The Joy of Spuds - & Stationery

Of late, there have been several days with a definite spring-like feel to them.  And much like Mole in Wind In The Willows, I do feel a sudden need to "get things done".  Though not so much housework, more likely busying myself with garden tasks.

 

This post is partly inspired by a post on the Down to Earth blog- “Are You Growing Food This Year?”.  Obviously the situation in Australia is far more extreme than anyone would wish to face, but worth taking into account, as the main market garden areas were hit by the flooding, and the impact will be long term.  We may have only a few days of icy weather, but road transport was sufficiently disrupted to leave shop supplies running low.  With recent fuel price rises, my mind goes back to the fuel blockades of 2000.  Best to stock up now and be prepared ahead of any shortages.

 

Now that the garden is showing signs of life again, I’m gearing up for my mad marathon seed sowing sessions in the potting shed.  This also means I’m having to retrieve the bog roll inners from the recycling bag and hide them away before Howard notices and puts them back.  He doesn’t mind me using them, it’s just that we haven’t decided on an appropriate storage place for them.

 

I’m also scavenging the blue plastic trays that restaurants and sandwich bars get their salad leaves delivered in.  I carry a spare shopping bag with me on the off chance of more of these very useful items that are needlessly chucked out by the unknowing.  They make great stacking trays for transporting module trays of seedlings to the allotment later in the year, in the autumn for storing onions and apples, but right now I’m after them to chit my seed potatoes in.

 

Five weeks from now, I’m taking my traditional mid-March holiday, and the frenzy really starts.  I started getting into the habit of taking time off for the Cheltenham Festival years ago, when I worked somewhere that everyone booked leave in the summer, forcing me to take my holidays at less popular times of year.  The way it goes now is that I’ll spend the morning in the garden seed sowing , then in the afternoon sit in front of the TV watching the racing and writing up my sowing records.  Even now, I’m looking at the calendar, working out how many allotment days we have available before I need to plant the First Early potatoes.

 

For the past 10 years I’ve aimed to have the first batch of potatoes in the ground on the Sunday after the Cheltenham Gold Cup.  I have vivid memories of 2003, when that weekend coincided with the anti-Iraq War protests in London .  I fully expected the rest of the world to place trade sanctions on the UK , so planted extra batches to see us through.  Last year we missed the usual target date, but the weather being so grim at the time, it wasn’t such a bad idea, especially as the ground became so sodden that the water table rose above ground level in certain patches.  One of those patches being where the spud bed was being prepared.  

This year, the last weekend of March will see the mass rally against public service cuts.  These cuts will plunge the most vulnerable into even more dire circumstances, many others will lose jobs and essential services, and the gap between rich and poor with become unbreachable for a generation.   This country was at its strongest and healthiest in the wake of WWII, in the wake of universal free secondary education, building of decent social housing, widening of welfare provisions and the creation of the National Health Service.  These served as a shining example of how a government should serve its electorate, by putting the country on a sound footing to build a new economy.  This latest shower are hell bent on selling what they can, and ensuring any dissenters are weakened, with avenues for redress closed.

Let's hope that the backpedalling over Natures Reserves and Forests can provide hope that a good fight by the majority can save the national asset that set an example worldwide.

 

Anyway, back to spuddage.  Eventually, all the seed potatoes were planted in sequence, and with near enough the usual gaps in time between varieties.  As the old gardeners’ reassurance goes, they all did catch up, and we had a decent crop, only losing a few Second Earlies to blight.

 

For several years, I grew the same varieties – Rocket, then Kestrel, Desiree and finally Pink Fir Apple.  But recently, I’ve experimented with First and Second Earlies.  On the whole I prefer waxy textured potatoes, but when I can locate them, I love Shetland Black.  One of the tastiest, but also so floury that they are best cooked whole.  For the past couple of years I’ve favoured Red Duke of York over Rocket, and after an unexpected blight wipeout, I now grow Yukon Gold instead of Kestrel.

 

So that’s the planting plan for the first phase of my rotation planting plan sorted.  I use a six year rotation, on account of the way our first allotment was laid out.  When we started with the current allotment, I kept to the same plan.  Funnily enough, when I was doing my Organic Horticulture course at Capel Manor college, one of the first assignments our tutor set us was to devise a 6 year rotation and planting plan.  As I already had one worked out, I tweaked and expanded what I already used.

 

It goes like this:

 

Year 1 – Potatoes, followed by celery and overwintering onions, garlic & shallots

 

Year 2 – Root vegetables, plus spinach and / or chard

 

Year 3 – Three Sisters crop – legumes (peas & beans), squash family & corn

 

Year 4 – Brassicas

 

Year 5 – The rest of the Nightshade family – outdoor hardy tomatoes, peppers, aubergines etc.  Grown distant from the potatoes to lessen the chance of spreading blight to each other.

 

Year 6 – Anything else – mostly salad leaves, but also takes in sweet potatoes, okra and artichokes if grown as an annual.

 

With two extra beds for fruit and perennials, this system has worked for us for nearly 10 years. 

 

The new plot is an awkward shape – a lopped off triangle, so planning the layout has not been as straightforward as with a conventional shaped allotment.  Once I had taken as accurate two dimensional measurements as possible on a plot that slopes diagonally and dips in the middle, I marked these out on my special tool – squared paper, and worked out a rough layout.  I think I've said before that to be honest, I'm no good at art.  I have professed an inability to draw a straight line with a ruler.  Howard is the artist, but leaves garden planning to me, offering words of praise and encouragement, as I labour with graph paper, propelling pencils and erasers.

 

When I’m happy with the layout, I start colour coding the beds to show at a glance what will be planted there.  I may be no good at art, but I can draw up a decent plan or sketch map.  And I have an almighty stash of pens, paper and allsorts with which to do so!

 

Once beds have been prepared and planted, I draw up a plan of each bed on squared paper, so I know what plant is where year by year.  It also allows me to have a fair idea of what should appear in the rows that the local Magpies have stolen the labels for.

 

I have to confess to being a tad nerdy when it comes to plant labels.  I have a huge stash in various colours, each colour to be used for one type of plant.  I have a set layout when writing up labels – plant and variety on the front and date on the back so the date can be crossed out and the label reused.  Also serves as a good way of comparing from year to year.  And woe betide anyone who misplaces or damages my ultra-fine permanent markers!

 

All that remains is for us to translate those plans into plants!

 

 

 

A Weekend Less Ordinary (Flocks of starlings and a Band of Horses)

"A Holiday, A Holiday, the first one of the year"

Well, the first long weekend since New Year anyway.

Friday started like most days, with me shouting at a computer for being slow.  But instead of the usual info loading onto a database, it was me trying to book Fleet Foxes tickets.  Just my luck that the only UK show announced so far sold out in seven minutes.  Fortunately, a second show was added and we have tickets for that.

Now I don't get out as much as in the days of wild old Camden Town, so dragging myself out to see a band now is a Big Deal.  Friday was the biggest deal possible - the exquisite Band of Horses playing the De La Warr Pavillion in Bexhill-on-Sea.  I could have gone to see them in Brixton the night before, but getting south of the River and back on a work night was logistically draining.  Anyway, the prospect of a drive out to see a band I love at a building I admire was way too tempting.

The journey down was far better than it could have been.  The weather was unpromising - showers and high winds, and the prospect of getting caught in roadworks on the M25 was ever present.  But we got lucky.  There was in fact an accident on the M25 near a junction in the section where widening work is taking place, but we had driven down the through traffic lane and sailed past several miles of stationary traffic, mostly made up of lorry drivers on tight schedules to meet up with ferries, a few families starting their picnics early, and what looked like a troupe of acrobats, dressed in yellow blond wigs and sequins.

Left the motorway and continued down the A21, a regular route for us.  Stopped for lunch at Merriments, though weather prevented a stroll round the garden.  Instead concentrated on tea & cakes and the contents of the garden centre.  Stocked up on onion & shallot sets, purple asparagus crowns (for which I have a plan involving an Ikea carrier bag and the rakings from the hens' runs), a Mahonia and some dahlia tubers.  Maybe this year the slugs won't beat me.

Drove on through the Sussex woodlands, with Fleet Foxes as our soundtrack - a perfect combination.  We reached Bexhill around 5pm, just as everything was closing up.  High winds and construction work prevented a walk along the sea front, so we walked up the high street in search of life and a place for dinner.  As it was now dusk, a huge flock a starlings was wheeling around, forming breathtaking shapes and patterns - imploding ovals and rollercoasters above the charity shops.  When I was a child, this was a commonplace sight in every town.  They used to wheel around above the railway arches before roosting on South Harrow gas holder.  But now it's so scarce it is treated as something on a par with the herds of the Serengeti or the like.  In truth, it probably is, but to most people they're just screechy scruffy Starlings, not wild formation flying acrobats with sequinned feathers.

Scoured the street for suitable dinner venues.  Tonight wasn't the weather for fish & chips on the sea front, and there were several other "possibles" that didn't fit the bill.  The we happened upon a clean, unpretentious Italian restaurant, which seemed just right.  As we settled down to our meal, it was apparent we weren't the only people with the same idea - the place rapidly filled up, mostly with slightly unconventional fortysomethings starting a night out.  My suspicions were confirmed when we entered the venue, and I noticed quite a few fellow diners. We got chatting to one couple, who were in fact fairly local, and proud that the De La Warr was once again fulfilling its purpose as a quality leisure venue for all the people of Bexhill.

Support act, Goldheart Assembly, were pretty good.   Extra marks for using an autoharp on a song or two, though the singer played it flat like a keyboard rather than haring around the stage clasping it, Zal Yanovsky style.  Not so sure about the oil can as drum set up though.

I'd been wanting to see Band of Horses for a few years, but never quite managed to.  This was in fact the first time we'd been to see a band for a couple of years.  I was diagnosed with a mild form of epilepsy some years ago, and flashing lights can cause me to lose my balance at inopportune moments.  But I've resolved to stop dwelling on that and make the most of my remaining middle youth.  From the look of the audience, that was true of much of the crowd, plus the more discerning youth of the Bexhill and Hastings hinterland.  I managed to get fairly near the front, and with this not being a crowd for wild dancing (more like swaying gently and singing along), I got to keep a decent spot the whole night.

The band were excellent, as would be expected.  There's a warmth to them that is often a stranger to band dynamics, and it spills out to the audience.  You get the impression that they're sharing as much as performing their music.

It's hard to single out anything in the main set - all was wonderful, but the encore started with a very special moment - Evening Kitchen.  Just singer Ben Bridwell and guitarist Tyler Ramsey and an acoustic guitar.  Tyler Ramsey is tall & lanky, Ben Bridwell small & wiry - singing into the same mike must be something they've done countless times over the years, but still can't be easy.  At one point Ben stepped away from the mike but continued singing.  The hall was so quiet that he could still be heard perfectly.  It was as if time had stopped for the duration of the song - a moment that summed up a special night.

We drove home, the same route we'd taken down, now near deserted.  We kept and eye out for deer and badgers, but no sightings and we were home before 1am.

Saturday and Sunday were back to the usual routine - getting chicken and garden supplies, then to the allotment, but I felt more positive about things.  All helped by the news that Howard's mum seems to have made a slight improvement - he was able to talk to her on the phone.  Still a long way to go, but a start.

Also, my Welsummer hen has started laying, and in a matter of a week or two has gone from a nervous bird who picked at her food to a fine healthy bird, hell bent on tunnelling out of her run!

Sunday was the first chance I'd had to get over the allotment since the New Year.  That day we'd been confronted by the disappointment of a stray act of vandalism - our shed window broken, and the cloches over my winter crops flattened.  This Sunday, whilst not the most industrious, made up for it.

The sheer abundance of life at the allotment showed that the wheel was turning towards Spring.  I saw most of the usual birds that populate the site, including countless woodpeckers, both Green and Great Spotted.  I even saw ladybirds and a honey bee.  A heron flew over, diverted from its planned course by the high winds, and I even saw a Little Egret fly low overhead.  When you consider this was a species that not long ago was a twitcher's dream on the south coast in the Summer, and this was one which must have spent the winter near London, it shows how the climate must be changing.

Well, it's Monday and I've been at work all day, so back to normal.  But I 'm already counting the hours until this weekend, counting the days until our next trip out of town, and counting the weeks until the start of the many events of this spring and summer.

It's been emotional (and it's going to stay that way for a while)

Difficult week or so here.  Aside of the everyday work based idiocies, and the destruction of a fair society in favour of a class based have and have not structure by the Tory dictatorship, life hasn't been too wonderful.

My journey to and from work is blighted by poor scheduling and communication most days, but of late, passengers have had to look out in despair at the wanton destruction of the mature trees and the understorey that flank the railway line towards Alexandra Palace.  Network Rail has been claiming it is for safety reasons, but the fact that embankments have been flattened and access from roads has been created telegraphs their plans to sell of what they can for development.  Know bat roosts have been destroyed, trees that owls nested in for years have been chopped down, shrub layers that provided shelter for mammals and nest sites for countless birds and insects have been stripped down to bare earth.  No warning, no consultation, and yet they wonder why local residents complain.  Management clearly haven't done their research.  Destroying trees and other woody plants will leave atrophying roots, which create space in the soil as they shrink.  Come the rain, these spaces will fill with water, and when the ground in waterlogged, landslips can occur.  We don't want to see lifeless walls and gabions as we sit at signals, we want to see wild flowers, trees, birds, butterflies and the occasional sleepy fox.  And we certainly don't want to see yet another sterile building site, blocking out the light.

The transport companies take enough of our money, either directly through fares, or indirectly through tax subsidies and kickbacks.  We should all write to them, asking if they could compensate us for the horror of their vandalism by buying us our own patch of woodland, to maintain for wildlife in spite of them.  In the meantime, if you know the address of a rail manager, or live near rail office, gather up some roadkill, or some fallen branches, and leave it on their doorstep.

Even closer to home, things have been difficult too.  We got a call to let us know that Howard's mum was in hospital, so he arranged time off from work and travelled up.  His mum is in a pretty bad way, and the hospital say they're instigating a "managed decline".  Sad fact is that it looks like she's given up too.  Howard's dad isn't in the best of shape, so he's had to arrange for care for him as well.  Hard work, especially as his dad is convinced that his wife will wake up and walk out of the hospital to make his tea, and similarly in denial as to his ability to look after himself.

After a week of running here & there, meeting various organisations to get care in place while it still exists, Howard is back home, exhausted.  He knows he needs to be ready to travel up at short notice, and is fully aware that more unhappy arrangements will need to be made.

What has been annoying about this is that neither of his siblings have bothered to travel up, including a sister who lives much closer and has no work or care commitments.  What he has been able to do has been appreciated by other members of the family, but it goes to show that people are all take and no give.

In his absence, I've had to take on all the house and garden routines, including getting the chickens ready before going to work every day.  So I've been out in the garden before daybreak, torch in hand, putting feeders and drinkers in place, often with the assistance of a cat shaped hurdle.  (Sheba took advantage of the extra bed space to stretch out on Howard's half, and however glad she was to see him, she wasn't happy about just having the bottom corner again on Friday).

Outside, there are signs of impending Spring amid the Winter cold.  The hens are back in lay, and Elly, the young Welsummer is maturing rapidly.  She "crouches" and spreads her wings every time I say hello, so I've added and nest box to her coop in readiness.  Having lost her original companion, Twinkle, in the Autumn, I'm going to look into getting her a couple of youngsters for company in the next few weeks.

In terms of wildlife, the foxes seem to have quietened down, including the vixen who spent several nights screeching her late night "come hither boys" at the front of the house.  One night it carried on until nearly 5am, at which point I got up and put the kettle on.  The Great Spotted Woodpeckers are more active - I heard the first "drumming" last Tuesday, and a Green Woodpecker "laugh" midweek too.  My Snowdrops are finally starting to bloom, and many of my other bulbs are breaching the surface.  I'm fully  aware that the next week or so are often the coldest of the year, but with Imbolc this Wednesday, and a New Moon, another cog in the wheel clicks over and the hope of a good Spring gets closer.

Then on Friday we're off to Bexhill to see Band of Horses at the De La Warr Pavillion.  Beautiful music in a beautiful building - should put me in the right frame of mind to deal with whatever life throws at me thereafter.  And it will give me an excuse to hide from the worries of Wales v England in the Six Nations.  Oh how I would love to see England winning a trophy - as long as it's the Wooden Spoon!

Come and say hello

I was checking the postings on the various blogs I followed, and I idly clicked on the link to stats for my blog.  Seems like you like me best when I write about cheese!

 

When I looked at the info for audience, I was amazed at the numbers of countries I’ve had views from.  Places I can’t imagine having anything in common with me, and I wouldn’t in my wildest dreams imagine being able to visit.

 

So for those of you in Chile, South Korea, Slovenia, China – in fact, everywhere – leave a message to let me know how you came to read the blog, what you do, what you have in common, and any ideas you think I’d like to explore.

 

Two key actions we can take to help ourselves and other are communicating and sharing, be it objects, ideas, or information.  So leave a message, join in and keep in touch!

 

Goal 1 - Re-embrace creativity

So instead of grandiose New Year's resolutions, in the darkness of Solstice Night, I scribbled down a list of goals to work towards.

First one to leap from my pen was make an effort to be creative.  Vague enough to mean what I want it to, and as previously stated, something I can gradually work towards.  I now make sure I have a notebook and pen close by at all times.  So when I'm sitting on the train, musing on bringing down the Daily Mail and the government in one fell swoop, I can distract myself by deciding what varieties of potato to grow this year.  Or if in the evening I'm sitting watching TV, even of the only decent thing on is something from two years ago, repeated on Dave, I can sit with a pad of squared paper, working of different combinations of raised beds for the uncultivated part of the allotment.

I often have weird dreams.  Really odd ones, not always involving me.  But with the amount of cheese I eat I guess that doesn't come as a shock.  So I've started writing down the ones that don't revolve around me going shopping in my jim jams.

Speaking of cheese, finally got round to making some more soft cheese.  Our local supermarket has something of a reputation for reduced items, and Howard popped in the other night for a few essentials, and noticed cartons of goat's milk for less than half price.  Over the weekend I turned it into soft cheese, using live yoghurt as the cheese starter.  Some will be used at breakfast tomorrow, I'll take some in to work for my colleagues to try, and the rest will become a pasta sauce, along with spinach, salmon and maybe some peas.

Next plan involves me finding my tin of blackboard paint.....

Just another day

I have to confess, I have come to hate the enforced "celebration" of New Year.  There's something about an arbitary cut-off point that begs me to rebel against it for starters.  The buying of supplies as if there was an impending rerun of the Siege of Leningrad  is so unnecessary too (though the amount of alcohol being carted out of Southgate branch of Asda would hint at mass production of Molotov cocktails).  Not taking part in this scrum, but still getting stuck in the traffic was even more frustrating.

So we reached home, shut the door and hunkered down for the night.  I was even asleep before midnight, though I was woken up by the volley of fireworks as the clock struck 12.  Didn't even bother looking out of the window at them.  I am firework phobic (with scars to justify it), but I think what forced me into a state of utter disinterest was the cavalier expenditure when those that need money are sliding into destitution.

The next few years are going to be hard, as this unwanted government punishes those who sport any shade of otherness to theirs.  From here on in, I will do my utmost to ensure that where possible my money goes towards making me less and less dependent on major corporations. 

We still need to be fed, shod & clothed, and until I have access to enough land to grow more crops and raise livestock, I will still have to use supermarkets for some basics.  Never likely to grow enough tea for us, so total un-dependence is out of the question there.  Sewing and knitting skills are still lacking, but aside of work I stick to jeans & plain tops most of the time.  Same with footwear - boots, 7 days a week, given half a chance.

Until such a time that I am confident enough to make my own, I will repair what I can myself, and pay to have mended what I can't manage.  My favourite brown boots, for instance, are on their third set of soles.  They're a bit lived in, but they fit my life.

Last year I spent several months in pain due to a back injury.  It took a while, but thanks to physiotherapy and planned exercise I now feel much more mobile than I have for years.  I need to stay that way - the poor and the sick will soon be on the receiving end of government cuts and I don't want to be caught up in that.  So regaining as near to full health as possible is another priority.

Looking back at the numbers of posts I've made this year compared to previously, I realised how much I've been slacking.  No more just good intentions - I need to take time to be creative.  I've spend too many nights just sitting down moaning and vegetating.  I need to make an effort to put pen or brush to paper, make useful or fun things.  Stop feeling like I've done nothing for hours.  I don't really have any artistic ability, but there are a few craft projects I'd like to tackle.  I know I'm good at making a mess, so that's a start.

I need to be better at growing my own food.  Yet again the summer ran out before all my crops were ready, but we're OK for some things, and the new back garden beds will give us a start in Spring.  Tomorrow we hit the allotment for the first time since the snow.  Hopefully it's not under water.  If it is, I'll just have to get enough gravel to make a drainage ditch at the bottom and build sturdier raised beds.

Are these New Year's resolutions?

Nothing of the sort.  These are decisions I made on the night of the midwinter Solstice.  I resolved that from the following morning I would make gradual changes, and review and add to them at key points of the year.

Gradual change is far better and easier than sudden shocks to the system.  I've cut down to three biscuits instead of four with each cup of tea.  Cutting back to one immediately would be too extreme.  And with the size of my usual teacup, totally miserly.

Onwards and ever so slightly upwards.

Excited

To say the least.

Have booked tickets to see the most wonderful Band of Horses at the De La Warr Pavillion in Bexhill-on-Sea.

Not until 4th February, but would gladly bypass Yule and Christmas to be there right now.

If you haven't heard them, do so.  Three cd's worth of music of awesome beautifulness awaits.