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 !

And the winner is.

“Hellooo”, was his plaintive cry into the cold, dark and empty room, “is anybody still there”.

CLICK (that’s the light switch). Hmmm maybe not, they’ve all bu**ered off and I don’t blame them either.

Apologies for not having been around for a while, I’ve had a bit of blogstipation you could say. You know, when you sit there and don’t seem to have anything say. Then when I started to write, all that appeared on the screen was an endless stream of consonants, I think it was a touch of irritable vowel syndrome (sorry, but the old ones are the best).

The fact that I’ve hardly been down to the plot for a few weeks doesn’t help either, this being an allotment blog and all that, which left me a little bereft of things to write about.

However, not to worry, I made the effort to go down yesterday and take advantage of the lull between Wednesday’s monsoon, and today’s weather prediction that we may see a boat with animals on board floating past the window, some time during the day.

Now here’s a question for the boffins of this world. Why don’t  vegetables grow as vigorously, prolific and disease free as  common or garden weeds do? Can’t you get your ar**s into gear and do some transferences of genes or something?

I’ve only been away for a couple of weeks for God’s sake and the plot has turned into to a bloody rain forest of weeds !!!!. As I’ve mentioned before in these ramblings, I take great pride in keeping the place absolutely weed free, to the point some might say, that a psychiatrist could take a keen interest in my behaviour. So you can imagine my utter horror at the sight that greeted me.

For this session, my objective was to take down the runner beans and canes which had suffered in the recent winds, and were now all leaning over at precisely 45 degrees to the right as viewed from the shed.

It was difficult sticking to the task however, surrounded  by all this weed mayhem, and I kept wanting to just grab a hoe and start some serious decapitating. There was Groundsel and Shepherd’s Purse flowering everywhere and positively laughing at me, where’s that psychiatrist again. They wouldn’t have taken much sorting, but lurking amongst them were some real hard cases like Dandelion and Thistle, that would need digging out, so they all lived to see another day.

Eventually after about two hours, I succeeded in clearing the runners and canes and ended up with four bags of beans to bring home and dry out in the greenhouse, enough for my next years seed requirement and that of all other allotment holders within a 30 mile radius of where I live.

One thing of note that did happen last month, was my attendance at the monthly parish council meeting, to receive my certificate and gardening tokens for Best Kept Allotment 2010.

Admittedly I dillied and dallied about going, not being one for these sorts of things, and anyway, how would I cope with all that adulation and autograph signing. Well I needn’t have worried as all the real gardeners were called out before me, with their Firsts, Seconds, Thirds or Highly Commendeds in the open and closed garden sections, eight recipients in total. Some got to keep a silver cup for a whole year.

Eventually my name was called out as a sort of afterthought, and under the blaze of a digital flash I went up to get my reward. The presenter shook my hand as he handed me the certificate above (now proudly displayed on the fridge), and muttered something like “how the hell did you win it?” but which could have been, “well done on winning it”. He then went on to add “what a wonderful example of allotment keeping it was, with not a weed to be seen anywhere”.

If only he knew !

Give us a kiss.

Though I say it myself my beetroot are splendid again this year, and this is how I like it, on a freshly baked home made bread bun, deeelicious.

Don’t ask me why I have this success as I don’t do anything special to them, and use the cheapest of seeds that I can get hold of, Boltardy @ 49p a packet from our local cheap shop.

Maybe it’s the watering, as I do give them plenty on a regular basis when they are forming. Or could it be, (you organic disciples look away now please) the industrial strength ‘growmore’ I put on them.

Whatever it is, they have come great again, and it hadn’t gone un-noticed as I was about to find out.

No, not by the judges of the Best Allotment Competition, (have I told anyone yet that I’ve won it this year) but by the little old lady on one of the neighbouring plots.

I was down there the other day and had just picked a bunch of bonzers and a big swede to take home, when I heard her plaintive voice directed my way saying, “My beetroot haven’t done very well this year, have yours?”

Well I could hardly say no could I, standing there holding this great bunch, a couple of which that wouldn’t have looked out of place between the back legs of a prize bull.

“They ‘re actually very good”, I said, and seeing her longing look at the ones I was holding, I took the hint. ”Do you want some of mine”, I went on, holding them out to her.

“Oh how lovely, that’s very kind of you my dear”, she said, snatching them from my grasp accepting the offer with glee, “Can I give you kiss for them”.
 
Whaaat, a kiss !!!!!

Now here was a major problem, as I don’t do physical contact with relative strangers you see. Just going to the barbers brings me out in a cold sweat, and God help me if I ever have to see a proctologist.

Purleese, can’t we just shake hands and have done with it, I thought. But I could see her determination as she leant towards me puckering up, with a small dribble of saliva on her lips. The contortions of her mouth were so pronounced, as to put me at a serious risk of being hit by her flying dentures.

What was I to do, I thought?

Luckily she had her eyes tightly closed, and as she got closer and closer I panicked and put the swede I was holding where my cheek should have been.

Of course, I was disgusted with myself for my actions and must have been the same colour as the beetroot when she opened her eyes

I don’t think she noticed though, or if she did she didn’t say anything only that I needed a shave.

My flabber was gasted.

When I started my allotment it was with the intention of keeping costs to an absolute minimum, so that I could see a return for all those hours of labour put in. I wanted it to be in keeping with the old traditional allotment ethos. As a result, I have created a modest plot that is simple but efficient and though I may say it myself, is neat, well kept and stocked to full capacity.

However, I do admit that  I  look around at the plots of some of my neighbours with a touch of envy at times, green of course.

There are those that have taken out small bank loans to buy enough paving slabs to have perfect paths around their plots and between the beds. Whilst others have used their lottery winnings to purchase whole rain forests to make raised  beds.

Some have large new sheds, big enough to live in if their other halves ever kick them out, and made out of the best tongue and groove. Yes I have shed envy. They even have gutters and down pipes leading into not one, but two, water butts. How extravagant is that.

 One has a  lawned picnic area in front of a  shed adorned with beautiful hanging baskets, and a frame over the gate with a rambling rose growing up it. The family who have this plot come down in their droves at the weekend with petrol strimmers and rotovators whining away. They have it all spick and span in no time, and whilst I’m labouring away on my own with my trusty hoe cursing  the caterpillars, they’ll be cracking open the Stellas  at the picnic table and striking up the barbecue.

I sometimes wonder if growing vegetables has become a secondary function of their plots, the first being to impress the neighbours, and also, and more importantly I suspect, the judges of the Best Kept Allotment competition.

In contrast to all this, my paths are just plain trodden earth with  string to demarcate the individual growing beds. My humble shed was bought for the princely sum of £85, and had been reduced because there was a piece missing. It’s 6’x4’ and not big enough to swing a mouse around in it never mind a cat. I don’t have any manicured lawns or flowers, and the bench where I sit to eat my jam sandwiches is a simple plank of wood nailed onto two upright logs.Put it this way, they needed to have no fear of me winning the competition.

Anyway, I got home the other day to find a letter from the council on the doormat, and thinking it was an early bill for the rent, I opened it to see if they’d put it up.

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather, it was informing me with great pleasure that I am the winner of this years Best Kept Allotment in our parish!

Chuffin' eck, would you believe it !!!

The letter has also cordially invited me to the next parish council meeting in September to receive a whole £20’s worth of gardening vouchers and a certificate. I hope they don’t want me to make a speech !