Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
January 19, 2009: tales of winter
Terry Walton's mind turns to winters past and the changes, in both the environmental and social climate, that have taken place since his boyhood
All signs of that frozen period have now melted away. The heavy rain soon lifted the soil temperature but it took a great deal more time to melt the water butts of ice. With all this ice gone, there are no more lunchtime gin and tonics to be savoured in our shed!
The cold temperature was holding back the pent-up growing energies of the autumn-planted garlic. No sooner had a day or two passed since the freeze ended, than there were little green shoots appearing from the drab patch of soil. It always excites me when the new signs of life are spotted on the plot. It gives a new impetus to life of a gardener and shows that slowly the growing season is moving on track.
Another sign the there is a little warmth in the soil are the large eruptions in the rhubarb patch where the big beginnings of these large leaves emerge through the soil.
The heat is also on. Not out on the patch but behind the doors of my greenhouse. The lamp has been dusted, cleaned and lit and my wife has had her airing cupboard back for a while. Still, it did its job and I have a few trays of healthy seedlings emerging from the compost. These are happy in their new home even if they are missing my company.
So all is well and the pace of sowing will increase as the broad beans and sweet peas will soon be sown in the heated greenhouse.
However be wary! It is still only January and the forecasters are predicting a cold period towards the end of the week.
During this period, with the limited work that can be carried out on the plot, I often walk around the allotments and my mind wanders back to my youthful days spent on this mountainside allotment.
I notice that during these winter months the landscape is far different to forty years ago. Some of plots are still very green with winter vegetables growing in what would have been turned, empty patches of ground in the past.
There would have been no green manures sown then. There was a definite seasonable pattern and autumn was the traditional time for ground preparation for the following spring. All empty patches would have been well manured and this would have been turned in and the ground left in large clods to the mercies of the winter elements.
The ground would in many areas be white as if covered in a heavy dusting of snow. The brassica areas would be heavily limed and other areas other than the potato patches would have a lighter dusting of this valuable commodity.
Such is the effect of the climate change and the much wetter winters that these tasks are best left until early spring otherwise you risk losing all these vital ingredients to the leaching of the constant downpours.
Another change of character that strikes me when looking at these empty plots is the lack of any permanent plants growing on them. Many years ago, despite the need to have very productive plots to feed the family,on many of the plots there were areas set aside for growing flowers. A corner of a plot would house a couple of dozen rose bushes and there would be large clumps of perennial flowers.
These would used to adorn the family's 'best room' in the summer months and was the allotmenteer's way of saying thank you to a patient wife for all those hours of solitude whilst he tended his plot.
So much for reminiscing, in the here and now things are always changing and the allotments, although a bastion of stability, are also subject to change. Much of this is due to the needs of the time and the introduction of a more family environment.
More from Terry Walton
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My Life On A Hillside Allotment
Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press. The book is available from Amazon.
