Soilman's Allotment Blog

Weeding hell

Weeding vegetables on an allotment in midsummer

Look on my works... and despair

 

A day off work yesterday coincided with some reasonable weather, so I got digging again.

Couch grass is the spawn of Satan, isn't it? If I even go near the stuff, I smell sulphur. As I was hacking out those ghastly long, white roots, I mused on the purpose of couch.

Why's it here? Who benefits? What's it for?

Got no answers, of course. But as I dug, the last lines of Ozymandias kept playing on my internal jukebox:

Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Couldn't figure out why my unconscious had latched on to this. Then I realised what was bothering me. 

Shelley was writing bollocks. Desert or no desert... there must have been some couch.

Mucking out

I love the smell of horse shit in the morning...

Back down to earth

Looking back over recent posts, I realise I've painted a rather glamorous picture of my allotment gardening.

I appear to have been swanning about in Neronian style, gambolling through acres of gorgeous flowers, pausing only to harvest some delicious morsel and carelessly scoff it in situ.

Er, I don't know quite how to break this news: There is some hard work, too. Occasionally.

To balance things a bit, here's a summary of my hour's back-breaking weeding this morning. Bet you wish you were there.

Drooling in anticipation

The corn is just days away. Scoffed the first cob last night, raw, and it was almost perfect. Another week, at most, and we'll be gorging ourselves.

Less good news is that I've lost control of the weeds in parts of the plot. All this rain has kept me away, and they've gone critical.

This little creep, in particular, winds me right up. I think it's called Good King Henry, although I've seen the name Goose-foot, too. Anyone know better?

Anyway, whatever. It grows like a bastard and pops up everywhere. If the rain ever stops, I'll be massacring acres of it this weekend.

It's a mare

Marestail's back. Actually, it's been back for a few weeks. But only now is it starting to really get under my skin.

This Jurassic weed is an allotment Terminator. It can't be reasoned with. It can't be bargained with. It feels no pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop – ever – until you are dead.

You can't kill marestail. You really can't. I've tried everything, including some chemical preparations I blush to recall. I've had to learn to live with it. It creeps evilly around my plot like the poisonous, infirm parent in the granny flat.

Everyone's got a theory about how to kill it. Some even know how to kill it. But they're all certifiable. Here's a recent conversation with a fellow allotmenteer:

Him: "See you've got horsetail, then."
Me: "Yes, it's a bugger isn't it?"
Him: "If you keep pulling it out, it takes five years to eradicate."
Me, brightening: "So there's hope then. How long you had your plot?"
Him: "22 years."
Me: "So you've got rid of yours, then?"
Him, confidently: "Yup. Hoed the last bit yesterday."