High on a hill.

I've found I have a problem with one particular vegetable, and that's Broccoli.

I'll be the first to admit I’m not that successful at growing it. The pigeons devastate the young plants, then aphids get them later and even if they survive to maturity, they usually bolt.

But that's not the problem.

Broccoli also plays havoc with my digestive system, and produces enough wind to be a worry for those concerned about levels of methane getting into the atmosphere.

But that's not the problem either.

It raised its head the other day when Mrs Netall made a batch of broccoli soup, something  she does regularly, and which is usually delicious. Unfortunately on this one occasion it tasted really really strongly of broccoli, so much so that I thought the broccoli was off.

Now as all husband know, criticising their wife’s cooking is not for the faint hearted, but sometimes it has to be done and the best way is to use a little subtlety. I didn’t want to be blunt and say it was too strong, as she would have taken this as a slight on her culinary abilities and used me as target practice for her knife throwing skills.

So what could I say, and how could I say it ?

If the soup had been made of carrot, onion, leek, or any other of the thousands of vegetables that soup can be made of, there would have been absolutely no problem at all.

I could have simply said, “This soups delicious dear, but don’t you think it’s a little more carrot-y, (onion-y, leek-y) than  usual”, and hoped for the best.

But there lay my problem you see, because you just can’t do that with broccoli can you ! Have a go at saying broccoli-y, it sounds like you’re trying to bloody yodel!

So, all together now..."High on a hill there's a lonely goatherd...Broccoli-y, Broccoli-y, Broccoli-y-oo"

In the end I just kept quiet and ate it.

P.S.
As an after thought I think I'd better avoid celery and khorabi soup as well.

Getting a bit philosophical.

In Plato’s theory of Idealism, all objects have an idealised form. Take a table for example, there are many types of table but they all have similarities that make them tables, therefore it could be argued that there is a sort of  “tableness” belonging to them all.

So what about garden hoes, (as opposed to the one third of a Santa’s laugh type of hoes), do they have “hoeness” ? 

If they have, then it would seem that the gods have got the width bit wrong.

Because search as I may, all the ones I’ve found are  too narrow, and inadequate for my war of attrition against returning weeds in the recently cleared areas of the allotment.

Just days after clearing an area, the weeds, especially grass seedlings, are back and a 5 inch wide blade just isn’t big enough for the job.

So at the risk of upsetting all the Platonists out there I have created my own, with extra width, a sort of Superhoe you might say with a 20 inch blade. One push is now equal to 4 shoves with the old one.

Superhoe

Thankfully I have very light soil which lends itself to easy hoeing, and this is what the plot looked like last Friday after giving it a good going over with Superhoe.

The plot

The question is, does it still qualify as a hoe in the Platonic sense ? It has a handle and a blade, but it looks more like it should be used for cutting hay or something. 

If it doesn’t there’s not much I can do about it is there, so hey hoe I’ll just get on with the weeding then and not worry too much about it.

Doppleganger

I do admire all those brave bloggers out there who openly identify themselves on the internet, but unfortunately I’m not one of them. Being a shy person I hide behind a veil of anonymity on this blog, and all I dare give  is a shadowy image for a profile picture.

If you find this disappointing then I’m sorry, but I can assure you  I am real, and these are real happenings on and around a real allotment somewhere in North Yorkshire, England.

However, as a consolation I would like to offer a tantalising glimpse of what I actually look like, and a recent trip to the seaside town of Filey provided just that opportunity.

The day started with a walk through the formal gardens, that had endless bright but boring flower beds.

Then, like a shimmering oasis in a horticultural desert, I spotted an unusual flower bed on one of the grassed areas. Here, someone had created a miniature annual flower meadow full of impressionistic colour, that was a beauty to behold.

 

 

The insects thought so too.

We then strolled along the sea front and had a coffee in one of the cafes, whilst watching the  gulls harrying the holidaymakers. Alas our peace was shattered by a small boy at the next table, who much to his mother’s displeasure was jumping up and down on the said table and chucking his chips everywhere. So we moved on.

But what the hell has this got to do with what he looks like ? I hear you ask.

Well just round the next corner, we happened to pass a very famous television gardening personality who I think looks like a bit like me.

Was it Alan Tichmarsh, who’s waxwork model in Madame Tussauds has to have lipstick wiped off it twice a week? If only.

Or even that epitome of orgasmic organic fertility for some of the ladies, the mighty Monty Don ?

No kind people, it was neither of these, it was the wonderfully ebullient Christine Walkden, coming in the other direction.

Sorry I didn't get a picture, but she was off like a shot being pulled along by a very large dog.

The Battle Of Netall's Plot

“We shall fight amongst amongst the carrots, we shall fight in the cabbage patch and in the turnip beds, we shall fight on the paths, we shall never surrender.”

Before the Battle

 I don't wish to disparage Churchill’s famous speech in any way, but if he’d been an allotment holder, faced with the invasion of weeds that I have this year, he might well have said that.

As already mentioned, the house move and taming of a new garden has meant some neglect of the plot, and a few weeks back I decided to tackle it.

My plan for this year was to leave a large area fallow, and skim off the weeds as they appeared, but that idea soon went belly up as the more invasive weeds took hold, so I decided to strim it.

“It’s easy”, said the Son in law, as he handed me the machine he’d lent me, “ just press that and pull this, and Bob’s your uncle”.

I asked my  neighbour Bob if we were related when I got down to the plot, but he just looked blank and watched with mounting interest as I tackled the strimmer.

I followed the instructions religiously, checked petrol, set choke, and  pressed knob three times as instructed (stop giggling at the back there), but when I pulled the string, nothing happened. So I pulled again, more vigorously and prolonged this time, but still nothing. After about ten minutes of pulling and swearing, I gave up exhausted and sat on the bench.

All the while I could feel Bob’s eyes on me, and eventually he muttered, “If it’s owt like mine you’ve got to flick that red switch on’t top, to ON”.

What red switch ? The Son in Law never mentioned any red switch !  But he was right, on inspection there was one and it was in the OFF position !

Having now started at the first pull, it stalled straight away as it got hold of my trouser leg and worried it like a demented terrier, but eventually I was on my way.

After about an hour of attacking everything in sight I took stock, and although there was some effect it was not as much as I’d expected. There were weeds in that patch that would have withstood a flame thrower, never mind a strimmer.  The stalks of thistles stood laughing at my attempt to mow them down,  and I could see the couch grass re-growing as I stood there.

The enemy, Couch grass.

Also, I was covered from head to foot in flayed vegetable matter, and stinging from the pebble shrapnel being thrown up, that even had Bob ducking 20 yards away.

So I gave up and dug it all over instead, which took quite a few days.

The dead and dying

It was a long hard battle, but surveying the dead and dying enemy baking in the midday sun, I knew it was worth it in the end.

The Victor

A sad realisation.

Having a break from weeding the other day, my allotment neighbour Bob and I were discussing the quality of the manure he'd just had delivered, when our conversation was interrupted by another nearby plot holder sounding a bit irate.

It was Joan, who was brandishing her mobile phone and ranting something indecipherable, as she came briskly through my plot gate towards us. All I could make out was, “Bloody Farmers”!!!  She was reading what turned out to be a text from her daughter.

To put a bit flesh on the bones of this, fields of commercially grown potatoes surround our allotment site at the moment, and the Farmer has been spraying them regularly with a chemical against blight.

Joan it transpired, had found out what it was and after inhaling a lung full one day, which she swears has taken a decade off her life, had asked her daughter to look the substance up on the internet.

When she reached us, she read out a long list of ailments that you could expect to get if you came into contact with it, which was quite alarming. To a rising crescendo she finally told us in all seriousness that, “ it can also affect your fertility, you know “!

Now, at one stage in my life I would have been concerned about that, but seeing as all of us present were well past our sell by dates, with a combined age of about 190, it just seemed funny.

Bob sniggered, “Well that won’t bother any of us old buggers then, will it”. I sniggered along with him and Joan followed eventually as the penny dropped.

But as our laughter subsided, there was a bit of a silence for a while.

Then Joan replied sadly, “No, I don’t suppose it will anymore", and we all just sighed and went back to our weeding again.

  

Cotone-dis-aster

In my quest to tame our new garden, I decided to thin out an old Cotoneaster bush that had gone rampant and was restricting the light through the patio doors

It soon became clear that secateurs where inadequate for the job, and so I quickly progressed on to branch cutter, then  handsaw, finally  resorting to an electric fret-saw, such was the job.

As you can probably tell from this progression, in my enthusiasm, what had started as a simple thinning out exercise ended up being a full extraction.

However, I had an uneasy feeling whilst taking out this old bush, almost a premonition that something was going to happen. Was it going to get it’s own back on me for being so ruthless, another Karma experience. Also, doesn’t coton-e-aster rhyme with disaster, surely an omen? Yes I know some pronounce it coton-easter as in egg, but please allow me a little artistic licence.

All was going well until I came to deal with one particular branch that was thick and awkward, a bit like me according Mrs Netall, where the fret saw blade kept sticking. I found however, that if I used the fret-saw with one hand, not to be recommended by the way, whilst pressing down on the branch with the other, then the blade would cut freely.

There are times when you know you shouldn’t be doing something the way you are, and this was one of them.  Unexpectedly the branch suddenly gave, and as it travelled to the floor, I followed it, proving the laws of gravity.

“Oh Flipping Heck" (or words to that effect), I muttered as I fell, landing not on the nice soft lawn, oh no, but on the concrete patio to the side.

Let’s just say, I’m now of an age when I don’t bounce anymore and so fell quite heavily. Lying there, I had time to reflect on my stupidity, and wondered what I’d managed to chop off, but luckily the fret-saw had fallen away from me.

Eventually the revolving stars dissipated and I was about to shout for Mrs N to help me up, when I remembered  she was away for the day.

It was a bit of a struggle to get to my feet unaided admittedly, but at least her absence saved me from the usual ear bashing I get in similar circumstances, and those familiar words of hers “ So, just remind me what job you used to do”. Yes folks, I used to be a Health & Safety Manager !

Rambling On

I’m back, no excuses, so as Led Zeppelin would say let’s Ramble On !

Having moved house during the blog’s hiatus, I now have the responsibility for the upkeep of a fair sized garden as well as the allotment, and being more of a farmer than a gardener (as I explained here), it’s taking some coming to terms with.

I suppose you could call it a cottage garden, in that there are many beds of  “herbacious perennials”, as they say on Gardeners World, which I really don’t know much about. Here's a couple of shots from earlier in the year.

My inner control freak is telling me to just dig them up and replace them with something more manageable, like turf ! However I am resisting the urge, and just letting things be for this season, whilst I at least learn what things are.

As a consequence, the allotment, which has been a little neglected this past year, is getting a spring clean, in summer, to within an inch of its life. You can almost see the weeds cowering as I march down the plot with freshly sharpened hoe at the ready, passing my trusty leeks standing proudly to attention.     

As for the snails, that have been having a field day with the wet weather and my laziness of late,  weapons of molluscular destruction have had to be deployed, yes slug pellets. I’m reluctant to use them, but however many lettuce munchers I chuck into next doors plot, they never seem to diminish.

Talking to one of the old fellas, he tells me that they actually return home to the plot, “you know, like pigeons”, he said,  and that he’d actually done an experiment where he’d marked one with some nail varnish , took it a good distance from his plot, and within a day it had returned. 

Now that’s just weird, I mean, what the heck’s he doing with nail varnish down at the allotments !