Christine's space

It’s a case of the snail and lettuce at the moment. I’ve lots of lettuce sitting round in pots as I ran out of ground space at one point (seems to be a regular problem in a large allotment). Yesterday I had a discussion with a full legion of snails who were given their marching orders.

Mind you the warm weather along with the damp is encouraging the lettuce to bolt. There has been a really good crop so far even if not with the best of hearts with plenty more seeds left in the packet. The 20 red lettuces are shaping up nicely but there could be a break in supply if the green ones all run to seed before the red ones develop hearts. I’ve red lettuces in a tub by the front door and the thinnings will be taken down to the allotment to fill in the spaces.

The warm weather has done nothing at all for my red onions (grown from sets). They all bolted so I pulled them up. There will be something usable off them but they won't keep for any length of time. But better something than nothing. Experience of others is that this is quite normal and that maybe it is as cheap to buy onions from the supermarket in order to devote the space to a more expensive crop. Now there’s a thought – upgrade the diet without breaking the bank.

Meanwhile the strawberries, raspberries and tayberries are loving the damp and warm with sunny spells and the crop is good despite the thieving slugs and snails. And we are about to have a glut of peas. Oh well – time for blanching and freezing required.

I think that the allotment will cover its costs this year! She says with a smile as there are plenty of parsnips to come this winter, carrots for months to come, garlic, shallots and white onions, leeks, swede and salad looking good and possibly even calabrese and broccoli! And that is before we get into the depths of beans (assorted) and cabbages not yet planted out. And a variety of other goodies to long to list.

I certainly was not singing in the rain on the allotment yesterday afternoon. Yes it was forecast, yes it was meant to be that heavy and no I didn’t take a waterproof coat. Because it was far too warm for any such sensible item of clothing!

It certainly cleared the allotment site of everyone but the pigeon men working inside their “constructions” and myself.

Sure - I could have gone home without getting so wet but when it’s raining it’s a good time to plant out and to sow seeds.

However it did nothing for the shallots and garlic laid out to dry on top of the cold frame. Today is going to be a day of building some sort of frame with canes in order to be able to hang them up to dry. I’ve no idea how it’s going to be done but done it must be.

Perhaps the garden seat will have to be pressed into service! Oh but where will the idle gardener sit then? In the chair from the shed of course!

At the moment that seems to be the most likely solution but watch this space as the bench in question is possibly not as big as the crop that was ready for picking yesterday just before the rains came.

So that’s how the electrician felt when he had an outbreak of complaints that due to the humid weekend, many kitchen ventilators in the local council houses wouldn’t stop working. The residents couldn’t switch the darned things off.

No Sir we don’t carry spares for that model any more – the last time we were asked for any was pretty soon after Noah built his ark. Eventually a call to the manufacturer called forth an explanation as to how to fix the problem so that the ventilator could be turned on and off as required. Nice one when you have a list as long as your arm to sort out, the weather is hot and the electrician is working up a sweat.

Luckily I was first on the the list and he’d collected a whole new ventilator for my kitchen she says with a big smile. Rather than let his boss go through all the fuss of returning it and getting a credit note, I accepted his nice offer of him installing the new one.

I now have a clean, shiny kitchen fan that works on demand and isn’t covered in many a shade of paint from over the years. However it’s smaller than the one it replaced so there’s an area of wall that needs repainting. Some day, she says, some day. There’s wall paper showing – a shade of wallpaper that hasn’t been seen in the room even after the many discoveries from when the decorator stripped the sitting room area. Oh the excitement!

Hmm – do I really care about a potted history of all the wallpaper that has ever been used here? Nope – I’m not into doing a social history of popular cheap brands of wall decorations that have been used here since the 1930s since you ask. Even if I have seen quite a few of them.

Picture if you will a vertical verge from a open field (part of a closed cemetery) that drops down to the road with a couple of drains set neatly into it with backing stonework to protect them from the twice yearly grass cutting. So that’s the view from my front window – give or take a busy road and two bus stops.

Some ten days ago it rained heavily (add in thunder for fun) and of course the drains were covered in grass not cleared after the winter cut in November. So the water settled into the hollow which is two bus lengths long, covered half the road and we had one of our miniature floods. The sort of flood that rises three feet in the air if a bus drives through it.

So along comes a team of blokes in big wellies who stood in said flood to discover the drains, clean the debris off, let the water drain down and pressure clean the sludge on the road away. Into the drains of course.

Two days later, along comes two large and muscular council grass cutters with their great big strimmers to give the verge its summer haircut.

Over the weekend, the rains return with gusto and wash much of the cut grass down onto the drains. Come Saturday there is another flood causing similar problems to the last one. Come Sunday along comes a council team with shovels to clear off the drains to allow the latest flood to subside.

This afternoon along comes the big yellow council drain cleaner to apply suction to said drains in order to remove sludge and debris from within the drains in the hopes of further flood prevention. There’s been a stink hovering over the washing hanging out in the front yards of the houses here – aroma de blocked street drains for our laundry then. That’s one smell that you can’t buy in the Co-op down the road. 

I’d say that the cure will work till the next time that the verge is cut and the rain washes debris down to cover the drains again. Oh – any time between November and January then.

Nope not the pop song, the weather. I haven’t seen the sun since I left Edinburgh at teatime on Friday.

Apparently it rained all Friday afternoon and evening here at home (well good for the allotment I suppose but bad if you had washing to hang out).

Yesterday the fog lingered all morning and turned into low cloud and humid grey mist after lunch – but without the rain.

This morning there was rain in the fog when I woke up. The Tyne which flows at the bottom of the hill is usually visible out of the bedroom window but not so today.

So it looks to be another humid day with fog and drizzle. I think that I’ll put off clipping the hedges on the allotment for one more day at least. Clearing up wet privet doesn’t appeal at all. The trouble is that all the days when I can get down to the plot this week seem to have an equally miserable forecast – the day that is the exception is already booked as a day out and an evening meeting.

What is it with June weather? It seems that anything can happen in June despite it being classified as summer which is a bit sad really as most gardeners look to be in full production at this time of the year. It’s not as if it’s worth going out for the day when it’s foggy, damp and miserable unless you have urgent reason to visit a shopping centre.

We’ve certainly had our share of wet evenings and Saturday downpours recently so fog is just a change of miserable weather. Come in sunny summer please.

Considering that last summer the Kielder Reservoir up the road was 99% full at the height of summer last year and that we had summer monsoons the year before, I’m beginning to wonder if my memories of long hot summers are just figments of my imagination.