Losing The Plot: October 2018

One of the monster courgette left on my table

How did it happen that one minute I was slaving in the hot sun at the allotment and the next thing I've already started seeing Christmas decorations around?

The plot has been slightly neglected over the past few weeks. Things are coming to their natural end. Family summer holiday and then periods of heavy rain meant a few weeks allotment free. It was a wrench at first but then I realise as the days are getting shorter, so is my time on the plot. I am winding down for winter and the plot is doing the same. Harmony with nature and all that.

Autumn has brought me apples galore. Not just my tree on the allotment, but the one tree I have at home and kindly plot friends leaving me bags on my table. Pies, crumbles, chutney and for the birds. Apples EVERYWHERE. I'm over the apples. Pears from a neighbouring plot (paid for with pear chutney).

Autumn also brought me butternut squash, 4 in total although just those 4 took over what looked like half an acre. I got lent a water butt in the scorching heat so I repaid the kindness with a squash. She wasn't sure what to do with one as she'd not grown any so I just sharpied a recipe on to it. If that's not eco packaging I don't know what is.

The courgette monster has slowed down, getting a few little yellow ones struggling to grow, although I am being left with monsters from other people on my table. What do they take me for? They obviously know I cannot bear to see a wasted veg, more courgette chutney.

Dead sunflowers, heads huge and drooping, spilling yet more bird food out. Had to cut them down with a hacksaw, how did I know the stems would be as thick as my arms? Compost bin filled with just those alone. Last of the beans and peas picked and frozen, lettuce and more lettuce and kale. The kale is the gift that keeps on giving. It's like cut and come again and again and again. The celery has been growing since March. It's an elephant's pregnancy so I am getting impatient and googling celery soup. I have this vision that I will go this weekend and the celery crop will have died. A two sticks up to me for not picking it sooner.

Tubs emptied, one bed emptied and green manure (who knew) a poo plant that you dig back in to the soil to add nutrients. More radishes growing. I will be the radish queen that can grow them all year long even if I gave up eating them out of boredom. Kohl Rabi growing in a bed that has other things growing in it, could be weeds, could be beetroot. The sticks blew away in the wind.

Wildflower bed looking sorry for itself too but as long as I can see but a single bee, it stays.

I've planted 4 cabbage seeds. |I have learned enough to know that these four seeds will produce four monsters if they survive. I will not plant the one hundred and fifty that are in the packet and hope for the best and then having to sacrifice the babies when they take over. Still traumatised about that from my sister's helpful but nonetheless distressing courgette cull.

This weekend I am armed and ready for a full day of reaping and sowing and tidying. I mean business when I take my flask and the dog and put the radio on. I've been collecting packets of tulip bulbs and I am going to randomly plant them around my area. Not in the beds, that's for proper food. If I am successful I will have my own little Keukenhof garden going on https://keukenhof.nl/en/.