Summer flood

On Friday night, we suffered very heavy downpours all over Glasgow, causing disruption on the roads and rails. I was out having dinner in town but managed to make it back without problem, albeit with very wet feet! It's only on saturday afternoon when I walked down to the plot that it occured to me how heavy the rain might have been...

The bottom of the plot - looking wet and miserable

The bottom of the plot was under several centimeters of water, and the top end was very badly waterlogged - walking around the brassica bed near the shed was close to a quicksand experience ! This has happened in the past. But it was October and it had rained solidly for over two weeks, so that was kind of understandable. But it is now June and you just don't expect this ...

We should have gone for rice, rather than sweetcorn

I was pretty gutted on saturday and very frustrated too. Because there was absolutely nothing I could do. Just checking the weather forecast, hoping for the rain to stop and all that water to go away. Keeping my fingers crossed that we hadn't lost everything. This would have been absolutely devastating, after spending so much time breaking our backs digging the beds, shifting tons of horse manure on them, patiently sowing hundreds of seeds, nurturing the seedlings, watching them grow fighting the cold wet weather... I now understand how farmers must feel when a run of bad weather totally destroys a year's harvest.

Wet, wet, wet peas and beans ...

On Sunday night, the rain finally stopped. Today, the water level has gone down and it looks like everything might survive - even though I still have my reservations about the potatoes.

Soggy leeks and potatoes
(leeks on the right, still very small!)

The good news is I won't need to do any watering for a while!

I should rename this blog "Les Hortillonnages"

(floating gardens in Amiens)

I only went to pick up some salad ...

And got back to the flat with this:

Which was a bit of a surprise after this weekend flood and considering that only a few days ago, they still looked like that:

There was enough for two large portions, which didn't survive long after the photo was taken!

These are the first strawberries of the season, they are such a bright dark shade of red, and the flavour is without comparison with anything you could buy even from the best of greengrocers! The smallest ones are called "Alpine Strawberries". They are similar to woodland strawberries, grow happily in the shade of an apple tree and will produce the smallest, most flavoursome little berries throughout the summer. They don't normally make it to the flat as I tend to eat them on the spot! But I made an exception for the first strawberry feast of the year.

Alpine strawberries growing under one of the apple trees

Jerusalem artichokes

In February, I received a bag of earth from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. I thought they had made a mistake and was going to send it back when I realised it contained what looked like small black shrivelled up sweet potatoes. They were my tubers of Jerusalem artichokes (or topinambours in French. )

Strange looking roots, aren't they?

Despite its name, the Jerusalem artichoke has nothing to do with Jerusalem, or even artichokes for that matter. Apparently, when the Jerusalem artichoke was first discovered by Europeans it was called Girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, since the Jerusalem artichoke belongs to the same family than the classic yellow garden sunflower. When the tubers were imported in Britain, the name Girasole transformed into Jerusalem, and its flavour reminiscent of the globe artichokes’ gave it its full name. I haven’t eaten it since I was a kid and don’t remember what it does actually taste like but my mum loves it and I trust my mum’s taste buds. It is also making a sort of come back at the moment, but is still difficult to find in supermarkets. It is apparently very easy to grow and I like "no hassle" vegetables! I picked the Fuseau variety as they are much smoother than other varieties and should be easier to peel.

I planted them in a corner of the plot on the 25th of March and nothing came through for ages. They started poking their heads through the ground at the end of April, initially quite tiny, they have recently put on a massive spur of growth and are doing extremely well : high (almost as high as me!), strong stems with lots of foliage. I am really looking forward to them flowering : large yellow flowers, resembling the classic sunflower and of course to the harvest comes the autumn.

Small plants - 20th of May

A month later - and the nasturtiums are doing well too!

The longest day

Today is the longest day of the year. Literally for me as I've been up all night, playing nurse for Amber!

I love this time of the year in Scotland, the days are just so incredibly long, light from about 4 in the morning until after 11 in the evenings ... I love staying out in a beer garden or on the plot, enjoying one of my favourite summer tipples (in no particular order, Pimm's, gin and tonic or a chilled glass of rosé !), enjoying the evening sunshine and savouring those times, storing them mentally for the long cold dark winter nights. As from today, the days are going to start shrinking again, depriving us of a few minutes of daylight everyday. But I don't want to think about it just now!

If the showers stop for long enough, we might go down to the plot later to toast the longer day of the year and the fact that exactly a year ago today, we were getting the keys to our flat, putting our first foot on the "property ladder". That year has gone so quickly, I can hardly believe it !

Enjoying a summer evening on the plot with a bottle of rosé and a barbecue

PS - I'm having a little thought tonight for everyone enjoying the "Fête de la Musique" in France or elsewhere. I have a lot of great memories of 21st of June in Montpellier ...

Normal service will resume shortly

I have been so busy over the past few weeks, at work, at home and on the allotment, where I spend most of my spare time (weather permitting of course!), that I have not been able to really update this blog as much as I would like - I still prefer to "do" the gardening than write about it, it must mean I'm not totally addicted to blogging yet! I have still kept a record of everything in a very old fashioned way : a paper diary. Yes, they still make them!

I am staying at home today to look after my little Amber who got butchered, sorry spayed, yesterday and I'm going to try and write a few bits and pieces I should post over the next few days.

Lovely irises greeting me by the gate

Garlic

Last year I was not very organised and did not start any crop in the summer to see us through the winter (eg leeks, sprouts and other brassicaes, etc) so we went hungry. Well, not really … Tesco is still open 24h so we survived. But this year, I am more prepared and hoping to grown a variety of vegetables to take us through the seasons. The big master plan started in December with garlic.

I love garlic - I’m French, after all, it’s in my blood - and has always wanted to grow my own and then tie the heads into one of those plaits you see all over French markets. Growing garlic is apparently easy, you put a clove in the ground in winter or early spring and comes summer, you crop a full bulb for each clove you have planted. Traditionally, garlic is planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. As I like those kind of gardening traditions, I put mine in on the 22nd of December (close enough, it was actually pouring with rain on the 21st!). It took a little while for the green shoots to appear but it is now doing very well. The picture was taken in April and the stems have now doubled in size, I assume it means the bulbs underneath are healthy! Not too long till harvest time … I’d better find out how to make those plaits!