I’ve very little to report at this stage of the year. Nothing much has changed since my post a month ago and in a sense that is a good thing. in this first picture you can see that my plot is largely occupied by growing plants of one sort or another. Most are cover crops, many are weeds and some are food crops. They are protecting the soil against the physical damage of rain, holding onto nutrients that would otherwise be leached out and by means of a low level of photosynthesis are supplying the heterotrophic soil biome with carbohydrates. I will clear them as I need ground to plant this year’s crops. Had the weather been colder, Phacelia, which is an important component of what you see here, would likely have been killed.
The clump of big leaved plants right of the tunnel are Echium pinniniana which have grown from seeds in material I ran through my shredder and spread on the plot. I will let them flower, assuming they survive the winter, then if I get masses of seedlings they can become a component of my cover crop mix; leafy even in winter and easily chopped off before they flower if I need the ground. They should be pretty ornamental in flower and will supply nectar to bees for several months. In the garden they have been among the plants most visited by bees.
In my fruit cage I see that I have big bud mite on my blackcurrants, especially on my one bush of Titania. I must look up the advice online for dealing with it, though I fear it will tell me to dig up and destroy all the bushes. How long before I can plant clean stock? Is there any point propagating from apparently healthy shoots on the bush? Can I replant blackcurrants in the same place? These are the questions I need answers to.
That’s it. We’re now into a new year and already I have seen one blog telling me which things I should be sowing in January. I will mostly ignore such advice, it being my experience that I can wait a couple of months and lose only a couple of weeks worth of earliness, while saving myself a great deal of trouble. I may try a couple of things though, as a small scale trial. Seed sowing is such a temptation.
garden ruminations 
My favourite parts of British gardening shows is when they visit allotments. We get some shows on BritBox, and others we have no choice to watch except for pirated episodes because the BBC won’t let us subscribe to watch iPlayer. I’d happily pay a license fee if it were an option! Anyway, your allotments are so much better than any of I have seen here on the west coast of the USA. Our version lacks the individual sheds, the long green paths between the hedges that outline the gardens, and the sheer size of the individual assigned garden areas. Ours tend to be open, with dull paths between boxed or otherwise outlined quite small garden beds. None of that rambling expansive and yet cozy feel that your allotments seem to have even in being cities. As always, it seems I was born in the wrong country!
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Haapy New Year 💚🌱 (If you want to sew something now, try field lettuce. Delicious on salon steak and easy to grow).
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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