Organic Allotment

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Kim at Fresh As A Daisy

The Rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Here goes...

1. I love growing pumpkins but I'm not particularly keen on eating most of them.
2. I work in a theatre with very few windows so spend much of my working life dreaming about what it looks like outside.
3. I speak Spanish (badly) but am totally baffled by the subjunctive.
4. I think Border Terriers are the best dogs but sadly haven't got one myself.
5. I don't fly anywhere, ever... that includes cheap weekend mini breaks.
6. I think capers are delicious.

I'm going to tag:
Soilman
Steed Farm
Musings from a Stonehead
Manor Stables Veg Plot
Calendula and Concrete
Tales of a Growing Apprentice

A Little Bedtime Reading

Bedtime reading in my house at the moment is Cuttings by Christopher Lloyd. A bit of an unfortunate obsession maybe, reading gardening books in bed, but this is the perfect pre-sleep browse. It is divided into a chapter for each month, which contain a selection of Christopher's columns written originally for the Guardian. Great to dip into and find eloquently written, expert advice as to what you should be thinking about and when in terms of plants.

Most of the book is focused on gardens with a little bit here and there about veg. However, I'm a great believer that allotments should look as good as well as being functional so any ideas about growing flowers and shrubs is much appreciated. One entry for May entitled "Young Foliage" was particularly resonant for me with its mention of the leaves of the Oriental Poppy which I had just been admiring on the plot. Of course the flowers are beautiful but they are really the second act to the leaves which act as such a point of interest when there isn't much else going on. As Christopher Lloyd puts it, their leaves are "pinnate, having deep indentations and a furry, dew-holding surface." Not showy and over stated like the blousey poppies, which are gone in the blink of an eye, but beautiful in their simplicity and functionality non the less.
 

Happy New Year!

2007 seems to have gone so quickly as a gardening year with the weather being pitted against growers for much of the time. The start of the New Year also means that this blog has nearly reached its first birthday, which in turn marks my entry into the third year of allotment vegetable growing. In traditional New Year form I feel that it's only appropriate to mark these milestones with some resolutions for the year ahead.

1. Replace the wood around at least some of the beds - it's getting pretty rotten in places!
2. Finally find a workable use for the "problem" bed I've got next to the pond. Any suggestions?
3. Create a woodland area out of the shaded lawn that's between the shed and the composters.
4. Keep on top of mowing the grass paths which look oh so lovely when they're neat and tidy but oh so horrible when they're rough around the edges.
5. Hope for a nicer summer to make more use of the camping stove in the shed for alfresco, evening meals - one of the high points of allotment gardening for me.

The No Picture Post

A broken digital camera has somewhat stopped play on the blog at present... Normal service will resume as soon as it's fixed!