Return of the Native

Well, it's been four months since my last update, and everything has changed. In just four months I've been plunged into blogging obscurity. My Google pagerank has plummeted from four to zero, my Blogger login has been rendered obsolete (luckily I have a Google login) and the text editor looks a little - just a little - different to it used to. On the plus side, my last post got seven comments - thanks to all those who left something.

So, why have I been away? Well, unfortunately there's no great life changing experience by which to justify my absence. I didn't write for a long time simply because I couldn't think of anything to write. It's as easy as that. As you can probably tell, by the fact that I'm rambling, I can't think of much to write now either.

This year's allotmenteering efforts got off to a slow start. Some digging happened in March, but April saw the site come to a halt. The early period of dry, hot weather baked the soil to concrete, making digging impossible and sowing futile. April, therefore, was a month in which to complete my super luxury shed (mentioned in an earlier post) in the garden. And, no, mentioning my shed doesn't mean I've come over all lifestyle in the last four months. This was, and remains, an allotment blog. The shed is linked because, as I wrote before, the lame B&Q too-short-to-stand-in, too-flimsy-to-trust and too-rubbish-to-mention effort, with its cracked plastic glass and ill fitting door, that came with the house is now off to the plot as a combined tool store and weak-tea-on-a-rainy-day emporium.

May has seen a return to form. April's hiatus meant that the first part of the month was focused on clearing weeds. Luckily the situation hadn't got out of hand. Doubly luckily, I'd invested in a chillington hoe, the bully most likely to steal the pocket money of all the other, lamer, tools in the shed.

With the land clear, we've been planting in earnest. We have three types of potato in; a standard second early and maincrop variety, and Pink Fir Apples. Other allotment bloggers seem to rave about the latter, so I thought I'd give them a go and stuck ten tubers in. They seem popular with the slugs which probably bodes well for flavour but poorly for use-ability.

Edwin Tucker let us down with onions, with their red onions failing and the bag of white onions they sent us being half rotten but arriving too late to do anything about it. Therefore, we have shallots and garlic but a pretty paltry array of white onions.

We did have some Pak Choi and some Cos lettuce coming on, but the got eaten by the slugs. No matter, May is the demoralising month with the slugs on the rampage every night. Chin up, plant more seeds, start again. There's a good row of carrots (Nantes) and a few scorzonera too.

There is a good crop of grain amaranths and quinoa coming on, both sets of seeds from The Real Seed Company (link to the right). For both the plants are about 6 inches high and growing well. We've also got a job lot of last year's specialities oca, ulloco (yes, I know I said I wasn't going to grow them again but the Real Seed Company tempted me) and yacon.

The garden is full of brassica seedlings, sweet potatoes and squash plants waiting to go out. The plot is clear and ready for them; it's now just a matter of getting around to it, and judging the optimum balance between the weather being too wet and slug friendly and it being too dry and requiring watering every night. If I have my way that balance will be considered struck next weekend, and the lot of them'll be out. "They've got two choices", as my dad always says.

Today has been a day of planting seeds. I am trying more than in previous years to get salad crops going. The beds have been diligently cleared (no hiding places for slugs) and the soil raked to a fine tilth. The following are all in:

• Swiss Chard (started off in pots at home in previous years)
• Red Para Cress
• Chicory (Palla Rossa)
• Florence Fennel (Zefa Fino)
• Beetroot (Detroit 2 Bolivar)
• Spinach (Matador)
• Flat leaf Parsley
• French Bean (Slenderette)
• Lettuce (Paris Island Cos)
• Onion (White Lisbon)
• Pea (Green Shaft)

There aren't any photos to accompany this post because the plot was really busy this afternoon and, frankly, I was too shy to take them. However, if you're lucky there might be some in the near future...