What's this I've found?

My word but it's sweltery today. I gave myself the day off from mowing at Bressingham as it's a tough job with an old push lawn mower at the best of times, let alone when it's 30 degrees. While I was inspecting the raspberries I found this plant hidden among the canes. I'd love to identify it so if anyone could help, that would be fantastic.

A bit of back ground about the plot which may help with identification; the land began to be used as an allotment site about 100 years ago but had fallen out of use since the 1990's and been left uncultivated since then. Last year was the first year it has been re-used as allotments although we were delayed in getting on the land as some possibly rare wild flowers were discovered, although I don't know what type. They were inspected and declared not rare and we were subsequently allowed on site.

Personally, I think it looks a bit orchid like but I know next to nothing about flowers so am unlikely to be right I think! Failing that, I'd like it to be some sort of historic meadow plant with an exotic name. Toadflax (suggested by Cheeky Spouse on Twitter) is heading in the right direction. I'm rather disappointed that I don't have 'Creeping Ladies Tresses' which I found on an orchid site. Not sure if it's the ladies or their tresses that do the creeping though.

*Update* I've been Googling and I now don't think it is an orchid, the leaves are wrong. Am bitterly disappointed that it's not sneezwort either.

On a massively un-related note, I discovered cooked radishes at the weekend and they're unexpectedly delicious. I used this Riverford recipe, amazing, it gives radishes a whole new lease of life away from the salad bowl. It's inspired me to go and plant not only more radishes but some small turnips too.

First harvest from Diss

Just call me Gypsy Rose Lee. My prophecy on 24th May in my 'bizarre weather' post came true, the rains well and truly came down on Proms in the Park on 18th June as it does every single year. Bad news for the party goers but fabulous news for allotmenteers.

The newly damp weather is a mixed blessing, it lessens the workload in that I don't have to diligently visit the allotments for watering duty every day but, on the other hand, THE WEEDS!! I hadn't visited the Diss allotment for about 4 days so when I went today I was stunned at how many had sprung up in my absence - better watch my back for the committee!

Fortunately the crops have sprung up too and today I brought home my first harvest from the new plot, lettuce, radishes, rainbow chard and stripy courgettes. Cavolo Nero is also ready but I didn't pick any. Seeing as I finished the last portion of frozen 2010 courgette soup today, it seems fitting that the 2011 supply have kicked off too.

Sometimes prophetic ability spills over into tempting fate. After yesterday's post in praise of weeds at Bressingham my fellow Allotment committee member (there's only 2 of us!) phoned to tell me she thinks we need to clamp down on the weeds - why can't I keep my big mouth shut .....

A Tale of Two Allotments

One unexpected benefit of having allotments on 2 different sites is that it's given me an insight into how disparate allotment culture can be from site to site.

My old allotment site at Bressingham certainly has it's fair share of disadvantages. The heavy, clay soil, the complete lack of water, the well established weeds which have had a decade to run rampant, not to mention the local residents and their anti-allotment campaign plus the fact that it's a 5 minute drive away from home. It was enough to make me run into the arms of my newly acquired Diss based allotment.

The advantages of the new plot are legion, running water - yes - actual taps for goodness sake, a mere 10 paces away! The soil has been tended for years and has a lovely fine texture, diligent previous tenants have kept on top of the nasty weeds, I don't have so much as a single dandelion to contend with and, the major advantage, it is a 3 minute walk from home.

But I've recently come to realise that the Bressingham site has hidden talents. Yes, it's a bit weedy and we've still got vacant plots aplenty but that gives the whole place a fairly relaxed, shambolic air which I'm worryingly at home in. I love the riot of poppies and cammomile which spring up around the sheds and carpet the vacant plots, they're beautiful against the backdrop of the open countryside that surrounds the site. No-one here is going to purse their lips if I leave a clump of poppies on the footpath just because I think they're pretty, or let the clover grow to help the bees.

Almost every plot holder has children of varying ages which means that if a few of us are down there, the children can roam as a pack enjoying an approximation of a 1950's childhood. They go to the see horses in the next field, roam the vacant plots digging up worms, search the ditches for frogs or chase the pheasants (not peasants) in the hedges. Tractors trundle the lanes and geese from the smallholding over the road honk overhead. (Keep this bucolic rural idyll in your mind and ignore the stinking, monsterous crop spraying tractor in the field next door which made me flee for home the other week.) Anti-rabbit fences around each plot not only keep the rabbits out but make sure the kids don't trample indiscriminately over neighbouring plots, what do they say about strong fences making good neighbours?

By contrast, Diss may have significant practical advantages but, goodness me, the pressure of being next to the old boys and their straight rows, fecund plots and zero tolerance policy on weeds! There aren't any lovely, safe fences so I have to be ever vigilant about trampling and nag the girls to stay on our plot continually. To be fair, the old boys seem to be quite taken with small girls and we've had the odd gift of newly picked carrots for them to munch on but I can't imagine they'd be quite so indulgent if small feet destroyed their rows of hard work.

And dear Lord, the weeding, if the slightest stalk of shepherd's purse shows it's face I get palpitations. Most evenings see me shouldering my hoe to go and toil once more at the weedface, I may not be digging up dandelion roots but the annuals are hard work too.

So what about you? What the allotment culture on your site? Do families and the old guard peacefully co-exist? Or has civil war broken out?

The disadvantage of being a Blogger's daughter ....

.... is pausing with your strawberry in the air, tantilisingly close to plunging your teeth into it, for a photo opportunity without even being asked. Xanthe saw me approach with strawberries and camera in hand, she silently took the strawberry and posed obligingly with it. Even photophobic Willow, while snipping elderflowers for the 'bizarre weather' post, shot me a look mid-snip and asked the lens "have you finished? Can I put the scissors down?". I thought she was behaving in a marvelously natural and unselfconscious manner, turns out every move was carefully calculated.

The allotment strawberries have been fabulous this year, I'm coming away with tubs full every few days. I guess those news reports about jubilant strawberry farmers were true after all. It's a good job really as there's not much else ready to pick. We've got lettuce but last year's chard has finally run to seed and nothing else is ready, the radishes have only just gone in, tomatoes only just flowering, courgettes only just forming.

I assume everyone else is having an awful year for fruit trees and it's not just me? We had lots of flowers on the plum, apple and pear trees and lots of tiny fruit formed but the lack of rain seems to be stunting their growth. They've remained tiny, have withered and are dropping off the tree. Other wild trees (cherry and yellow bullace) seem to be doing the same thing too although sloes in the hedgerows seem to be OK so far.

I'm now at a stage where I should be able to see if my '2 plot' strategy pays off. Bressingham (the further away plot) is now more or less established, all the plants are watered in and shouldn't need much attention from hereon in. The high maintenance crops are all watered in at Louie's Lane (3 mins walk away) so survival watering and caterpillar patrol is all that's required - hopefully. So this is the moment of truth, will I be able to maintain 2 plots split between 2 sites? I certainly hope so as I'd hate to have to decide which plot to give up.

Tasted our First Frost Sloe Gin

Last year we picked some sloes after the first frosts for the first time I think I've covered the theory behind this before, but I'll precis it for newer readers anyway.

Popular wisdom says that frost make the sloes sweeter or it breaks down their skin a little, allowing the juices to flow out more easily, either way, the upshot is supposed to be sloe gin with a rather more mellow and complex flavour.

When we first started making sloe gin I had trouble picking post frost sloes as, by the time the frosts came, the sloes had withered on the vine (so to speak) I put this down to global warming and the frosts getting later. But, as we all know, the last couple of winters have seen an altered gulf stream and a preponderance of ice and snow. As a result, 2010 presented us with our first opportunity to grab some frosted sloes before they shrivelled.

It's spent 3 months macerating in the demi-jon and a further 4 months maturing in the bottle so it was with a flourish that we finally opened it.

I don't know what other sloe gin aficionados find, but I think the taste of sloe gin can vary batch to batch anyway, the amount of ginny tang and tannins can change considerably and there are so many variables (how long the gin is left to macerate/mature, how the sloes were pricked, differences between locations of the trees they grew on, whether bullaces have crept in etc etc) it hard to pinpoint which one is responsible.

However, this batch is definitely one of the best we've produced, noticeably thicker and mellower than the non frost batch. Whether that's down to the frosting alone is impossible to tell but I think we'll carry on making it when we get the opportunity, just to be sure!

Talking of bullace - has anyone heard of Essex Bullace? A friend of Adam's reckons he's picked some but when we Googled it we only found references to them on American sites along with Royal Bullace and White Bullace, none of which I've ever heard of, can anyone shed any light?

The weather gets even more bizarre.

What is it with this weather? I get the impression that I'm imprisoned in the last dry and dusty corner of the county, bleating into the ether about the lack of rain while the rest of the country bends under the weight of torrential rain. My Facebook page is full of far flung people exclaiming at thunderstorms/hailstones/floods etc. (No locusts or frogs yet but surely it's only a matter of time) while I gaze mournfully at the dustbowl I call an allotment.

On the plus side though, the elderflowers are early. Willow has been eagerly anticipating her first taste of summer and has been monitoring the progress of the flowers in the hedgerow and telling me to get my finger out re cordial so yesterday I obliged. I say 'I', Willow did most of the work as you can see.

Anyway, I'm as confident as confident can be that the dry spell will break by 18th June as that's when Proms in the Park is held in Diss. Every year, without fail, there is torrential rain and revellers end up forgetting the words to Jerusalem and sipping warm wine out of plastic cups while huddling under golf umbrellas in an attempt to keep dry.

I was actually offended by the frost in April, how can it be fair that we're battling mid summer conditions and yet have to contend with extreme night time cold at the same time? Interestingly though, I read a couple of old garden diary type books, The Urban Gardener by Elspeth Thompson, (published in the mid '90s) and one whose name I can't remember as I was reading it in the Oxfam bookshop but was published in the 1930's (didn't buy it as it was about growing flowers rather than veg) both complained of 'freak' frost and snow in April. So I guess it's not that unusual after all, next year I promise I won't cast any clouts til May is out.

Yesterday though, things took another turn for the unexpected with the gale force winds. Luckily our, as yet empty, cold frame on the allotment stayed put but my plastic greenhouse at home has suffered. It didn't move as it's lashed securely to various down pipes on the side of the house and the frame is weighted down with gro bags. However, it did rock violently enough to tip up the tomatoes on the top shelves so they came crashing down on the tomatoes below. Plus the outer cover has ripped where the ropes tying it down are attached. Now the winds have died down I have a morning of duct tape repairs and surveying the damage to my Mr Stripeys in front of me. My leftover tumbling tom seedlings, who were destined for the allotment, flew around the garden alarmingly, the pots have been left behind but the plants have simply disappeared.

I have to admit I'm genuinely quite worried and can't help feeling that global warming is genuinely upon us. Some people may claim it doesn't exist and I hope they're right, but I doubt it.

Surviving the drought.

Here in the East we've had an exceptionally dry spring with only something like 10% of the usual rainfall. I haven't found it too difficult to cope with although that's not to say I haven't had disasters. My broad beans and asparagus crowns have definitely failed and my carrots are worryingly slow to germinate but I've not giving up hope just yet. On the other hand my strawberries, fruit trees, borlotti beans, chard, cavolo nero, lettuce, leeks, sweetcorn and calabrese seem to be not just surviving but flourishing. This is down, in no small measure, to all the help I got in this post last year.

So, a year down the line, I thought it would be useful to review how I got on with the drought measures over the season, which tips worked and which am I carrying on with this year.

Last year I planted as many seeds as possible direct in the ground. I reasoned this would be less work than handling dozens of seedlings with all potting on and hardening off, but I was wrong. Hard work is trying to keep a 10m line of seeds wet enough to germinate (hence the fate of my carrots this year as I've sown them direct) It's much, much easier to keep a tray in a coldframe at home well watered plus this gives the seeds a head start as they germinate much more quickly. Once hardened off all the plants could all be watered simultaneously with 10 minutes under the sprinkler.

One of the best suggestions I got last year was from Craftygeek (see the comments on the old post) which was to plant bean seeds in cardboard tubes or rolls of newspaper full of compost. I packed mine together in an orange crate from the supermarket which I moved in and out of the coldframe en masse to harden them off. Once they were ready to go out I planted the whole tube/roll in the ground. This encourages deep roots and the compost and cardboard hold onto water, preventing it seeping away through the horribly cracked clay soil. Plus it improves the texture of the soil long term. Last year, once the beans were established I didn't water them at all but they continued to thrive and crop well.

Planting in a depression (just think of all the Lib Dem broken election promises ..... ) is probably the simplest and most effective thing I do. I put the seedlings in a dish shaped depression in the ground about 3cm deep and also build up a little 'wall' of soil around the plant. This holds the water, preventing it running off and giving it time to properly soak into the soil. As the plant grows bigger it tends to overrun the depression making it redundant but by this time the roots are deep enough to cope anyway.

As a proper double whammy, with large water hungry plants such as squash, cucumbers and tomatoes as well as the depression I use the bottom-chopped-off-plastic-bottle technique. I find this hugely effective, 48hrs after watering the soil is usually still damp around the plant, even on a hot, dry day.

These techniques are time saving too as I can quickly dump the water where it's needed and walk away, I don't have to stand at each plant for 20 seconds or so til the water has soaked in. Also as the water is getting directly to where it's needed, I don't need as much which means fewer trips to the tap/water butt. It takes me about 20 minutes to water each allotment, although I plan on stopping watering at all on the old allotment once the plants are established.

Have a look at Allotments4you's comment on the old post, I took this one to heart, last year I didn't water my borlotti beans, sweetcorn, brocolli, chard or cavolo nero once they were established and all did well. I didn't water the carrots either, apparently this encourages root veg to grow down further in search of water, making them bigger. Which they were. The wireworm seemed to approve anyway ....

PS - Just thought of another one. If you've got any spare seedlings with no room, pot them on and keep them alive as backups just in case your planted out ones fail, or die of frost, or get eaten by a chicken or something.