Allotment Survivors

This is an auld wall sign that was being used, apparently, to separate a growing area from the midden. Or something. Anyway, it appeals as something that's probably as old as the allotment itself, (1917) or older.

A good couple of hours work today. First, I got at the comfrey with the scythe, got it into a proper sack, (a batch of 10 I bought on eBay, the other 9 will come in for storing spuds, onions, neeps and what-have-you next autumn). And then I put a stone in the sack, and put the sack into the auld tin dustbin at the end of the path, which is nearly half filled with water, just the rain it collects itself, but with the Glasgow rainfall it'll be full soon enough.

Then I started digging on the East side by The Pond area, which is where I dug out the Camp Coffee sign. I uncovered an old brick path, running E-W, about a foot below the surface, (under where the the comfrey was. I should add, the comfrey, split out of 2 or 3 plants from the old allotment I shared with Dad in Jarrow at the real Pig Sty Avenue, had grown into 12 colossal  root systems since early July).

I was all for digging up this old brick path, and adding the bricks to what I was calling the Frogs Winter Palace but must now just call the brick pile, because it's... well, a massive brick pile, now 10x4x3ft.  But then I thought, hang on, maybe someone laid this, god knows when, back in the 20s or 30s? Let it be. It's going to be right by the pond eventually, and will make a nice place to put a bench or something.

It was good to be getting earth from the Old Greenhouse/Pond area and hoy it on to the E bed, levelling them both. The malleability of an allotment is fascinating to me: you look at beds and they look fixed, but a couple of hours on the end of a spade can shift them, one bed raises by a spit, and the other sinks by the same amount. This afternoon, a beautiful, sunny, early winter afternoon, I learned that it's all do-able, just a couple of hours hard labour two or three times a week. I walked home with a profound sense of peace, stoned on endorphins perhaps.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there...
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more

How many pallets can you fit in the back of a Fiat 500?

Image
At least 1. Maybe I could have got 3 altogether, at a pinch. Also 200+ gorse seeds, which have begun to look in danger of damping off, so I'm thinking they'll be better off at the allotment in the fresh air. I'm worried about slugs, snails and woodpigeons, though, so I put them in a wheelbarrow, covered with a net. Also this morning, planted a row of beetroot detroit.
Read more