ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
It has at least been mainly dry this week and my feelings of guilt at having spent most of December indoors finally got the better of me. I have been excusing my lack of engagement on my allotment on the grounds of it being too wet but this week I have dug out and spread…
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,…
Sowed Onion 'Liria' in seed tray, on prop bench at 25C. Pricked off Leeks 'Musselburgh' sown 5/2 into 4L pot. Will plant out when bigger. This was an early sowing, will do another soonish. Pricked off Tomato 'Sungold' into 9cm pots. In Sylvamix peat free with 2.5g/L CRF added. Back on window ledge. Up…
It being neither freezing nor raining I just spent a few hours weeding on my allotment. My plot is very weedy and I was reflecting on that unpalatable fact while I worked. Apart from brassicas and roots, I don't have much on the plot at this time of year, so there is a lot of…
It being September, almost the end of the growing season, it seems natural to take stock of how that growing season has gone. This has been my first year of not digging and my results have been sufficiently good to attract the attention of my neighbouring plotholders. My crops have on average been at least…
Another year, another back ache. But I'm warming to the no-dig theme and apart from endless shredding and humping compost about, not digging is easier. Before the winter last year I had covered most of my plot with vegetable matter of some description. I am very pleased to say that most of it has rotted away…
This year was my third season on my allotment, time that has passed with unseemly haste. I inherited a plot that had been pasture and had been badly ploughed before the first tenant took it on. A year later, when I started, they had done almost nothing and the grass and weeds had grown back…
garden ruminations 