My Tiny Plot

Wow what a weekend! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the allotment was swimming with new people checking out their plot for the first time this year. Invariably, they would shake their heads and tut loudly, and curse the soil that mocked them with a brand new batch of weeds. Not so at mtp because the weeds are cleared (at last!). The couch grass is gone and the battlelines have been drawn. I must admit we got a few raised eyebrows regarding our proposed layout but hey…don’t forget mtp commandment number one ‘your plot must look pretty as well as
feed your tum.’

Couch grass is EVIL. Accept it…! It must be burnt, it must die, die, die, die, die, die. And then die some more. Couch grass die with all its family, its cousins, distant aunts, uncles, its nieces, nephews, and step-sisters (if it has any). Goodbye!

A wise man (David Hepworth) once said that you are always 25% worse than you think you are and your competition are always 25% better than you think they are. He was talking about magazines but I reckon you can apply that rule to just about anything you want. For example, at the end of the month I always have 25% less money in the bank than I think I have. Painting the living room always takes about 25% longer than you think it will. And… clearing one small allotment of couch grass infested manure takes roughly 25% more wheelbarrow loads to shift than you think it will. The under-gardener will get 25% more filthy than he anticipated and he’ll probably be 25% more knackered than he ought to be.

I have a problem, and the problem is this - I don’t like killing things! As head gardener at mtp I know it is my duty to rid the area of bugs, slugs, snails, grubs and caterpillars but I find it really hard to kill them. I was chatting to one of my neighbours the other day and casually pointed out that the Comfrey plants were attracting some prettyish caterpillars. Their reaction was to nonchalantly stamp on the bush thus squashing the black and yellow creatures into a pulpy mess. I was horrified (but said nothing of course). This picture is of the one singular caterpillar that survived. I felt I had betrayed an innocent animal, shopped him to the feds, revealled his hidding place when all he asked for was sanctuary on mtp.
Of course I might feel differently about this when my new found friends have eaten my lettuce crop overnight.

The weather was gorgeous this weekend - perfect gardening weather you might say, if a bit misty in the mornings as you can see here. Ryan and I were up at my tiny plot by 10am on Saturday and hard at work digging over the last of the lower beds. Then we made a start on the manure pile (which is riddled with couch grass like everything else on mtp). With the help of David’s wheelbarrow we made a good start on it. I also dug over the seed bed where the cold frame will go. And later on put some manure around the fruit bushes to protect them from the weed killer we’re about to unleash on the grassy bits next week. But what about being organic I hear you say! Hmm… I’m all for organic growing but err.. maybe once we’ve exterminated all the weeds, yeah? Met some more of the neighbours this week. Clive - who prefers chicken manure to horse and hates anyone stamping on his clean paths and Claire who laughs a lot.

The seeds that I planted in the propagator at the weekend are growing already (well some of them are). The cucumber seeds have shot up to an unhealthy three or four centimetres, and the tomatoes are just popping their heads up. No show from the aubergines yet but maybe they’re late starters. It’s the first time I’ve grown cucumbers so I’m not sure if it’s normal that they should be so big so soon. I guess we’ll see if they’re some kind of giant breed or not.

It’s only Tuesday and I can’t wait for the weekend to do more work on the allotment. Is that sad? Ryan’s getting excited too. I’ve decided to give over part of the fruit patch to a seed bed. There is already an area that looks like it might have been used for that. The plan is to buy a cold frame and use it to harden off young plants before they go into the ground. I had thought that it would be okay to grow cucumbers on the open plot but some posters on Allotments4all say not. So I’m taking their advice. This one seems pretty reasonable. It’s perspex, not glass, but then it’s hardwood and only costs £49. Obviously my favourite is this cedar frame but the lack of prices on this site makes me slightly suspicious that it may be out of my price range!

Here’s the plan. I’m not sure I’ve got enough room to do all of this in one year but I’ll have a go. There will be a lot of trial and error I think! In the second year bed one will move to bed two, and bed two will move to bed three - anyway you get the idea. At first I thought the beds should rotate in a clockwise movement but then I realised that the top half of the plot already has manure on it so the crops which like rich soil should be at the top (ie the potatoes and legumes). That’s why the beds don’t exactly ‘rotate’, if you see what I mean.

Seeds have arrived. Hooray! Planted some tomato, aubergine and cucumber seed and put them in the airing cupboard in a propagator. We’ll see if they germinate. Did lots of digging on the plot this week. Back-breaking work. Getting rid of the grass clumps is the hardest, Ryan did that bit. Meanwhile, I got on with some digging over and weeding at the top of the plot. We met one of the other plot holders, an older guy called David. He gave us lots of advice. He told us to burn our weeds and put the ash on the potato bed. He also told us that the fruit bushes are raspberries and gooseberries, which is great! AND he gave us six garlic plants. He was nice. He’s in the background of the shot here.

This week I discovered that my tiny plot is actually twice the size I thought it was. I thought our next door neighbour’s had a lot of fruit bushes that they weren’t looking after, but then I found that they are my fruit bushes! Ordered some seeds from www.alanromans.com - waiting for them to arrive. Laid out some early potatoes for chitting, and some red onions. Wasn’t sure what to do with the garlic so laid them out too. Cleared some more of the plot. I’ve been trying to find out what the weeds are on the plot. Searched online and found that they are couch - bad news - couch grass is EVIL. Every time you break up the roots it re-grows. We’ll have to pick it all out by hand - that may take some time.