grumpyf1

Back when it began: Untidy, excessive undergrowth and in bad shape -and the allotment was pretty bad too. The dream is over. This week we relinquished tenancy of our allotment plot. Nearly eight years have passed since we took it on. Back then, the decade had only just started, bank notes were made of paper and I didn’t need a hat on a sunny day quite as much as I do nowadays. We were thrilled to bag our large plot. OK, it was waist-deep in weeds, but we had high hopes, untapped energy and boundless optimism. We would turn this patch of green stuff into a fruit and veg-based paradise. It would become an oasis of tranquil productivity. A sanctuary of bountiful (and edible) goodness. My first ever encounter with a slow worm, whist hacking at the undergrowth with shears, did involve me believing I’d stumbled upon a highly venomous snake (the screaming and running away wasn’t my finest moment). A little research revealed my wriggly chum was, in fact, a kind of leg-free lizard and...

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 h...

Pass the salad dressing... Have you arrived home to find your house has been burgled, but all the invaders have taken is salad from the fridge?  I think I know the culprits... Another season of allotmenteering is gently drawing to a close. True, thanks to a very cold spring it hardly feels like it got going, but the half-dozen very small, stubbornly green, tomatoes on the withering plant are evidence that we did have a growing season. Sort of. All that’s left now is to see if eating any of the rather small apples causes our heads to implode, pick the last few alarmed-looking courgettes before the frost gets them, and look forward to trying to get up there to poke a fork in liquid mud before it all freezes completely and it’s only light for an hour just after lunch. After that, winter will come. Still, even if the nicely mulched compost and bucket of chicken poo you could smell from Scotland didn’t provide us with a bumper crop, the years of experience, closely guarded t...

I have a dream. A dream where the green fingered come together to make something beautiful (assuming the slugs don’t get it first). There may only be 16 plots in our humble village allotment site, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a thing of loveliness, does it? An oasis of tranquillity, carefully tilled soil, green shoots of promise, and the occasional cheery Robin perched on a frosty spade handle for effect. So keen are the keepers of the sacred scrolls that even sheds are not allowed to blight this patch of serene calmness, split only by the occasional shriek of Mrs G putting her hand on a Slow Worm in the long grass. True, the bountiful fruitfulness, and plentiful... er... vegetableiness does attract some local deer who wander in from time to time, no doubt impressed by the neatness and the fact that some kindly humans have generously provided them with a neatly arranged salad bar. In an attempt to politely deter them from scoffing the carefully grown and tended produc...

If you own an allotment, eventually you will succumb to the terrible emotional blight that is Vegetable Envy. Hello. My name is Peter, and it’s been a week since I looked at another man’s courgette and felt ashamed, yet strangely exhilarated. I tried to check myself into the ATC (Alan Titchmarsh Clinic), but autumn is a very busy time for them, and they were fully booked. If you happen to be a sufferer of this debilitating problem (usually brought on by your neighbour’s beautiful plump brassicas, or perfectly shapely peas), then going to your local horticultural show is definitely a bad decision. So, there we were, in the quaint village hall (portrait of the Queen on the wall, vintage upright piano covered up in the corner) marvelling at how anyone managed to make a onion grow quite so large without the use of steroids, or by staying up all night softly calling it “big boy” whilst gently stroking it’s silvery surface. There’s only so much a proud man can take. When I found ...

It seemed like a good idea at the time – spend the Bank Holiday weekend working at our allotment. That’d be nice and relaxing, right? THURSDAY: This is great! Take an extra day off to make sure we get as much done as possible. And the weather forecast is fab! We should have got up here earlier. It all looks rather sad and neglected. Still, won’t take long to whip it into shape. Just need to clear a space in the undergrowth at the back for the new jumbo compost bin - it looks like a drab Dalek. Nice bit of exercise in the sun, what could be better! FRIDAY: There appears to be a rubbish tip immediately under the surface, and I filled a couple of bags with bits of crumbling plastic sheeting, but at least I got those heavy slabs down, and the bin is in place. True, I did fill it with the stuff I had to clear to put it there, but it’ll compost down nicely. Today I need to start digging out the old compost heap. The pallets used to construct it are completely rotten and.. Ooo! A...

If you happened to have read my Big Blogger ramblings, you’ll possibly remember I have an allotment. I have bad news – there’s been an invasion. After what can best be described as “minimal” help from the council, we still have a wall bordering woodland which is missing some essential elements. One of them is stones. The other 1000 or so are also stones. This has meant that Bambi and his chums are free to wander into the allotment, where they find what must be akin to the M&S fruit and veg section of the deer world. Happily ignoring the rule book on what they supposedly eat, they’ve scoffed just about anything that grows, leaving me and my fellow allotmenteers counting the costs. And it’s been quite deer. (Sorry.) This has led to an arms race of netting and poles, as everyone tries to divert the hungry masses away from their plot. We got the first strike in, and now half the plots are surrounded, leaving those working their patch looking like they’ve been caged. Passing bi...

If you were wondering how you can tell the precise moment when you finally become officially middle aged, I can now reveal all. I just became chairman of our village’s Allotment Association. Please send my pipe and slippers immediately. After languishing on a waiting list that was even slower that the “Please hold – all our operators are busy” call waiting system of British Gas, we finally managed to get ourselves an allotment late in 2010. Our initial excitement was tempered somewhat when we went to the site, found the sign for our plot and thought it had been replaced by a reasonably large rainforest. Unfortunately, ill health meant Mrs. G wasn’t able to help as much through the winter as she would have liked (or that’s what she said, anyway) so I spent many a damp hour up there hopelessly poking frozen or waterlogged ground with a fork, and trying to remember my bearings and which direction the sun was in, so I could find my way out afterwards. In the early spring, I had...

Haven't mentioned the allotment for a while, have I? In fact, I haven't mentioned anything else other than F1 for a while, have I? Naughty Grumpyf1. Anyway, apart from having an allotment, we seem to have become home to half the hoppy, slithery wildlife in Cumbria. Today on removing the sheet from the top of the compost heap there were 8 slow worms and 4 frogs. The slow worms proved their name to be highly inaccurate by vanishing pretty sharpish, and most of the frogs buried themselves surprisingly fast, except for this cheeky chap... By the way, me and some twitchums have a cunning idea for a new type of biscuit. You in...? (Musical accompaniment tonight is something new... sort of. Kate Bush's "Director's Cut". Liking it s far!)

Mrs Hamilbutton being icapas... incasipit, icapascit.. broken means it's been me and the allotment, mano a... er... allotmento, this week. Put another hour in up there today and am now tantalisilngly close to getting all the paths cleared. As you can see from the splendidly high quality photo above, there are plenty of apples ont'tree too. My back is bloody killing me. (Footnote: Mrs H was involved in an unfortunate bus-chasing incident which resulted in a plastercast on her digging hand. Any old excuse eh?) (For tonight's post, we're giving it some Smooooooth - note the capital "S" - with The Best Of Sade. No need to ask, she's a smooth operator)

As per usual, the weather forecast was mostly incorrect for yesterday, and the afternoon featured only a couple of light showers. Hence, me and Mrs Hamilbutton were able to spend nearly 3 hours digging our allotment. Yeah. Groovy allotment. Far out. Etc. One bed done, 4 to go. (The well kept bit on the right isn't ours, by the way). Tropical rain forest paths between beds reducing steadily also.... We have however encountered a small problem. Whilst our new compost heap had recently become a des res for slow worms, having heaped more and more onto it we discovered this week that it is now a slow worm hotel, 5 star, swimming pool, bijou restaurant, the lot. On pulling back the plastic sheet yesterday, they were at least 5 of the wriggly gits there, doing that writhing together bit that REALLY freaks you out. Oh, and there was a frog who was either very brave, very stupid, unaware of where he was due to it being dark, or attempting to show a bit of reptilian based solidarity. I suspe...

Found out yesterday that we've finally been allocated at allotment, and went to take a look at it tonight (crappy picture - sorry). It's 50 x 31 ft, overgrown and, frankly, terrifying. I know rugger ball about plants and stuff. It does seem to have an apple tree (I think) chives, rhubarb, currants of some sort and strawberries from whoever had it before. I think I know what we'll be doing every weekend for the foreseeable future. Just to repeat... Wah! Scary!! It's bloody huge!!! (Spot of Roger Taylor tonight, having a bit of a grumble about "Nazis 1994)