Changes...dreams and schemes...

I have officially finished work...it still hasn't quite sunk in that having worked every day for 12 years at the same place that at the end of the summer holidays I will not be going back...ever. I will never have to do that seemingly endless bus journey again. I have some lovely (garden related) presents and a card full of best wishes for my future from people I've worked with for years so it must be true...I have finished work...gulp.

So now what? 

Well at the moment I'm giving myself some time off, it's been a bit of a tough few months with my very loved step mum passing away and excepting this redundancy all happening at the same time, my brain and body just seem to have gone a bit bleeegghhh on me. I decided to stop being very British about it all and just carrying on, stiff upper lip an all that. No actually that's enough, it's OK to stop, I have given myself permission to just stop and not feel guilty, just for now. 

And  it is the summer holidays after all and small boy is demanding to be entertained. My day starts (early) with, 'well what are we doing today that's a treat for me?'...when did children start to think the world revolves around them...oh yes forever! Money is tight, so we have to be inventive and selfishly enough I try to get as much allotment time in as possible without him working out he's been tricked! Lets make a scarecrow for the allotment...lets build a wildlife pond at the allotment....shall we see who can grow the tallest sunflower? plant a pot of carrots? play Star Wars with the weeds? So far so good, luckily for me he is a boy who needs to be outside and as long as he doesn't get stung by nettles and sees at least 1 frog on our allotment days he manages to last long enough for me to get some jobs done before the real whining starts.

Meanwhile my brain is buzzing with ideas and plans for what is to come. I have dreams of a poly tunnel which I'm planning to use to propagate my own plants  eventually for my little germ of a gardening business idea, as well as finally be able to grow those vegetables that at the moment allude me...aubergines, peppers...poly tunnel dreams.

 But for now all I can hear is small boy bouncing off the walls...must get out of the house! 

  

My poor shed...

And so it has happened as it so sadly happens to many allotment holders at some point...the shed break in. 

My lovely little purple shed, keeper of all plot essentials has been got at with a screwdriver (I'm guessing) and for god sake did it have to be my camping stove!!  The one essential bit of kit...everyone knows how important it is to be able to make tea on an allotment!

I'm not, as you may have guessed, too upset...I've had my home broken into whilst I was asleep in bed and believe me THAT was upsetting! In the grand scheme of things a camping stove is not worth a huge amount of money and is easily replaceable. The sad thing is this burglar didn't just break into my shed but nearly every one on site...and what were they looking for?...well it seems to me like they might just have been hungry. They'd taken my camping stove...they'd opened a large plastic tub which had once had a catering amount of peanut butter in it (don't ask) but were probably gutted to find the picture had it all wrong and it only had very inedible fertiliser in it and from another ladies shed, a packet of biscuits. They must have been hungry... but as I stood looking around me, beans, salad, carrots, courgettes, asparagus, artichokes, strawberries, raspberries, cherries and the rest....it struck me that they were also either really dim or really faddy eaters that don't like their fruit and veg...in which case what were you doing on a bloody allotment!? 

 I said I wasn't too upset by it and I'm not, stuff is just well stuff, but on the shed wall I have a sign that says on it, 'to you it may only be a shed but to me it's a sanctuary.' The shed and the allotment are just that to me, a sanctuary, a beautiful place to just 'be' and recently I have so needed it! So I just wish that hungry, finicky eating burglar had read, understood and cared about what they were doing....sadly I know that they didn't.  

*Thankfully as you can see in the photo one of my leaving presents from work was that lovely little flask and matching cup so I shall still be able to drink tea!

Life...sometimes.

I have been very quiet on my blog recently, sometimes life just stills you and for me writing anything has become almost impossible and that so includes this post.
 But I hate to see my little blog become one of those abandoned blogs that scatter the internet and frustrate you with their long past used by dates. So I have decided to write this to explain and hopefully give me a new start on the other side...please bare with me, this is from a sore heart...

 My step mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer on New Years Eve and since then we have been caring for her so she can spend the time she has in the comfort of the home she has loved for many years.

 Whilst I sit with her, the last 'grown up' in my world, (she has been my step mum for longer than either my mum or dad were alive to be my parents) she still has one last really important lesson for me. She is teaching me to live, I don't mean that to sound pretentious, I mean it in a humbling way...as death fades her quite literally before our eyes she is making me want to take the life I have and squeeze it like the precious thing it really is.

And so I have been taking a long hard look at my life and decided it needs shaking up a bit...now or never...

I know that we all have dreams and wishes that for many of us remain just that, something tucked away from the reality of life, to be escaped to when the need arises. My dream is not anything glamorous, it isn't about winning the lottery (hum), or about having a huge house, flash car or any of those things I stupidly thought mattered when I was young. For me it is now all about family, friends, surrounding myself with the people that matter and that pursuit of happiness or just that easy sense of contentment...to have the time to enjoy the simple things.  

With this thought very much in control of me I accepted a voluntary redundancy from a job that I have had for 12 years. A job that has offered me the stability of a reliable monthly pay packet. It has kept the mortgage paid so quite literally a roof over our heads right from my days as a single mum to where I am now in a happy relationship with a young son, step children, a grandchild even... so quite literally a lifetime! It would have terrified me only a little while ago to give up this job, the fear of those bills... but it is not the job of my dreams it doesn't make me happy... 

So now is the time to take one of my long buried 'dreams' and run with it. The dream I have of 'gardening' for a living, taking that secret garden from my childhood and turning it into something real...and to make that idea into something viable, to pay the bills doing something I love.

 I have started a horticulture course with the RHS and have been organizing some voluntary posts in beautiful gardens with the idea of surrounding myself with professional people who know what they are doing and who I can learn from. I have so much to learn!

 I'm not a 20 something bright young thing just starting out, nor do I have a partner with a secure wage that can keep those bills paid whilst I risk being penniless, neither am I naïve enough to think it will be easy. I am just looking at my lovely step mum and feeling finally brave enough to try because as that awful cliché says, life is just too damn short...wish me luck...

Sweet pea dilemmas...

I'm in a complete spin...a sweet pea spin...which sweetpeas?...do I want soft pastel shades or dark moody and dramatic...I just can't decide. I keep making lists then changing my mind and pretty soon if I don't get a move on it'll be too late! Arrgghhh.
 I did sow a few left over seeds that I had before Christmas because apparently they do better from an autumn sowing. They are sat in root trainers in my little plastic greenhouse and seem to be doing ok, I've pinched them out and they have multiple shoots now. We shall see which do better for me this year, the early or later sown ones.
I made the mistake last year of planting a few borage seeds around the sweet pea wigwams...those few seeds turned into a huge (quite beautiful) impenetrable wall that the poor little sweet peas couldn't even get a tendril over so this year I am planning to plant them mostly in their own glory well away from the borage anyway. However, I've seen deep purple sweet peas grown with purple podded peas and they looked amazing...so that might be at least one colour I can make a definite decision on as I'm growing Shiraz mangetout peas and Blauhilde climbing beans this year.
I don't think I can go too wrong whatever colour combination I decide on, they are all very beautiful and in the grand scheme of things worrying about the colour of your sweet peas seems so trivial but it's a nice distraction to have.

I'm also trying to decide which potatoes to grow, last year I grew 6 different types of Albert Bartlett potatoes to see which ones we preferred. I'm definitely sold on Anya, they are absolutely delicious salad potatoes, simply cooked fresh from the ground (great roasted too!) they were a family favorite and very prolific from only 6 tubers! The other variety we really liked were Purple Majesty, they weren't quite as successful as Anya but the ones we did get were really tasty and quite novel looking, though I wouldn't recommend them mashed...they go a very fetching shade of grey! They were quite hard to dig up though because their dark purple skins are almost impossible to spot in the soil!
 I might be about to learn a hard lesson though because this year it seems quite hard to find a source for the Purple Majesty as they seem to be very popular and have sold out on the sites I've looked at unless I want to buy a field full of them! The lesson being get in early for those more unusual things...especially if you see them popping up in celebrity chefs recipes!

Just realised from reading through this that I seem to have a bit of a purple theme running through my allotment this year...wonder if that means anything?

  

A bit of printing and crafting...

A long time ago when my hair was thick and didn't fall out, when I wasn't scared of a hangover, when I could function passed 10 o'clock at night and when I could be bothered to watch films that make no sense (with sub titles)...I also played at being an art student. I wasn't very good at it but I have an always had an urge to create things...I can hear my dad's snort of laughter here, 'yes, a mess'...well yes my creative urges have never been 'tidy.' Happier with clay and papier mache than neat palettes of water colours..I like getting my hands dirty. Probably one reason why I love gardening and my allotment, it's both creative an unavoidably filthy at the same time:)

Well I've recently discovered a new love in my seeming quest to never have perfect nails (Chris has bought me a nail brush, I find painting my nails a dark colour helps:) I've found linocut printing through a short workshop run by James Green...it was great fun and even though I don't believe my efforts are worthy of a decent frame (a clip-frame maybe) I was quite proud of my 'finished' print. My sister suggested that I need more practice...she's right (we believe in keeping it real in our family) I do need to learn more, so it's given me the perfect excuse to sign myself up for some classes in January at this great place called The Art House in Sheffield. It's nice to have something to look forward to whilst the evenings are still so dark...I can't get to the allotment after work so this seems like a good time to learn a new indoor skill.
It's the one form of printing I've never tried probably because I'm not so good with sharp objects but with practise I'm hoping to avoid any trips to A & E and to rediscover that long lost art student within...I won't be watching the Seventh Seal anytime soon though;)!

 

Another little Christmas craft project.

Turned into simple presents...the Rosemary smelt lovely too!

Garlic loves...snow...really?

When my garlic arrived very early in the morning in the post it felt like a sign (thank you lovely The Garlic farm!) then I looked outside. Snow...really?...did it have to be snow?! My free time ...I mean children, dog, work free time is barely in existence at the moment...my precious few hours to get to the allotment and it snows...of course it does...fine...I'll just get my gloves and hat, scarf...thermals.

 Anyway I went, yes it had snowed and yes it was stupidly, nose numbingly cold but the ground wasn't frozen yet and the sun actually came out, I can't say I was exactly basking in its warmth but it helped. I wittered about the broad bean plants I'd brought to plant out and the garlic I had...should I risk it? I decided that the weather will only get worst, my free time, the closer we creep to christmas even rarer, so I raked the snowy covering off the perfectly fine soil beneath and dug. It felt great to be planting things again...I love the anticipation of what will happen...moles, slugs, snails...frost, snow...or will it actually grow? We shall see...oh please let the elephant garlic grow...the cloves were massive...I'm guessing the plant ( fingers crossed) will be too.  There is a recipe (a nice simple one)...on the website that I bought the garlic from using elephant garlic to make crisps,  interesting idea:) It should keep a few blood suckers away...wonder if you eat them in the summer if it would keep the midges away? I feel an experiment coming on, I hate midges!...that is if it grows at all for me...

I really understand the idea of now being the beginning of the season rather than the end...even though things have definitely slowed down...the bindweed has gone to ground thankfully, though I know it's still there just waiting. The garlic and the beans are the first things I've planted for awhile and I was really happy with my fennel! I also bought some lovely garlic labels so have been able to mark the 4 different varieties properly in my quest to make sure that I label everything this year:) 

The whole time I was there I was under the close watch of a robin, he/she seemed very grateful for the bare ground I turned over and also for some strange reason my shed door being open. It kept flying inside I have no idea why perhaps to find somewhere slightly warmer...I had to double check when I locked up that it wasn't still in there.

So I had snow and a robin can't get much more seasonal than that!

My 'to do' list promises. ..

Ok possibly a dangerous thing to do but I'm taking a leaf from my dad's book and embracing the 'to do' list...actually my dad could make anything into a list or an IOU...wasn't so much about what he needed to remember more an affliction he suffered from...I still have the IOU he gave me when I was about 9 as a birthday present, a written IOU promise to open me a bank account...oh I so wish he'd done that...

Anyway I'm getting distracted, this is my list of things I want/need to do differently in my allotment this coming year in no particular order or relevance...

1. Sow seeds of things I actually want to grow...not just because they came free with a magazine (I have a terrible problem with waste...I just have to use them...or find a seed swapping thing...or even start one myself perhaps..)

2. Don't buy any gardening magazines...they are full of good advice and pretty pictures but also seeds I don't want or need but have a compulsion to sow anyway. I really didn't want 30+ turnips...the slugs were happy with them though...

3. Attempt to grow quinoa...I have no idea if it will work but I'm on a healthy eating thing..quinoa is expensive to buy so if I can grow it surely it's a good idea...hmm...I'm buying the seed online from the Real Seed Catalogue, they seem very positive that its not only possible to grow in this country but get a decent crop as well...it's my 2016 experiment...besides it must be easier than trying to grow avocados!

4. Not get too upset by neighbours perfect plot...they seem to have much more time and there's usually 2 of them doing the work...2 grown ups, not my usual set up...me, a small boy and a daft dog and half an hour before small boy or daft dog or both do something to make me scream.....give myself a break!

5. Move my poor clematis from my tiny garden at home to the allotment fence to give it the freedom it needs...also hoping that it's a monster worthy opponent of the bindweed...I suspect it might be...I've been trying to contain it for years because it's just too big and the fence that was there for it to scramble up has gone...It just will not give in, within a day of me pruning it, it's back flexing its leafy muscles and just laughing at my attempts to tame it. Bindweed watch your back!

6. Deal with the slugs and snails that seem to love my little plot of land...I'm going to experiment with 'Slug Gone'..it's made from sheeps wool...I have no idea why sheep wool should be so abhorrent to a slug but it's worth a try...I'd really love a beetroot next year that hasn't been sculptured into some mollusc work of art.

7. Make an insect habitat, though my plot seems to be heaving in things that crawl, slither an fly that must already be living somewhere but it seems the right thing to do and they can look great. Saw this one in the garden of Eyam hall, I'd be happy with a slightly smaller one, this is a grand hall version..mine will be more of an end terrace kind of thing...

8. Get the hang of lighting my Ghille kettle an use the thing!

9. Try to grow sweetcorn (again)...the slugs got my seedlings this year (and last)...next year see note 6!

10. Label all seeds sown properly...I have some plants that I've grown from seed this year but because the label wore off I have no idea what they are....They are pretty none descrip green leafy plants at the moment, they could be edible or some sort of perennial flower....I am playing a waiting game with them until they give me a clue...or the slugs get them...

I have lots of other things that I should/could add but I don't want to end up with an IOU to myself to fulfil my 'to do' list!...My dad would be proud:)

Being able to get where you are going...and allotment thoughts...

We had to get rid of my trusty little Clio a while ago now, we just couldn't afford or justify being a 2 car family. So my rusty bucket of a car that I got when I became a single mother and had beautifully trundled me and my 2 older boys about for a good 11 years had to go. New man, new life, bye car...it was hard to see it go it symbolized a bit of an era for me (in fact Chris had to watch it go I hid at work, pathetic girl!) Anyway I'm over it now, it's fine not having a car most of the time. I quite like the bus even though I spend a silly amount of time on it going to and from work, I wrote this little post about it a while ago. When I miss my Clio the most though is when Chris is away (with car) and I have no way of getting to the allotment when I have small boy in tow, it's just slightly too far for his little legs.

But when I do have the car (or the freedom time to walk) the allotment is the first place I go, it's where I want to be most of the time if I'm honest. It has suffered a bit this year and I haven't had great crops of anything from it really, I've been a bit envious of all the Instagram and Twitter posts of other peoples beautiful veggie bounties. There have been times when I have wondered if I can actually cope with it at all, slugs have had a field day (what does that actually mean, 'field day'?) the bindweed has had a laugh and my turnips, beetroots and radishes have all come up looking like patterns in lace design. I have discovered there are actually things called flea beetles, really? I  think sometimes nature is just having a bit of a laugh at our expense!  Then I have sat and listened to the bees in the borage and picked my beautiful borlottis that haven't failed me (second time round!) and been slightly in awe of the artichokes and thought, 'well it could be worst and there is always next year'.

 

 The seed catalogues are coming fast and furiously through the door tempting me with all kinds of things though I'm really not brave enough to try celery, for some reason it scares me;) I want to try sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, salsify...and I will get squashes to work for me somehow! I'm going to save up for a greenhouse or would a poly tunnel be better? 

I'm planting a wildlife friendly flower patch with the bargains you can get from garden centres and B&Q at this time of year. I've just got a large Verbena plant for £3 which looked a bit sorry for itself but it will come back and be beautiful next year (I hope). I've got Foxglove seedlings that will be big enough to go in next year and I'm wanting to plant a Honeysuckle on the allotment fence next to my plot that will hopefully be rampant enough to do battle with the bindweed!

I'm not going to give up, I love my allotment and I will do my best to get it too love me too:) Next year will be better...now I have to study my seed catalogues, there really are very few things that make me happier...I know I've said it before, I need to get out more...yes, to my allotment!! 

Holiday moments...

Now that I am well an truly back at work and everyone has started to talk about the end of summer, which makes me a little sad, I thought it was a good time to sort through all the photos from our camping holiday in Norfolk and share a few of them as a bit of a lovely (sunny) memory. The rain has been pretty much consistent recently (I got rained off the allotment the other day...even with a shed to hide in!) and we had the heating on for the first time the other night. Chris is still resistant to getting any logs for our wood burner but I'm sure it won't be long before we have that lit and will be having to get daft dog to move from right in front of it! (for such a lithe dog he does manage to hog the heat some how)

Small boy is also back at school and already on only the second day he is very cross that he has to go again! I ran off this morning before he was told he was also at after school club, coward that I am...sorry Chris for leaving you with that one!


Things I really miss about our lovely canvas break...the huge skies, brilliant sunsets, the sea, the sand, the sound of the steam train, being outside, friendly camping folk, children playing, no screens (tv, computer) ice cream...


Things I really don't miss...er, this list is harder...washing up, always seems to be far more when you're camping! Wasps, searching for the toothpaste...