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!

Getting started

Yesterday I posted pictures of the plot as it looked when we took ownership a year ago. We got very excited on the first day and then, it started raining for two solid weeks. Every single gardener worth his salt will tell you NEVER to do any digging when the soil is too wet. We decided to ignore the advice but we badly regretted it. Because double digging waterlogged, weeds ridden, heavy clay under the pouring rain was tough work. We got wet, we got muddy, we got tired and I got in a very bad mood … But we were desperate to get the plot into some reasonable condition to grow something over the summer. After many hours of clearing all the rubbish, digging, and pulling out weed roots, the plot started looking a little better.

The plot from the bottom – we can see the paths and we’ve got beds!

Around the shed – and a brand new home-made compost bin

We actually managed to grow quite a bit last summer despite a late start: lettuces, all sorts of salad leaves, a few onions, some cherry tomatoes, a lot of green and yellow courgettes, radishes, peas and beans, sweetcorn, turnips and even some strawberries.

Our first lettuce!

Young alpine strawberries under one of the apple trees

A lot of it, we just made up as we went along, planted where there was space, not worrying about soil type, companion planting, crop rotation, etc. It works but I suppose it’s not the best way to manage your plot if you want years after years of tasty and healthy veg!

Last winter, I spent a bit of time reading, planning and preparing and hopefully, this year, we’ll do even better.

Ready for the growing season at the beginning of March 07

One year ago ...

So here we are, one year on, hooked on our home-grown vegetables, addicted to our little plot of land, and forever fighting the war against weeds (I seem to be winning at the moment but how long for…?).
But sometimes, when things don’t go quite so well, when the weeds seem to grow faster than we can pull them out, when it rains so much that our plot turns into a very large pond, when it feels that we’ll never be able to keep it as tidy as our neighbour, I need a little reminder of how far we’ve come. So, what did plot 52 look like a year ago?

Well, it looked like a very overgrown tiny orchard!

View from the entrance gate - the central path was hardly visible and the weeds were flourishing!

Another view from the bottom of the plot

The previous tenant obviously loved his apple trees (we’ve got 5 on our little plot!) but didn’t seem quite so keen on actually cultivating the rest of the land. What had previously been carefully delimited beds and paths was almost totally covered in a thick mat of weeds – couch grass, bindweed, horsetail, the lot! Our predecessor was also keen to squirrel away all sorts of bits and pieces of various interests: a large number of glass and window panes, piles and piles of wood in various rotten stages, plastic pots scattered all over the place. Even an old orange fridge and a rusty filing cabinet!

Rotting pile of wood, old windows and the filing cabinet at the back!

We picked this plot out of the 3 we were offered because it had a shed and the old foundations of a greenhouse. Said greenhouse had been vandalised by kids from another neighbourhood some time ago and we still find bits of shattered glass surfacing everywhere.

The greenhouse foundations and more rubbish!

And the shed …

The shed with loads of glass and the broken orange fridge at the front

The roof had not been looked after for a long time and was full of leaks. But that wasn’t the worse. The inside of the shed was where the Squirrel had stashed away all his most treasurable findings: dozens of packets of out of date seeds, bottles of unlabelled pesticides, old tins of paint, plastic containers of old children toys (creepy…) full of stinking water, piles of broken CDs, computer games, an old computer keyboard, and the worst of all, rotten carpets, inhabited by slugs and unidentified creepy crawlies. The smell in there was almost unbearable and my brave boyfriend volunteered to do all the clearing – he was almost sick on several occasions, disturbed several mice, and had to make countless trips to the skip. Not the most pleasant memory of our time on our plot!

Apple trees' blossoms