The UK basks in what we like to call a heatwave. Yesterday morning, 7.00 am, before it became unbearable. A fat ginger cat, a vegetable garden going mad and cricket whites...yes, whites. Well, almost. After my washing disaster, a lovely lady from America sent me some Rit colour remover, to see if it would remove the stains. And it pretty much did! We don't get Rit over here, so I am going to have to be very careful not to have any more absent minded moments. They have been deemed wearable, and suprise was expressed that something, for once, did exactly what it said on the box. Thank you so much to the kind hearted soul, who has been responsible for re-juvenating Andy's second kit.
While I wilt in the heat, our little backyard garden has gone crazy with the humidity. Each night it drinks between 20-30 large cans of water. We long ago gave up trying to make neat beds and lines; now we cram as much in as possible, feed it with heaps of homemade compost and let it all get on with it. The peas have done splendidly again, planted in just one small square of earth, with my scatter-gun method (chuck 'em on, cover 'em up, feed 'em and let them grow)
BEFORE
AFTERInbetween the patches there are tomatos in a bag, more salad and strawberries in pots, broad beans, butternut squash and the edge of the Potato Army just seen on the right...
...they have romped away. They are a mini-habitat all on their own, with foot-soldiers of frogs living deep in the dark cool under the leaves. When we water, there are happy rustlings and squelches as they anticipate another dusky evening of hunting snails and slugs.
Dark patches in the wall are damp or bee holes, and the shadowy machine seen against the window inside, is my neglected Adana press.
The batch of spuds nearest to you are commonly known as 'volunteers'. They sprang up of their own accord, from the ones we didn't find last year. Most of them grew in situ, a few we have transplanted from other beds. You aren't supposed to repeat them in the same place, but Mother Nature makes her own rules, and they are the healthiest plants of all.
It's been a good year for volunteers - maybe a few too many. This untidy bed is a huggle muggle of potatoes, properly planted tomatos, woody leeks which have outstayed their welcome, butternut squash, (more) a new bed of peas and various seedlings which have self sprouted from our own compost.
This sunny patch is one of our most productive - it is bravely (and successfully) supporting six different close planted veg; yellow tomatos, cucumbers, acorn squash, potatoes, the peas and mixed salad, again just scattered in a square and left to grow as it will, for 'cut & come again'. Which we do, often.
There are chilli peppers, sweet peppers, more cucumbers, more courgettes, even more tomatos. There are tubs of flowers and herbs, succulents and sweetcorn. Some waiting to be potted on or planted out, when there is space. We bung them in plastic pots, nice old earthenware pots, buckets and broken crocks. We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a show-garden.
The spinach has become a monster, though it can't compete with Andy's strawberries, growing behind them. For the last few years he has been building up his squadrons; the runners creep everywhere like weeds, and we leave them be. They are now so numerous and vigorous, they crowd the real weeds out.
They grow along the sides of the beds, up the fences, in the cracks between the flagstones, in pots and in old barbeque stoves. Every night when he comes home from work, he goes straight out to inspect the garden in his shirtsleeves, tie and stockinged feet. He cossets his strawbs with the tenderness of a doting mother.
They are not shop-perfect; they are often mishapen, and sometimes a bit slugged or pecked. But they are ours.
We are on the waiting list for an allotment.
