The allotment is looking more respectable at the moment. Most of the weeds have been re-cleared, and our runner beans are almost as good as everyone else’s. They’re not my favourite bean, particularly, so I have been giving a lot away; this afternoon I traded some for a bag of bright red apples from one of the neighbours.
We spent half an hour or so down there today. Pete dug up some of the maincrop potatoes (Cara, if I recall correctly). The yield seems much lower than the Pentland Javelin, and they’re not as pretty. He also turned the compost, and it looks fantastic! There was real compost at the bottom of the heap; I was most impressed. I watered everything, especially the poor plants that are stuck at the back under the trees, like the wimpy calabrese and the jerusalem artichokes (not that the j-chokes seem to be suffering). Bernard stole some peapods, interfered with the neighbour’s row markers, and dropped White Cat in the mud.
We have acquired a cold frame, so now need some thoughts on what to do with it. And we are thinking about where to place Bernard’s personal plot for next year, and what to put in it to keep him quiet while we battle with the weeds.
Bernard plot: for Tom’s portion of our allotment, we plan easy-and-quick things from seed, mostly of the flowering variety (not least because they give a longer and more colourful season). So, Calendula, Love-in-the-Mist and the inevitable sunflowers. But we will add some edibles too, probably Nasturtium (pretty and salad fodder) and radishes (not sure Tom will like, but easy and rewarding to grow). We will probably also have some carrots, because that’s what Miffy grows. A potato or two is a good idea too – I used to be amazed that you can plant a bit of peel and it grows into a whole plant with lots of spuds and there are good count-the-spuds maths exercises to be had. You can also have Bernard vs Daddy potato growing competitions (the person with the most spuds on a root wins a double helping of something).
For your cold frame, I suggest some late radishes and late lettuces – both will be ready when supermarkets are offering expensive/imported versions.