Start of the season

Today was sunny and warm. It filled me with enthusiasm for the plot. I spent an hour digging over my raised beds and adding in some chicken manure. I also got on with sawing off branches and cutting back bushes and overgrowing ivy.

We had a visitor from a different allotment site who came to talk about composting. It was quite poorly attended and i didn't learn much that i didn't already know. I always feel good about meeting other plotholders and feeling part of the community so it was still worth while.

The optimistic gardener

Not much blogging this year. There wasn't much growing, at least nothing that the slugs didn't beat me to. There were a few dramas though. The guy who was annoying me and had gone told where to go, the break in when a hut was burned down and the chickens let loose. A fairly miserable year to have an allotment in Queen's Park. Still, ever optimistic for next year, I've raked up the leaves and put them on the raised beds as a mulch so it will be ready for next year and I've ready to go to war with the slugs. Slug inns and oat bran at the ready!

Rhubarb muffins

As always, the first thing ready to eat this year was the rhubarb.

For a change from the usual crumble I baked rhubarb muffins.

I used this recipe: http://purelyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/best-blueberry-muffin-recipe.html and just substituted blueberries for rhubarb. Turned out well.

My Artichoke

Last Autumn, my allotment neighbour gave me a cutting from her globe artichoke plant.

I'm now obsessed with its size. Hers is a very large bushy plant and while I wasn't expecting to get a crop from it at least till next year I was still hoping for it to be more than just these three leaves.

Unfortunately she is not mine

but isn't she lovely?

Catching Up

Although it's been a while since I wrote about it. I have actually been working on the plot.


Over winter I started clearing out the blackcurrant bush at the side of the plot as it has got pretty wild. I've still got a bit to tackle next winter, just now I'm letting it fruit.

The weedy gap i the middle is the bit that has been cleared so far.

I now have even more to weed though. yuck!

I'm not sure what the plant that is growing wildly on the right is but it covers up an old shed that a plot holder from the past had.

It might be quite exciting when I get round to clearing that out.

No one likes weeding I'm sure but with my soil it's just removing huge layers of soil as the roots and grass are so stuck in it and the soil is so dense. I wish I had the    means to put raised beds in at a faster rate than I am just now. They make so much difference.

my accidental kiln.

After  had cut down this bit of bush I had a lot of wood to burn. It took several attempts to get a good fire going but I discovered that burning the old broken bench (varnished) got a good fire going. When I next visited the plot it was clear just how high the clay content of my soil is when I saw the colour of the earth round where the fire had been.

The 9 1 1

I got the gossip on the letter today.


It was, as I suspected, our allotment misogynist that was to blame. Apparently it's been brewing for a while. He tends to pick women who have the allotments to themselves, of which there are quite a few up in my corner of the allotments. He starts off helpful then takes over. He turns nasty when people say he's to stop. He doesn't take hints so you have to be quite forceful.

I think what happened was that some women complained about him to the secretary (who knew already but had done nothing to stop him) then this guy complained about the secretary keeping chickens and claimed that they were mistreated. SSPCA investigated and said they were in good condition, and that they were being used for commercial gain (against the allotment rules).

This guy has at least two plots of his own which he doesn't maintain, he's been threatened to get kicked off one and this is when he complained, I hear with the help of some buddies who don't even have plots.

Today I also hear that he no longer is allowed to work in schools (I knew this already but didn't know the reason) because of his behaviour to female staff including pinning another teacher up to a wall. Now he's quite an old man but he used to body build.

He's also in the BNP - he tells everyone. I've not seen the guy for ages but I'm told since all this started back in the summer he's been seen quite rarely and it was once with a known paedophile and once with two EDL members. It's like I'm gardening in the ghetto.