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| Radish of Happiness |
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| I grew something |
"I am really surprised that you are actually growing something we can eat" says husband encouragingly. Actually this is a surprise to me too. Everyone has an opinion on how much hard work your allotment will be. This is true but what they don't tell you is how much fun it is.
Bringing something home to eat was secondary to me at this point in my venture as I have mentioned previously, apart from a few windowsill herbs and a couple of tulip bulbs that was my total gardening experience and therefore was not expecting much from myself this year or if truth be known, ever. I'd convinced myself that if just a seedling sprouted on the whole of my allotment only to be eaten by some aphid or whatever that this would be just fine. Simply being on the allotment, weeding, she-shedding my shed and putting bamboo sticks up in random places would suffice. Fruit and veg were just the added bonus.
Busy she-shedding. It's very very important:
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| Fantasy (pic1) v Reality (pics 2&3) |
I try and go to the allotment most days. I know enough to know that this is the busy period of sowing and harvesting. I didn't write down the dates of anything I had sown so I am just looking at the veg and wondering if it's ready or have a just grown a crop of lovely weeds.
I picked my radishes last week. My first crop of anything. A joyous moment indeed. I had been told that the patch was a bit crowded and if I thinned the plants out I'd get better results. This meant getting rid of half my radish to let the others grow. I didn't want to do this, I was so proud of the leafy patch growing that I didn't, the result being this:
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| Stan & Laurel |
I don't care. I am really happy with the fat/thins. You can eat the leaves too, which I did, in a soup and some salad. It's amazing how frugal you get with the plants you grow, you've nurtured them (ish) and therefore you want not to waste any precious crop. I am happy I didn't thin the crop this time as I can see what happens for myself when you don't and these are mistakes I need to make.
The weather has been unseasonably warm and dry. This has made the crops go from spindly little shoots to triffids within about two weeks. I can't get my head around how quickly things grow. I'm not particularly known for my patience so the concept of seed to mouth in five weeks or so is very appealing indeed.
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| Two weeks later and they're ready |
Growing is not rocket science but the allotment bible still speaks an unknown language to me of mulching, sacrificial planting, channels, trenches, clubroot (can't help but to think of clubfoot), companion planting, continual sowing etc. I will learn the hard way as I think this for me is the only way I will learn.