ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
I’m in the middle of reading James Rebanks’ ‘English Pastoral'. A chapter back he was expressing a concept which struck me as particularly insightful. “the field” he says, “is the base layer on which our entire civilisation is built”. It is not a natural thing, it has been created by land clearance, perhaps thousands of…
Eight months ago I spread the compost from my heaps onto my allotment and resolved not to make any more. I would simply shred everything that came my way and spread it back on the ground. I wrote a blog about it at the time. It seemed a slightly radical course to take and I…
We have finally had a decent drop of rain, accompanied by quite strong winds. I don't know what I will find when I next go up to my plot, likely a mix of reinvigorated growth and devastation. Once past midsummer a sense of running downhill slowly settles in, with more crops being removed than sown…
You can't say it's not topical. I just potted on some of my tomatoes from 10 litre pots into 20’s. I should probably have done all of them, but I thought if I did alternate plants, then stopped the ones in the smaller pots while letting the others grow on, it should even itself out.…
The weather has been settled for a week or two, so I'm more or less up to date on where I want to be on my plot. Peas, potatoes and parsnips are the only things I've sown directly on the plot, everything else has been raised under glass and planted out. Peas and potatoes are…
I read allotment blogs out of curiosity about what other people are up to rather than to learn how to do things. Now and then an idea will come up that I will try out but on the whole I have found ways that work for me and am reluctant to depart from them. This…
I’m into my fifth year of recording seed sowing dates for both veg and flowers. It gets a bit more patchy at the pricking off stage and worse still for planting out. I thought it would tell me how far behind I am this year, but it actually tells me very little. It feels like…
I made a quick visit to my allotment earlier. The wind was slicing across the very open site and, seeing very little that needed doing urgently, I didn’t stay long. My leeks were a dismal failure; almost all of them produced flower stems. Sown too early seems to be the verdict. Spinach beet is OK,…
During the summer I was up to my plot at least every other day, now it's more like every other week. Such crops as I have still standing seem to include several that have not covered themselves in glory this year, rusty leeks, piddling little parsnips, moth eaten spinach. Cauli's were not bad, but you…
In a few days time I shall be 65. Digging is either good exercise or hard work, depending on your perspective. Mine is that it is hard work and getting harder, so it seems to me that if I can get results as good without digging as with, why would I dig. Like many people,…
garden ruminations 