Half time at the allotment

In better times...

We’ve battled rain, wind, rain, snow, some more rain, deer, rain and some strange orange weevily things with a very high leg count. And now we’re losing the plot.

As any keen gardener will tell you (probably whilst leaning on a garden fork and looking knowledgeable and suitably weathered), it’s been a tough year.

A late, cold, spring, amounts of sunshine that the word “inadequate” fails to accurately describe, then the soggiest winter since records began, have left many a horticulturist downhearted, under-vegetabled, and contemplating trying to grow rice to see if that will cope any better.

For mere weekend-weeders like us, it has been particularly harsh. With jobs consuming Monday, Friday and those other ones in-between, Saturday and Sunday have to accommodate all those other life-enhancing things that need doing too. Like decorating, shopping, trying not to think about Monday and wishing, desperately, that your Lotto numbers come up soon.

The universe has been busy mocking us too. Almost every time we’ve had a couple of hours available to head up to our paddy-field plot, it’s been pouring. I don’t know about you, but when an ark is more appropriate than a fork, it tends to put you off somewhat. That and the fact that wellies only come up so far.

Of course, every time you’re compelled to visit family or friends, have to take the car to the garage, or need to go and have an optician tell you to stop talking to the hat stand, you can pretty much guarantee that it will be dry.

The inevitable consequence of all this has, therefore, been a pretty disappointing season. It would have been easier and cheaper to have just brought most of the stuff we did manage to grow.

Alternatively, boiling up the seeds and bulbs we planted would have provided a greater source of nutrition that the meagre return we got from putting them in the ground and waiting for the green shoots of goodness that rarely came.

Keeping on top of everything became akin to the proverbial paint job for the Forth Bridge – by the time we’d got the last bed dug over, the first one looked like a scene from a Tarzan film (but with marginally less deadly animals and people wearing loincloths).

With heavy hearts, we’ve therefore taken the difficult decision to reduce our oasis of earth to half it’s original size, and let someone else have a go at 50% of it.

We might be able to cope better with half a plot. Look at Midsomer Murders – they’ve got along just fine all these years, so it clearly works.

Perhaps we will now be able to devote more time to beautifying the beans, romancing the raspberries, getting fruity with the apple tree and ensuring the highest standards of courgette etiquette.

The scores at half time: Allotment 1: Us 0. It is a game of two halves though, and I reckon we can pull it round. Oranges? Nah.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 19th of February 2016.

Yes, we're giving up half of our patch, even though it's probably nearer to being up to date than it has ever been. The trouble is, whilst we were getting there on having it all neat and tidy, actually getting stuff planted, then properly tended, just wasn't happening. 

We even considered packing it in altogether, but then realised the apple tree, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and rhubarb will all pretty much get on it with the growing game by themselves. Hence, even if we do practically nothing, we recoup the cost of having the plot in fruity goodness. Anything else we get planted is a bonus.

I've also formally announced that I'm packing in being Chair of the Allotment Association. The fact that I know sod all about gardening doesn't seem to have been a problem, but I just can't put the time into it that the role deserves.

All change, then. Dig it.

(Wow, this Argentinian History of ELO radio series will take a long time to listen to. 24, 1 hour, episodes. Currently on episode 2, and they've only just got to The Move...)