I cut this vase of flowers on Sunday afternoon for my beloved, and we took the photo this morning (Tuesday 12 May). Both this delicately fragrant long-stemmed pink rose and the blue flag iris are growing along the railway path in the back patch and this year seems their best year yet. Wonderful!
Bumblebee in nasturtium, 11 May 2020
It’s been quite cool – with threats of morning frosts and daytime temperatures of 10 degrees or so. Which feels chilly after days in the 20s, but fairly sunny all the same – despite the strong gale force winds.
Between Sunday and Monday we had sustained winds of up to 40 miles an hour, and lots of branches have come down in the woods and the local open space.
The water repair continued and when we got to the plot our water trough was empty. So we had to lug all the water up from the bottom track again – but thank goodness the water was filling into the lower level troughs. Just lots more work for us.
So far we’ve not had any major frost damage – but it was probably coldest last night so today will tell the full tale.
The water stopped working at the plots. Major problem. Mains leak and issues with connections, which go back way outside the gates to the bottom of a main Hampstead road. Oh my!
Major problems – ‘specially since I used up some of our ’emergency’ supplies, thinking it was good to circulate the water and in any case it was room temperature so better for the seedlings.
The big guy was not pleased and threatens never to forgive me. Imagine that! Novice gardener now threatening lifetime grudges over a little spilt water for the plot. I begged forgiveness and promised that all the water had not been squandered on anything except the plants themselves.
(In these days of water wars and woes, it is not seemly for me to commence with my plans for a summer shower… which super-dude’s practically all set up as he built the brick platform earlier this week. The shower scene only requires a string or wire to hold a watering can over the brick standing area… I dream of the day!)
So we had to bring home some of our spare water bottles (formerly thought of as smaller cloches) to fill up with tap water to bring up with us tomorrow – just in case! Gardening can sometimes be hard work, and take it from us – there’s nothing heavier but more precious to have to carry than water. Pure, fresh, clean perfect water – so absolutely necessary for life in all its forms. Needless to say we’ve got no rain forecast for a while and the London drought continues.
For what it’s worth, despite news stories of flooding and excess ground water in other parts of the country, London and the South East has been going through dry spells and near to drought conditions for over a decade. Some years are worse than others, and when that happens there are hosepipe bans.
This April was the driest in years. According to the Met Weather office, “Rain in the last week of the month increased the rainfall totals in many places, but the UK overall still only received 40% of average April rainfall.”
Corresponding with the dryness, April 2020 was also “the sunniest April on record for the UK, according to a provisional analysis of the month’s climate statistics by the Met Office. All UK countries made it in the top five sunniest since records in a series from 1929.” See Press Release by Met Office, 1 May 2020)
Despite the water shortages, we had a couple of watering cans full from the day before, so there was no shortage for the seedlings and more tender plants on our plot – the seeded corn, the tiny sunflower, the broad beans, purple beans, courgette, tomatoes, peas in the pea bed….
They all got a light sprinkling of water, and in addition I was able to get some good work done in the shed. There were seedlings to plant out – so we have a second later growing plot of broad beans – set in behind the purple bean patch. I also planted in another four later seeded purple king plants, with some seeded on 11 April, and the later crop seeded on 23 April. This is another controlled experiment of sorts, so I’ll keep an eye on both sets of french bean plants to see if the ones started sooner do better, or worse.
In any case, we’ll have a staggered harvest of both broad beans and purple french beans, as is so recommended by gardening guides. I’ve also been trying to do the same thing with radish. (We shared between us one tiny little perfectly-formed radish about the size of the tip of my pinky finger. Though tiny it was tasty and crunchy. There are more like those to come. Yum!)
Nasturtium leaves and flowers can be eaten – make a flower wrap for an on-the-plot snack. Spicy and tasty!
We’re running out of growing space, and I was tempted not to plant them in, but then I had to remind myself that in June we’ll harvest the bottom patch presently full of garlic, and will therefore gain a big growing patch later in the season.
The six more mature broad bean seem to have some black fly started on them. Boo! I’ll have to remember to bring a spray unit that has a bit of soap in it to spray them tomorrow.
Might also spray on the loganberry, which is showing signs of shield bug in the vicinity. Bug life is great and biodiversity and all that and everything – except when it starts adversely effecting our crops!
Everything else is doing very well indeed – including the damask rose ‘Deep Secret’ which has positively exploded into bloom. The largest rose in this picture is larger than my outstretched, open hand. Awesome!
Things are also looking good in the back patch.
The flag iris are now in flower and are looking spectacular – even if the flower stalks are not as tall as they grew last summer…
Blueberry in process – berries swelling with some fading flower blossom still on the plant. (7 May 2020)
There’s debate that time is unreal. It is the element we live within, as if within an ambient environment, and yet when we turn to try to define it… we are as stumped today as was Augustine in his day. The big dude thinks it’s phenomenological – in other words, a construct of our own minds – the way we ‘bracket’ our experience. But quantum physics begs to differ, and has time as the fourth dimension – a reality that exists beyond and without us.
There are times and times – days and weeks and seasons. Years and generations. Eras and epochs. And then there are the little drops of time: the moments which linger for an eternity, fresh forever in our mind’s eye, and yet in their duration were mere minutes – minutes that can stamp a person’s life for all time – of all of their own lifetime.
Coronavirus challenges us – each and every one, all over the world, in all our various situations and lifestyles – how to measure time. There’s a nice song I recall that has a line about measuring hours with teaspoons… Some people working from home during the pandemic are measuring time with clothes: working means socks-on, not working-time means socks-off. Others mark time with alcohol, with the day carved into a timetable consisting of time for tea and the time for tipples, which in truth is a slippier kind of practice.
So how about measuring time by growth in plant-life? Just check out what a difference two weeks makes! The first photograph shows the artichoke growth from mid-April.
Malink in the artichokes, 16 April 2020.
The second, with the artichoke clearly growing well above the fence-line, was taken at the start of May. Oh my! How those artichokes grow! They’ve clearly done more than double in size in a mere two weeks.
Malink in artichokes, 4 May 2020.
Artichoke, mid-April 2020.
We used to be able to look down and take a photograph of the top artichoke by looking down with the camera, as was the case with the photograph to the left. Now, to get a similar picture, the photographer would have to be at least nine feet tall! Or standing on a tall ladder…
With growth this fast and steady, the day of our artichoke feast approaches. We thought we’d do it on the anniversary of my brother’s visit last year, when he did the cooking of the artichokes and I made a simple lovage and flat leafed parsley risotto. It was an awesome and highly memorable evening meal.
Lovage is a perennial garden herb which I absolutely adore, and there are two good sized plants growing just to the right of the artichoke, so making a joint feast of these two garden plot neighbours particularly fitting. Lovage is very powerful and aromatic – somewhat like a combined flat leaf parsley and celery. It is sometimes considered like a wild celery, which to my mind is a little off the mark. In any case, it’s powerful and should be used sparingly for best results.
Regular trimming of the plant encourages young growth. I often cut lovage and have it in a vase of water as a touch of green in the kitchen, but use very little of it (I do the same with mint). Nevermind: vases full of lovage adds colour and scent to the kitchen, and leaves can be torn off from and added in small amounts to things like egg dishes (omelettes and scrambled eggs with onion, for example). Lovage also adds a certain je ne sais quoi to stir fries of allotment-fresh Swiss chard and spinach. The stuff you don’t use (which admittedly is most of the vase full of greenery) makes a good contribution to the compost heap, and I’m pretty sure the worms love lovage just as much as I do.
The roses are coming into colour. The damask rose is already in full bloom. With the heat of the sun the scent of these gorgeous long-stemmed red roses is positively intoxicating!
The smaller hot pink rose at the top corner of our terrace (just to the edge of the newt pond) is showing licks of colour.
And in the back patch, the whole back fence will soon be awash with white rambling rose. The rambling rose seems this year to have a little powedery mildew, but hopefully this will not effect the flowering and I’ll give the whole thing a huge trim down once the flowers fade. (Rambling roses tend to only bloom once a season, and deadheading does not result in return of flowers.)
In the perennial bed that runs along the railway path the strangely mauve roses donated by Jo & Paddy has been in bloom for at least a week. As the photo below shows, it’s a fairly psychedelic looking rose.
Mauve roses from the back patch.
And so it is as in much else in life that each rose is unique and has its own properties and habits. Although we love roses generally, not all roses are equal.
Yes, there are definitely favourites – particularly the ‘Deep Secret’ Damask.
And in particular I am very fond of yellow blooming roses – the bigger and blousier the better! There’s a very mature yellow flowering rose that drapes over from a backgarden in the back-patch – a welcome addition of colour and scent to the side of the huge cherry tree (shown in the photo below).
Over the coming days and weeks we’ll try to document the blooms from all the various roses in our diverse growing patches as they come into bloom.
Yellow rose in back patch.
Pink rose at top corner of allotment. Came into bloom 7 May 2020.
Young starling in the apple tree.
Although the mornings and evenings are cool in this first week of May, the days are returning to heat. We continue to live a little in fear of frost – which would wipe out our courgette and tomato planted into the garden already – but we live, as always, with wild hopes.
It was hot yesterday, and only a little digging to rescue some of H’s strawberries and replant them in a weed-free bed raised a sweat.
The plot abounded with life. We spotted a juvenile starling, iridescent in the sun, flitting somewhat awkwardly among the plum and apple trees, picking at bugs around the finished blossom.
There were light blue tiny birds that flew like fighter jets, as well as blackbird and of course, our very cheeky Robin.
Butterfly in camouflage. (May 2020)
Something that caught the big guy’s eyes was this totally camouflaged butterfly, which took refuge in the jasmine. We checked online and think this is a Brimstone butterfly.
Everything seems to be growing well. The perpetual spinach that I direct seeded (to the end of the patch by the red rose arbour) are coming up.
Our winter spinach and swiss chard beds are starting to bolt so that’s soon the end of those crops – but just as well as we’re quickly running out of space for growing!
The broad bean bed is doing well and some very late arrivals are showing above ground which had been direct seeded in. So we will in the end have all six plants that I seeded into the bed, which has been inter-planted with some sunflower, for colour and height.
Spot the winged beast!
The other bean bed, holding 3 plants of Purple King french beans, are doing well and are kept covered in water bottle cloches to protect them from cool nights.
The pea bed in front of our shack has been a bit disappointing but there is one single plant showing itself, which I’ve also covered for cool nights. I’ll have to try more pea plants. I had some in seed pots in the shack but there’s no sign of success there. I’m starting to think those pressed paper pots are not good to use as they tend to attract mold, which damps off the plants. As controversial as this sounds, I’m going to prefer growing with plastic trays in future – ensuring to recycle and re-use, of course!
Male Orange Tipped Butterfly on Herb Robert (wild geranium) 6 May 2020
Corn plants, seeded in the shack, have also been planted into the beds, again interplanted with sunflower.
I’ve never grown corn before – this is sweet corn. The big guy wanted us to grow our own popcorn, of which I’m fairly in favour as we LOVE our popcorn, but I’ve never seen seeds for this, so in the meanwhile we’ll have a go at growing sweet corn. R next to us grew corn two seasons ago with which he was terrifically disappointed, but hopefully we’ll have better luck.
The Fig Tree continues to swell, bud & come to leaf.
Other little tasks taken care of yesterday was to prick out the self-seeded yellow flowering calendula from the cauliflower patch – which I transplanted in part along the front of the raised strawberry bed, to soften the line of the path, and in part onto H’s side – to keep his rescued strawberry plants company.
I had wanted to start more seeds for the shack – but didn’t get around to it as we had to dash back home mid-afternoon in time for me to shadow a staff briefing. Even though we’re furloughed I’m trying hard to keep up-to-date with work-news so as not to be completely out of the loop when we finally return out of the London lockdown.
Robin in the roses. (4 May 2020)
Life abounds in a dizzying degree of diversity. As usual, the robin rules the roost – and yesterday dive bombed me upon arrival, so close I could feel the swoosh of wind as it flew past my head.
Maybe Robin’s testing the limits of visual reality, now that Felicity’s on guard? Who knows what a bird thinks, but this bird is definitely crafty, full of self-possession and lacks the timidity of other of nature’s beasts.
This photo has Robin holding court, with the ever-flowering cyclamen still in bloom (came into flower way back in early February!), and visible in the thick growth of the damask rose is a red rose bud coming into flower.
Felicity had a bit of a wardrobe make-over. We switched the denim-styled cowboy shirt for a black & white striped jersey cardigan, complete with red hand-blocked scarf from India and a necklace of red stained mother of pearl shell buttons.
All the better to catch the breeze and add a bit of motion to her otherwise still and steady observance.
We checked the seeds in the growing shed but there’s not much sign of life in any of that. One little pea shoot was showing itself that I’d seeded straight into the new pea bed, so I have hopes for that one.
Two of the cauliflower plants – the ones I planted in with the giant garlic – have been devastated by slugs or snails. So it was very interesting on our way out for Fiona – a bottom allotmenteer – showed us the success of her beer traps for slugs. She had two shallow dishes with beer, and each had about a dozen slugs who had drunk themselves to an intoxicated final ‘sleep.’ We are going to have to try that. Of course this is a trick I’d heard of before (and from long ago) but I’d never seen it used so effectively. Watch out slugs! We’ve got tasty beers for you!
Honeybee on a white borage flower (4 May 2020)
I pre-planted two of the beefsteak tomatoes into the plot – dug a trench and submerged the pots below ground, and then covered with a large plastic tub. A half-way house for ‘hardening off’ kind of thing.
I also left one of the potted tumbling yellow tomato uncovered, as they’ve been potted and have been given cover for at least a week now. As there are two matched yellow tomato plants in pots of about equal size, this is a good controlled experiment of sorts. On verra!
Bug life on the patch. (4 May 2020)
I also planted the second store-bought courgette plant into a larger pot – it had been moved and covered a few days prior, but not repotted.
Hopefully the nights are not too cold for them, but it has been chilly in the evenings – colder than it was mid-April. Brrrr!
This little insect is a master of camouflage. Could be a type of moth? We checked the Butterfly identification website and the closest we could find was a female Scarce Tortoiseshell butterfly… We think…
Life is also abundant and various in the pond. The big guy got a shot of the myriad of wrigglers and larvae in the water – which are fodder for the bigger forms of life, like the voracious mouths of the tadpoles. Again, we watch in wonder but aren’t sure what we’re seeing. Some may be mosquitoes hatching.. Others could be the water-living start of damsel and dragonflies.. What we are sure of is that there are millions of them, and that they’re being devoured by the tadpoles.
Resting tadpoles (4 May 2020)
Don’t let their round cuteness fool you – these tadpole hunt like sharks, and are ferocious in their own little way. Some of these tadpoles are likely to be toads. But others among them may well be the tadpoles from our palmate newt. Newt tadpoles develop front legs first – the toad and frog tadpoles will develop back legs first. So we’re keeping an eye on their tails. But no signs of limbs on any of them yet – front or back. Right now they’re all heads and tails.
Fox on tracks. (1 May 2020)
And speaking of tails, we’re able to identify one of the allotment foxes by his rat-thin mange-eated tail. Poor beast! He must be so itchy and scratchy!
Last spring we’d seen a haggard looking vixen who’d clearly been wrung out with the raising of her young. Not seen her this year – or any pups so far – but we did spot the lone young male with the naked tail slinking his way down the railway path last week.
This daytime photo is eery as there’s no signs of life on the Hampstead overground platform. There are still trains and haulage travelling on the lines, but far more infrequently than before the lockdown. And in the meantime the foxes, like the rest of the natural world, are enjoying exploring territory previously inaccessible because of the pervasive presence of humans. While there are none of us about, the wild world is stretching out and travelling farther.
Felicity through the rose arbour. (1 May 2020)
Introducing Felicity Fiacre, our new garden watch-woman. She’s there to guard the raspberry, gooseberry and vegetable beds.
She’s tucked into the spot where previously we had the bird bath (which has now been relocated to the very bottom corner of the patch).
During a big re-fit for a ‘new look’ in the big guy’s sport store last spring, the managers were planning to consign the mannequins to the rubbish. So he rescued her, knowing she still had a role to play and that there was a job opening for scarecrow at the allotment.
So there you go, Felicity’s a semi-retired mannequin, complete with garden hoe and growing basket.
Michelob gifted the woods with a new plant – cytisus praecox. Otherwise known as ‘Broom’. It’s spring flowering, with long bracts of buttery yellow blossom. To me it looks almost like a softer paler yellow non-prickly gorse. Like all spring flowers, it’s recommended as a plant for pollinators, which makes the big guy’s heart sing, being that he’s so over-the-moon enamoured with bees and other buzzy bugs and flying beasts.
Philosophising... 