October Peas

This cold and wet, miserable, slow vegetable growing season is coming to the end now but is still managing to give a little. We've had 2 good frosts so far, we've swapped BST for GMT and the shops are full of Hallowe'en stuff but I was out there today in the kitchen garden picking and podding broad beans and peas. The leaves are all starting to turn and the birds are stripping the hawthorn hedges of haws; I see flocks of birds moving through the allotment hedge when I'm down that way doing 'sheep watch' (see previous post) but we are still getting excellent curly kale, chard, parsnips and carrots. The cabbage never really thrived and has been hammered by slugs and sheep but still gives us the best hearted cabbage I have ever grown.

2013 is starting to come into focus too, with the autumn planted broad beans and onions now breaking the surface.

Lazy Beds

With the guests gone and the evidence of their visit squared away, Dad can get back into the garden and check out progress on the vegetables after the week of beautiful sunshine. The warmth has brought on the peas and broad beans beautifully, so we can have a first portion  of peas with supper on Monday night. The broads will be a few more days yet but the runners and French beans are starting to flower profusely. We are also looking at some courgettes soon in the kitchen garden from which we have already been enjoying various cut and come again salad stuff.

The broader picture, though, has Dad needing to finally give in to the local method for raised beds or lazy beds and trenches. It's just been too wet this year gardening on the flat, to hoe or control weeds, so that we have a depressing embarrassing lawn of weeds between the rows of crop so that a mower is sometimes more appropriate than a hoe. The crops sulk in damp, cold misery, succumb to slugs or general malaise so that often 'we' have just given up on them and ploughed them back in.

Way back, when Mike the Cows was tractor-ploughing and tractor-rotovating he did suggest ridging it up (which is quite easy, I now know, with a couple of changes to settings on the rotovator) but we didn't really know what we were about back then and Dad thought he meant into potato-style ridges. We declined the offer, thinking we'd be able to plant rows 2 feet apart and simply walk-behind-rotovate up the rows like you would in Kent to keep the weeds down. Then came the rain for most of May, June and July and the flat rotovated land saturated and could not drain.

It was John Deere Bob who explained what was meant by ridges - three or four foot wide broad ridges (what they'd call 'breeds' in the Fens) with deepish trenches between but with the ridges/trenches aligned down the slope (we'd done our initial rows across the allotment, effectively parallel to the contours). You can either dig the whole site over and then make trenches or use a traditional Irish method which saves quite a few square yards of digging and that's called 'Lazy Beds'. You skim the turf (or 'lawn of weeds in Dad's case) off where the trench will be, folding it over to lie upside down on the edge of the ridge, grass to grass. You then shovel out the trench and use the soil to bury the rest of the ridge and the flipped over turfs. You can also then cover the whole with plastic to further supress weeds. We used plastic sheeting left over from the building project, plus we recycled the ground sheets from Mr Silverwood's thrown-away tent. We have since seen pics of raised beds and Lazy Beds in the Museum of Country Life in Turlough, Co. Mayo, so we now feel very authentic!

Now we're talking. Now the soil in the ridge tops is drying out and does not water-log and Dad can stroll up and down in the trenches easily getting at the weeds even on the wettest day. The rest of the allotment will be converted to raised beds as it comes free after we have harvested the current crops of beans, cabbages etc.

My final pictures on this catch up are just a nice shot of the High Hopes pink rose climbing up the Tígín wall and a nice box of 9 eggs showing 4 dated today (15th Aug) just because all the gals are now in production.

Dodging the Showers

Flaming June? The humans got that one wrong didn't they? Inevitably we return from our dog walk via the allotments, where Dad collects a carrier bag full of pea pods, the first 2 courgettes and a couple of fat lettuce. We're half an eye on the weather though, as big showers have been blasting through all day, and another is building up just west of us.

We leave it to the last minute, then race for home. Well, Haggis and me do the racing. Meggie doesn't so much race as drag reluctantly 15 feet back on the end of the extending lead. She's the first one to complain mind, when the rain drops start falling on her head, but her answer is not to race for home, but to stand, sulk and look pleading, sure that Dad will magic a car, or preferably the back door out of nowhere, so she can simply step into the dry. Warm dog towels? That's the ticket

Have a good weekend. Mum and Dad are off to a posh "Garden" party tonight, but I suspect it may end up being a Marquee party or even a "retreat indoors" party

Deefs

Risotto Lotto

It is said that if Haggis ever comes back as a human, he will make his wife very happy. He is a true carnivore and hates anything "with plants in". He will take a bowl of gravy and peas, lick all the gravy up from around and between the peas, and leave you with an immaculate plate and a pile of shiny bright green peas. He does the same to fish bones, with his dexterous little tongue, removing all the flesh and leaving a little row of fish bones, clean and shiny white

Megan has no such niceties, and a plate of food is either good (wooolffff! gulp) or bad. There is no licking between or choosing from among. Me, I suppose I'm in the middle. I will do some veg, but not all.

So, last night, Dad had cooked rather too much of a risotto with red peppers, broad beans, chicken, bacon and garlic in. Plus a few tomatoes. We were all presented with a small lump of left overs. Megan; Woooolllfff! Gulp! Is there any more? Haggis looked extrememly dubious but eventually conceded that rice soaked in bacon and chicken juice (plus fish-stock) was probably not "plant" really, and did his usual, leaving only 2 shiny red peices of red-pepper. I actually ate the pepper, but left two shiny grren broad beans. Dad only knows this becuse he looked in the bowls in the split second between us lifting our heads out, and Megan diving in to tidy up. Wooollfff Gulp!

Meanwhile, word comes that real-Mum (Mollie), dad (Hector) and bro (Archie) have all got the same illness - a sore throat each picked up at an RSPCA doggie gathering. So they are getting pills for this crushed into ice cream.... Ice Cream! How does a girl get that ill? And, No Haggis - it's got "plant" in it - seaweed gelatine to be precise! Yoiks

Deefs

Peas and Raspberries

A fine thing. We're all back to normal, which for us means lots of sleeping during the day, till the Angel Betty comes round to let us out for a comfort break. And the humans are a bit jaded and tired, so we get a little walk, taking in the allotment, so Dad could harvest his (first ever) peas and some raspberries. An evening of TV - the humans are mad keen on the new series of "Rome", but we aren't choosy. It gives us all a chance to collapse on the sofa. Haggis is on the seat between Mum and Dad, I'm usually up on the top of the sofa-back, and Meggie can take it or leave it. Sometimes she'll join us, but as often as not she mooches off to one of the dog beds and sleeps there.

Have a great weekend
Deefs