Month: June 2019

A to B – missing out the glyphosate

Yesterday I posted a picture of the allotment looking eastwards across some vacant plots. If you take a look at that picture you’ll see that the weeds are now waist height, the bindweed is about to come into flower, along with willow herb, and the grasses are ripening their seed. Couch, bindweed and all the other suspects thrive here because the soil is good and bindweed in particular has more than one way of preserving itself, not least by roots growing over a metre down into the soil. Seeds can bide their time for years until favourable conditions come along.

But the next door allotment was in use until two seasons ago, when it was doused with glyphosate and lay there looking sick and yellow for the rest of the season. You can’t blame anyone taking on a new and overgrown plot for seeking out the easiest way of eradicating the weeds so they can start growing food. Those with plenty of patience might cover the ground with black plastic held down by stones or pallets and wait for a season for the weeds to die. The trouble is that this method is good for killing annual weeds, but the real baddies seem to laugh at it. The rotavator is a terrible idea because it just chops the couch and bindweed into little pieces, and every one becomes a new plant.

At this point, just as the desperate realization that this is going to be hard sinks in, along comes the bottle of glyphosate promising to do the job with not much more effort than pumping up the spray and taking a stroll through the weeds.  Spray it on, they say,  the weeds will die and the weedkiller will be inactive within a day of touching the soil. The trouble is, everything about that statement is wrong. Without venturing into the scientific evidence that long exposure can give you cancer, the watercourses and rivers are becoming polluted and it lasts for years not days –

Glyphosate doesn’t work very well

Trust me I’ve used it in the past, and although it kills annual weeds it doesn’t render their seeds infertile, and it doesn’t kill couch and bindweed either.  Of course it looks as if it’s worked as the leaves dessicate and turn yellow, but deep down where the rhizomes and roots live, they’re just taking a break until next season. It’s a con trick because you can’t use it once and enter for the best kept allotment award the next year, since next year the weeds will be back but they’ll be growing through your courgettes and lettuces which you won’t want to sacrifice by spraying again.

Tough though it may seem, the only way to deal with these weeds is to clear the site and then dig it, dig it again and again and then give it the treatment under the plastic and finally cover it with compost, cardboard, mulch or whatever.  Even no-diggers need to get the ground as clear as possible before they put the spades on ebay. It’s hard work but by the end of it you’ll know more about your soil than you ever thought possible, you’ll know how it’s affected by rain and drought, the names of the annual weeds and when the sun rises and sets on your patch from season to season. The worms will multiply and improve the soil, consuming organic material and turning it back into plant food. You’ll be able to grow things right from the outset as long as you remove every speck of root you find and dispose of it – not in the compost heap because it seems to survive there as well. Remember the old saying –

The farmer’s boot is the best fertilizer

  • and as Nietzsche said, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

This is what a cold front looks like

IMG_5484Just when we thought the rain had passed us by altogether and we’d gone up to the allotment to fix the straining wires for the cordon tomatoes, the sky turned threateningly black and we had to scarper for shelter in the shed.  The signs were all there as the cold front bore down on us. The temperature dropped by 10C since yesterday and the southerly winds moved south west bringing moisture laden clouds into cold air.  There was only one way to go, and it poured down.  We took our jackets and tops off – it’s easier to dry a T shirt – and we quickly finished and packed up.

I don’t usually show such unflattering pictures, but this one, looking east from the boundary of our allotments, shows the sky more clearly.  As you can see, our neighbouring allotments are unoccupied and a bit like weed factories. When the rosebay willow herb starts sharing its seeds I’ll go over it with a strimmer, but really we’re at the mercy of whatever comes our way.  And there’s the paradox and the dilemma of so-called “rewilding”. We can all see the point of it, but when push comes to shove we’d like all our weeds downwind of the prevailing SW wind; and continually weeding out rosebay and dandelion is a pain. On the other hand I was blessed with a beautiful sighting of a fox.  We looked at each other but so far as I could see there was no cuddly mutual recognition, our worlds were so utterly different, nd so we went our separate ways.

Ironically it felt as if the ‘hungry gap’ finished today with the rain.

We came home and I cooked spaghetti puttanesca using our own new season garlic, chillies and basil along with our own passata prepared in the autumn. We’ve been eating our own green salads for ages but somehow today, chopping a fat bulb of green garlic, it seemed different.  Praise be!

Rainy day job – minus rain

It’s like being stood-up.  The Potwell Inn allotment would be completely parched if it weren’t for the hand watering, and we’ve been quivering with excitment at the prospect of a week’s decent rain – supposedly beginning today. So we woke early, sniffed the air like badgers emerging from their holt, but there was none of what my promiscuous reading revealed last week as – “petrichor” – the smell of rain on hot earth. Plenty of other smells around though, not least from the kitchen which smelt almost Corsican first thing.  In fact the whole flat is infused with the scent of basil – which we grow a continuous supply of – tomato plants waiting for a break in the heat, and elderflowers. If you chucked in a couple of mouldy melons we’d be back on Cap Corse.

Three hours later at around noon, it started at last, thank goodness, but the weather chart shows the weather front moving northwards with us right on the edge. No downpours here, sadly.

So the principal work of the morning was turning the infusion of elderflower, oranges and lemons into elderflower cordial. I salute those who’ve absorbed the lore of collecting the flowers and managed to find a nanosecond when all the necessities line up like bullet points in a presentation. We just pick when we can.  The last batch was made from the ordinary common and/or garden version of elderflower, the weed. This time we spotted a heavily laden tree on the allotment and picked an organic cotton bag full.  Actually it was a plastic bag but the organic cottton sounds less likely to excite our friends, one of whom noisily unpacked my (first time in six months) plastic in a crowded supermarket while upbraiding me for destroying the earth.  A small crowd looked on while she left the unpacked bag on the side, presumably to be thrown into landfill anyway.  Two days later an organic cotton bag arrived in the post and my humiliation was complete.

Anyway this tree was the most delightful mixture of purple leaves and pink flowers.  Last year I stumbled on a fashion shoot in front of the very tree I’m writing about. The model, who was very pretty, was dressed in such similar colours – purple and pink – that she looked rather like the cheshire cat, appearing and disappearing in front of the blossoms.  She was surrounded by an impausibly large number of assistants, dressers, people holding large reflectors and photographers with their retinue.  One of the throng asked me where the toilets were and I was delighted to be able to offer her our bucket, which she refused.

The pink blossoms smelt quite as good as the mongrel white ones and so we picked and infused them for 24 hours.  The only difference in the way I produced the cordial was to bring the sugary mixture to 80C rather than boiling it which I think destroyed some of the flavour. The results (with a bottle of the first batch for comparison) looked lovely and tasted excellent.

As I write, the rain has stopped again but we’ll stick with plan A and go to get vine-eyes from the garden centre. More later.

June 1st and first picking of broad beans

Vegetables seem to be remarkably regular in their flowering and fruiting habits regardless of the weather.  I had thought that we’d be picking the first batch of broad beans at least a week early this year, but in spite of the vast difference in weather between this year and last, we’re picking just two days earlier. Potatoes and tomatoes are a little later but they have both been put out later for fear of a late frost.  The biggest diference this year is the strawberries. Although we’ve got a fabulous crop on the way, last year we were picking ripe strawberries in the first week of June.  This year we’ll be lucky to see them by the third week. The potatoes, I fear, have been afflicted by the incredibly dry weather and they’ll pick up if we get the promised rain this coming week. I’m loath to throw too much water in the direction of the potatoes because I think it diminishes the flavour.  I was grumbling to our neighbouring allotmenteer about the poor flavour of Jersey Royals over the past couple of years and he said he thought it was because the farmers have been prevented from using seaweed because it was thought to be adding too much salt to the soil. Our asparagus, on the other hand is thriving on its thick mulch of seaweed over the winter and is five feet tall now. I do hope there’s as much activity underground because we shall enjoy a good crop next spring.

So this week has been incredibly busy, with a good deal of grandparenting and a trip to replace the water pump on the campervan.  A friend was charged €230 in France 2 years ago for a replacement, but after a bit of research on the internet I sourced a brand new replacement for £50 and fitted it myself at the additional cost of a packet of electrical connectors. I felt absurdly proud of myself.

Apart from that it’s been absurdly busy on the allotment – so much so I’ve hardly had time to write at all. We’ve fitted a hazel wattle screen between the shed and the greenhouse to create a sheltered area where we can grow tomatoes and peppers.  It arrived with one of the end posts pulled out because presumably the delivery driver had dragged it across the floor of his van (after all it weighed 30Kg and he’s probably never seen one before).  Rather than send it back I decided to have a go at repairing it – it took 2 hours of  somewhat grumpy effort but I did finally manage to separate all the woven horizontal branches with the aid of some steel bars, and reinsert the post. It’s now in position and will be an effective screen against cold north winds.  Then, today the temperature soared to 25C so we went up early and  I hammered in the supporting posts ready for the tomatoes, nonethleless we both needed a shower when we got home.  The weather will break tonight, according to the forecast, and we’ll get some rain, so great relief all round.

Someone wrote to the paper the other day lamenting the fact that weather forecasters seem to regard sunshine as inherently superior to rain.  You can tell they’re not gardeners.  In fact there’s a proper drought building up. Our usually damp plot is bone dry down to a foot deep and so we’ve been forced to water as if it were July. Given that a full watering can weighs 22lbs and the round trip to the tank is 100 yards, you can see it’s a bit of a workout to water the whole 250 square metres.

Yesterday my friend Rob – the real botanist – came to check my ID of the Fumaria I’ve been going on about – and,  joy of joys, I was right and it’s Fumaria murialis. This probably means less than nothing to almost everyone else in the world, but it means a lot to me because it shows I’m very slowly getting my eye in.

Tomorrow or Monday the outdoor tomatoes will begin their outdoor life, taking their chances with whatever the weather throws at them.  Meanwhile we’re making the second batch of elderflower cordial.  The first batch is growing on us as we drink it – the problem is that home made is essentially unrepeatable.  This time we’ve gathered a bag of 50+ heads from a purple, ornamental elderflower tree.  So far the result is a lovely rose pink colour.  Sadly we had to buy another eight 500ml  swing top preserving bottles because the rest are all in use, and so our “food for free” cordial, or at least this batch, will cost about twice as much as the commercial stuff. However as the years mount up, home made gets increasingly competitive.  As ever, though, the flavour beats anything you could buy