Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
July 23, 2008: over here and taking over
Terry Walton's US imports are spreading their hungry tentacles throughout his allotment
Oh how joyous July trundles on and still resembles October, with its cool nights and brisk daytime winds with a cool edge to them. But hope springs eternal and the weathermen are predicting a significant improvement as the week progresses with the temperatures reaching the mid twenties Centigrade. So we wait with bated breath for this to arrive and I am sure the plants are eagerly waiting for this warming experience.
Despite all the poor weather that has been thrown at us there is an air of excitement on the allotments as the first of the runner beans are being harvested on this hillside. This is weeks later than traditionally expected and is a good indicator of the rather cool summer we've had this year, Those busy bees, having started the season in abundance have kept their little heads down of late and much of the early bean flowers have failed to be pollinated. Still the pendulum swings and I am sure the balance of nature will be restored.
The dinner plate is never complete without the unique taste of fresh runner beans. My taste buds are now fully sated from savouring the superb taste of these young, tender beans.
This year I have been more adventurous than normal having received a gift of seeds of spaghetti squash and sweet American pie pumpkins. These were sent all the way from California. I bet they wished they were home again in that hot sun. They are however growing well on the plot and their long green tentacles are spreading in profusion throughout the plot. They resemble a large octopus swallowing everything in its path. No plant is safe as they crawl over the potatoes, sweet peas and in between the rows of runner beans. A close examination amongst their dense foliage shows some strange objects growing there.
The squashes have large, white pebble-like fruits forming on these tentacles and the pumpkins have these oval, green-striped objects hidden there. They look the perfect shape for Cinderella’s coach.
Growing pumpkins again brings me happy memories of summers past. At the start of every new season I kept a lookout for someone who was unable to tend their plot for that season. I would offer to cultivate it for them providing I could grow one of my giant pumpkins on it. This satisfied both parties and I set about my goal. I grew one of the Atlantic varieties and this plant occupied about twenty four feet by twelve feet of ground. It would be about this time in July when it would have produced just one huge baby.
It was always treated in an extravagant manner having been planted in a very heavily-manured piece of soil. It had plenty of very rich organic feed and, to make its life more interesting, was treated to six pints of real ale per day. Hey! Wouldn’t you be happy with that treatment? This ever-growing monster would be surrounded by empty barrels as it drank quite happily as the season progressed. It would daily increase its girth as it drank more ale and basked in the sunshine.
By October, just in time for Halloween it would be over twelve stone in weight and would have a ceremonial cutting from the plant and be taken off to a local hospital to be weighed in.
It was then donated to a local school for a series of fund-raising events and raised much-needed cash for school projects.
The great demand for plots and the continual surge of people wanting to grow their own produce has meant there is never any empty space on the allotment so my annual tradition is lost.
Still I am back to growing pumpkins again, albeit of the smaller variety and the allotments is full of the sight of tasty growing crops. A price well worth paying.
More from Terry Walton
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
