running dance workshops next year we are discussing running workshops on cricket and how to make a good cup of tea, both of which the Portuguese, despite being otherwise delightful, are completely clueless about.

Ovar & Out

Gotta leave the wide atlantic rollers of Ovar and head inland now to Carvalhais. Itś too steamy so we are going to be extravagant and take a taxi there which will set us back 80 euros but given the distance that aint too bad and it would be a complicated journey by public buses and mega exhausting in this heat. Feeling a bit stronger now and more up to playing 3 two hour long sets + workshops in between. May not have access to a computer there so this may be the last post for a week or so.

Ovar the Rainbow

We are in Ovar just south of Porto for a few days before heading inland to play at the Andancas festival for a week. If anything it is possibly a bit cooler here than it was in the UK but still pretty steamy. Not quite able to enjoy the moment though as stricken with a bout of bronchitis which is bad timing indeed. However it seems to be abating a little today and thank goodness I have four more days or so to get better before we have to play.

Reality Cheque

The night sky was full of the heat of the day and the promise of more with beautiful and indescribable colours, crimsons, violets, reds and others that have no name.

Peace is not a destination. A road map implies a destination and movement, both of which are false. Peace is like rain, it comes into being if the conditions are correct otherwise it cannot be. It never came from the barrel of a gun and never will. Peace also requires vulnerability and open hearts. This is why politicians and so called religious leaders can never bring it about. Both are enclosed within their unbreakable shells of opinion, ideology or faith. Their hearts are closed and hard. Children of any race or culture will play happily together; race, religion and political boundaries mean nothing to them at all. The conflict can never end until we have learned this lesson from them. It is not that they are bad teachers it is just that adults are too stupid for words.

Woke this morning to the sound of rain trickling and gurgling in the gutters and to fresher air and a cooling breeze so welcome after the last few days.

Carbon Dating

These are some of Ben's camping buddies.....they seem to be exploring the make-up potential of raw carbon.

They will go far.

Plum Duff

This plum tree is only a youngster and it flowered beautifully and set to fruit so heavily that we had to remove some to prevent the branches collapsing under their own weight.

Over the space of a month it has turned from a healthy specimin into the sorry state you see in the picture and the branches are dying from the bottom up. Anyone know what might be going on here?

Wildlife Garden

This is the wildlife garden and pond we have been working on at Ben's school. We ran a plant stall on Saturday during the school fete and Cathy worked up an activity which involved people walking round and identifying 10 of the plant species therein with plenty of clues to help them. A pleasing number of people took part also spending time reading the notices explaining what the wildlife garden was all about and looking at the childrens art work which we put up on posts round the pond. If they identified all the plants correctly they could choose a free plant from the stall.

The stall does not look so big in this pic but there were a fair few plants in there and the majority of them sold making the PTA about £75 which, if I have my way, they will spend on a half decent strimmer for the garden as the school does not possess one of it's own.




The pond viewing platform displayed some of the childrens artwork and other information.

I hope the display encourages the teachers to do some more work with the children in the wildlife area. It is a resource that more could be made of. Hopefully all the health and safety concerns have now all been met.

Can't blame the head really, it's a damnably litiginous world we live in now and they have to be careful coz if johnny gets post traumatic stress disorder from being croaked at by a frog, then someone is gonna have to Pay Compensation.


These blousy Livingstone Daisies did a good job attracting folk to the stall.

Such a hot weekend! And getting even hotter today. Spent all morning clodhopping; mostly hand weeding and ho hoeing. Stopped at noon and went home to cool off.

The white spider lilly Cathy sowed in the spring has flowered beautifully and now graces our bedroom windowsill. I needed to take it into the garden to get a decent shot of it. It leans out of it's pot at such a crazy angle that it is threatening to fall over.

Berry Good Morning

The garden seems to be holding its breath this morning. There is a hushed stillness over everything. Even the birds seem reluctant to break the silence and those that do seem shy of their own chatter. Other mornings they are full of exhuberance and vitality but not today. Today everything seems to be tapped into the well of power behind life and is drinking quietly, gratefully, together.

Religion is one of the most destructive and divisive forces known to mankind. Each would have us drink from their own branded well and so divide us and have us destroy one another; in the name of what?

Things are waking up now but the stillness and silence has been established and no amount of noise can break it. The redcurrants are positively dripping off the bush and the first rasberries are ripe and ready to pick. I feel a fruity breakfast coming on.

Midsummer Moments

The cooler weather and rain has been a blessing and is giving me a break from watering.

Most things are pretty much established now and are
growing well. The broad beans, tomatoes and sweetcorn look particularly fine and, touch wood, the dreaded black fly seems to be keeping a low profile for the moment.

I am pleased to say that most of the scurvy has cleared up now and I am able to get my hands mucky again though I have to be careful and smother them with emmolients to try to prevent it returning.

Today we be mostly 'arvesting strawberries and radish and lettuce and it do be so pleasing I am going to put them all in one sandwich and eat it neat so I am. Was getting very jealous of all the more southerly plotters who have been munching their own lettucees for weeks if not months now. The asparagus lettuce is very nice but I think my second sowing of it has been ruined as I left the seed tray out and it got thoroughly swamped by the rain.....der...should've sown it straight into the ground and that's the last of that seed I think. Oh well.

Was reading Seed News last night and I must confess I did not realise quite how much of a badness it was to use F1 Hybrid seeds. Now I have been shown the light, verily I vouchsafe unto thee, tho I be tempted 40 days and 40 nights, never again will I be seduced into such
wickedness no matter how tender, succulent, juicy, long, short, fat, hairy, smooth or disease resistant or damned cheap the product shall be amen..... three hail marys and four alfalfas.

When firms like Monsanto start taking over seed companies.....yech! tis time to revolt neh?
maybe long past time?

The eggs are from the very nice man further down the plots with the er....chickens. They were so warm and fresh and delicous but clearly they have been genetically engineered because they are making Ben's legs grow twice as fast as is normal for a seven year old.

After he'd stuffed me down the water barrel I thought it jolly decent of him to let me know that help was on the way and would be here in an hour or two and would I like a rocket sandwich to keep me going?

This Life

What IS this life so full of slog
I have not time to sit and blog?

.....nor even eat vanilla fudge graham
wafer clusters with cashews whatever they
are.

Cinebar

...What's this chap doing about at breakfast time (Cinebar moth - Tyria Jacobaeae)? He's supposed to be nocturnal.

Oh dear, that's why he's not camera shy...it seems his night time wanderings in between the sticks of restless beans are over for ever.

What a beauty he was. The black and gold caterpillars of cinebar were used to control ragwort which they love to munch.



Seems to me there are far far fewer butterflys and moths around than there should be for the time of year. Anyone else noticing this?

Some of our plant outs will not yet be deep rooted enough to cope without water in this heat and it looks set to continue into next week by which time I will have hoiked 50 zillion cans of water 30 metres. I should then be ready to take on Arnold Swartzenegg.......er and similar oiks. Who says allotmenteering isn't aerobic?

Moons nice tonight. Hope it's clear when it comes full. There something special about the midsummer full moon neh? Flower Moon, Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon, Hot Moon are other names it goes by.

Felix

Felix sunning himself on the rocks at the bottom of the garden. He's about to stick his head in the spiders web in the crevice.



"whatya lookin at wise guy - gemme a croaka-cola"

Boraging

Looking forward to these in a week or two with a nice single malt....I mean single cream.

The dreaded eczema has struck again and is doing a passable job of turning my hands into mincemeat. Just when I thought it was clearing up too. SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has put me on a dairy free regime to see if that helps.....What, no cheese...intolerable. Anyway we'll give it a go and if it doesn't work I'll just have to chop my hands off and garden with my teeth. SWMBO is doing sterling work keeping it all going and has caught up with the planting out of stuff and much else besides. I did manage a bit of trimming the grass and another sowing of lettuce and collected a pile of comfrey to make some smelly fertiliser. No sign of of parsnips whatsoever which were sown yonks ago. So who looks a dumb ass now after all the blurb on parsnips last month? D'oh. Maybe it was duff seed. I dunno.


Fossicking about with
a camera is relatively
painless and I like these of the bees
borageing about in a buzzy
sort of way.

Jingly Jangly Mornin

Haven't been clodhopping for a week now and expecting severe punishment....probably 40 lashes from the horsetail over a cold frame. Ouch!

I see no realistic chance of getting up there until next week either by which time I expect a jungle. That's just how life is sometimes. Herself has been up a few times to fly the flag and plant things out that desperately needed to get out. She also brought back some of the asparagus and psb which was unbelievably tender and delicious.


The Fete de la Mazurka at the weekend was great fun and we played two bals and various sessions for about 60 or so dancers. We tried out the lottery waltz set on them. It's a long set of waltz tunes starting in 3 time then respectively 5, 8, 11 and 18 time waltzes and the dancers have to change steps accordingly. The dancers did thin out a bit but a surprising number of them stayed the distance and one cheeky bugger even asked for the bonus waltz. I think we will have to write one in some totally stupid time sig which is impossible to dance.

Work has been complete bedlam this morning and I'm taking 5 to chill out for a bit. I took the pic of the aquilegia in our garden last week and I've put it on my workstation this morning to soothe the jangly nerves.

Show Me A Garden That's Bursting Into Life - (snow patrol)

it's my birthday today
i'm mumble something now (gulp)
this morning I had a dream
and it was like waking up
i'm glad i'm mumble something
coz when you're young
you can spread tears around
like a catherine wheel
spreads stars
and we have to grow up too
just like our seedlings do
happy birthday world

Ted's Bounty

Yesterdays rain was SO welcome it could only be regarded as liquid sunshine. The ground was looking so dry and parched. Today it is blowing fierce gale force winds and so far there are two casualties that I know of. One of those plastic covered greenhouse kits took flight from somewhere lower down the plots and, narrowly missing Jack and Tom's greenhouses, was arrested mid flight by Cathy and some other plot holders. The other casualty (sob) was my own cold frame whose top was flung back and the glass smashed. My own stupid fault really for leaving it propped open too much in such windy weather.

However, I missed all that fun as I was out collecting Ted's Bounty. Ted is in the process of downsizing his gardening operations and had lots of goodies to give away. We got three water barrels, two more compost bins, lots of trays and pots and propogaters and some bocking 14 comfrey plants yippee and loads of other useful bits and pieces. Our very grateful thanks to Ted and......if you're reading this tonight......one of the other plotholders is interested in the greenhouse frame and is going to ring you.

Everything seems to need doing at once now but we don't have a huge amount of time for as well as the usual work commitments we have to spend any spare time we can grab rehearsing to play at the Fete de la Mazurka on Friday & Saturday nights with a newish lineup that could really do with at least three more rehearsals but we have no chance of that. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be alright on the night. Herself is muttering meaningfully about needing a base flute now!