A bit bloody late, these. Better than never, I guess.
It's difficult keeping an allotment blog honest. Airbrushing is horribly easy, and I confess I was tempted to, er, 'improve' these gherkins digitally. I'm ashamed to have such piffling ones in late July.
Anyone got any good cucumbers or gherkins yet?
Well, well. A small allotment triumph. The doomed courgette and its doomed companions have picked up – despite the fresh horse shit. This mini squash looks promising.
I'm never one to look on the gloomy side. As you know.
But on those few, rare-as-rocking-horse-shit occasions when I predict doom and disaster, it's not so terrible.
If things turn round, I'm pleasantly surprised. If not, so what?
Slow and painful progress with the courgette. I'm only growing the one (can't face the terrifying glut – I'm growing squashes instead), and it's coming on very slowly. Admittedly, I was late sowing. But courgettes are usually so keen to get cracking.
I fear I've upset it by planting in neat farmyard manure – barely composted. It may not relish this. I know I don't: the stink is outrageous.
If I do get a courgette this year, the wife probably won't let it in the house.
I'm SO bloody late this year!
These courgettes should be bursting at the seams, desperate to get out on the allotment. But they've barely germinated.
I have tons of peas to get out, and okra, and sweetcorn, and... and... and...
It's pathetic. What have I been doing with my time?
Who'd have thought shit could be so expensive?
This stuff is good, but it's £10 for four bags. They must be making a fortune.
Mental note: Business idea - bag and sell own shit. Strengths: Money for old turds. Weaknesses: Can wife and I produce enough? Will food costs increase? Opportunities: 'Soilman' brand acquires new significance. Threats: Cholera, E Coli
I got some free horse manure from a friend a few weeks ago, but I don't have a van – so I had to hire one. It's nuts, of course: Every stable in Britain is drowning in the stuff and under a legal obligation to dispose of it safely.
But will they deliver to allotments? Will they hell.
OK, enough of that. I've ranted enough this week already. Here's my last courgette of the year, gamely growing on a very mildewed plant:
You know the courgettes are well and truly over when powdery mildew appears. Mine had resisted pretty well until recently. There won't be any more fruits from this lot.
It's been a lousy year for cucurbits – for me, at any rate. Half my plants got a virus (the fruits were weirdly misshapen). The others were just never happy in the cold and rain.
Must admit to a thrill of guilty relief, though; we had so many bloody courgettes last year that I was ready to vomit at the mere sight of one. Thanks to this year's shortage, I'm actually looking forward to the 2008 crop.
The Lord truly moves in mysterious ways.
Gherkins I can take or leave (though I'd rather leave). My wife, on the other hand, is passionate about them. She can't help it. She's from Eastern Europe.
Even I can dimly see their attraction, however, when they're salted with dill. Russians snack on salted gherkins with vodka.
They're dead easy to make. Cut the ends off six or seven gherkins and bung them in a saucepan with lots of dill and six chopped cloves of garlic. Pour on 1.5 litres of boiling water with 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in it. Let it cool overnight, then refrigerate.
Voilà: home-salted gherkins. Leave them in the liquid and they''ll keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Today's harvest. Looks like it's going to be a grand year for cauliflowers. And the courgettes have pulled themselves together to produce a few fruits.
Which is nice. Shame my onions are so horrendous. Basically I've lost the crop. Will post a picture when I've finished mourning.
Sense of humour report: Am now past denial. Wrestling, instead, with impotent rage. I will find this weather funny, or die trying.
It's midsummer – you can tell from the weather. So I thought I should post some 'state of the union' pictures of the allotment. Just about every inch is now planted up or sown:
There are some salads at the front, too, but they're still very small. This is the view further back:
Behind the asparagus are the peas and onions:
There's a row of celeriac behind the onions. Leeks will soon replace the First Early spuds. And my winter brassicas will go in the gap left by the onions. Which I'll probably have to harvest soon, because downy mildew is knackering them.
The glut would start any minute... if the sun came out. But I'm beginning to suspect – aren't you? – that we're in for a traditional, old fashioned British summer.
In other words, an utterly shit one.
Oo-er. Take cover.
I wasn't psychologically prepared for this today. I don't normally see courgettes until July. Now I'll be sick of them a month earlier than usual.
Great.
Better news elsewhere. My peas, noshed by pigeons a few weeks ago, have recovered (left). And I've got another row in, so I should get successive crops.
The pea frame is a brilliant piece of kit. But note the mad netting I've had to build around it to keep the birds out. I know some of you titter at my netting obsession, but I garden under siege.
Call me paranoid. But they really ARE out to get me.
