Episode #32 - The gift that keeps on giving
26 April - 2 May: Chard, more tulips and the joy of a fine single lettuce.
Episode #32 is hot on the heels of much-delayed #31, like waiting at a bus stop for ages and then two buses turning up at once. I’m catching up with myself, with some tricky feedback and questions to ponder along the way.
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The Plot Shot
After sulking for several weeks while I danced with delight at the bounty of my first-ever crop of purple sprouting broccoli, the candy-cane chard has picked up and put on a flush of new growth. These leaves are glossy and squeaky-green - perfect as the vegetable version of green lasagne sheets.1
(Technical note: there are usually a *lot* of photos, mainly mine, in this post, and it might not all fit on your email. Hitting the View Entire Message button at the end should sort this out, as will reading via the app or online versions of Substack.)
Plot work in progress
Here are more of the revived chard plants, with a few small brassicas and weeded space for more broad beans. It always cheers me up to weed a raised bed. That’s the main task on the plot right now - prepping the rotation beds for the next planting.
Harvesting now
As well as the chard perking up, a few seedlings of wild garlic (ramsons) have appeared in the crocus bed.
We used to have banks of wild garlic growing in the hedgerows and under trees on the perimeter of the site where the wood is oldest, and they made for good pickings in springs past, but they’ve disappeared. I bought a couple of seedlings in the green in a small pot last year. They didn’t do well in potting compost, so I thought I’d lost them. Looks as if they’ve self-seeding into a dry bed under an apple tree, which is probably a more appropriate spot.
Making and eating
Also winning in the fresh spring greenery stakes is a lettuce. I don’t think I have ever been so pleased to see a lettuce as this beauty.
That one lettuce kept going all through the winter, survived some frosts, managed not to get munched by slugs or eaten by pigeons is a source of wonder. It tasted good too - thick leaves with more flavour than I’ve tasted in a shop-bought lettuce. No idea which variety this was, but I’ve added the closest equivalent to the plot tally.2
E17 Local Heroes
They are starting to fade and flop now, but there are still tulips heroically (manically?) doing their thing. They have been fantastic this year, and I can’t wait to add more for next season. More blacks, purples, more oranges, perhaps some viridiflora greens, maybe even a couple of the odd brownish ones (‘Brown Sugar’?, ‘Dom Pedro’?, maybe even ‘La Belle Epoque’, which is very outside my usual brilliant and jewel tone range).
My tulip logic is that if I add a few each year, I’ll not be starting from nothing. Now that where the tulip bulbs sit in each bed is more-or-less fixed, they’ve got their spots, and I should be able to track which ones come up the following year, and which don’t. I’ll know where they should be, even if they don’t come up, so I’ll know what’s missing. In theory, assuming I don’t lose my notes from this year, that is.
Community of Practice
This is the first post for a while in which I can start to see the whole plot coming together for the year. There will be fruit (more news on the audacious apricots to come), there are vegetables sown, the herbs are re-sprouting and the tulips will segue into roses soon enough. It has been a good spring.
Then I had the inevitable gift of feedback via some comments that the plot can’t be a ‘proper’ allotment as it doesn’t lead on traditional vegetables. Where are the rows of cabbages and potatoes? Allotments don’t have roses on posh arches! Hmm.
I’m a firm believer in ‘each to their own’ in growing spaces. You do you. Or you grow yours, perhaps. Unfortunately not everyone else takes that view. My longest-standing plot neighbour (who is a trad spuds and cabbage type of guy) is one. He’s not been backward about expressing his opinions about what a waste of space raised beds are, muttering about me painting things purple and grunting his general disapproval. When I was new to the site, I smiled, made the friendly effort to explain that I had a plan and wanted to do things differently to him, but he’s kept up wafting disapproval from his plot to mine for years.
But those feedback gifts niggled at me, nevertheless. They kept giving more thumbs down than up. Made me reflect on what I’m doing here (the growing practice on the plot, the writing practice here on Substack). I wondered why what I had shared got some push back. The plot will certainly not win over the trad-allotmenteers, the spud and cabbage brigade. There’s too much unusual stuff for that (side-eyes the Szechuan and Sansho pepper trees). It isn’t designed as a garden either (I once project managed a Show Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, so I know from first-hand experience that it is not a Main Avenue contender by several rods3). But there is structure, a clear layout, a bit of design. There’s a small fruit orchard, there are annual and (increasingly) perennial vegetables and there are flowers. Lots of flowers.
I like my dahlias rubbing shoulders with the tomato plants, my sweet peas clambering with my French beans. That works for me. I like growing things. I like writing about growing things. I like the creative challenge of photographing the growing things. There’s space for all that here, yes?
Fox News
Two Leos in this post. Or rather two photos of the same Leo, who would probably pose all day for his photograph to be taken if he didn’t have to help feed his cubs with Nellie. He’d come to inspect what I was up to on the plot, hopeful of a sausage roll or (better) a raw chicken piece, but was out of luck.
Until next time, I’m under fox supervision.
Ang
Picked 200g of chard, equivalent to Natoora Italian Rainbow, currently £2.50 on Ocado.
Closest comparison of M&S Romaine hearts on Ocado, £1.30 for 2 small ones, giving a plot tally of £3.80 for the week, £17.15 for the growing year to date.
I’ll write about Chelsea in another post, including how I didn’t expect to be polishing galvanised steel planters with denture cleaner on the evening before judging day.
Giving this a big like as I love a growing space where flowers rub shoulders with vegetables. As you say, you do you. Can't believe the things some people complain about!
I love how you grow flowers alongside your unusual veg. I bet the bees love it too. Some people seem unhappy unless they've got something to complain about. Ignore them.