The sun is out so I sent my lovely husband out this morning to buy a spade, fork, rake and hoe for the allotment along with a padlock for the shed so we could store the tools up there and not have to worry about lugging them over every time.
We decided to have a picnic lunch, we are British after all, there’s no such thing as bad weather just inappropriate clothing. Let’s face it if we never ate outside unless it was warm and sunny we’d never eat outside would we? This was far cry from the picnics I remember with my Mum and Dad. These usually consisted of cheese sandwiches on white bread and a packet of biscuits, eaten in the landrover as it usually rained and my Mum didn’t do ‘sitting on the grass’.
We spent 2 hours at the allotment, digging it over, raking it, eating the picnic on the planks (must remember to take the deckchair next time, oooh, and install a still), small boy and medium sized girl went off to eat their picnic in the car in good old North Yorkshire tradition. We left big girl at home in bed, well it was a bit early for her, the sun was still up. I had to contend with my beloved husband constantly harping on about ‘you can’t plant anything yet, you have to go by the planting plan’ (yeah right, that means we ought to devise one then?), ‘you need to prep the soil bit by bit so you won’t be able to plant the whole thing for at least a year, do it bit by bit, nag, nag, nag’. OK, he does have a small point. My idea of gardening is going to the garden centre and buying plants, bringing them home and leaving them until my lovely husband plants them, usually in the dark as I’ve forgotten about them. What’s wrong with that then? Alternatively order from Rocket Gardens, but this would an awfully expensive option for the size for our allotment, so seeds it is.
After a lovely lunch of marinated chicken with leftover red grapefruit salsa from cooking club yesterday, finished off with baby spinach and citrus dressing in a wholemeal wrap we carried on with my husband creasing up laughing and accusing me of having OCD due to my determination to finish off the bit I was doing so it was dead straight and at right angles. No matter what I do it will be wrong, may as well just go and buy some plants and wait for the plant fairy to plant them.
I’ve asked the lovely Paolo Arrigo at Seeds of Italy to help me with a planting plan @FranchiSeedsUK have some fabulous seeds and they’re all amazing quality so I’m now waiting in anticipation. I’m thinking different coloured carrots, blue potatoes, aubergines, peppers, peas, beans, stripy beetroot and we’ll have to move all the remaining raspberry canes up there before Sidney our black labrador eats every last scrap of them – lovely raspberry flavoured sticks!
We dug out the last of the produce so we have home grown leeks to go with our roast beef and the trimmings, boy I am so tired it’s pathetic, an hour down the gym followed by 2 hours at the allotment, didn’t make it out on my bike, must be getting old. Oh no, not going there, refuse to get old, mind you the children were tired and the last hour in the car playing on their Nintendos so maybe I shouldn’t feel too bad.