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Allotment Diary

March 18, 2008: cloche work

Terry Walton

Terry Walton tucks up his precious parsnips under a warm, fleecy cloche to keep capricious spring weather at bay

The frenzied, mad March winds have blown themselves out and fortunately most of the allotments buildings have remained intact. There has been one casualty of this storm force wind and that is the large copper beech that resides at the bottom of my plot. The buffeting that it took split the main trunk and half of the tree landed on my plot.

Thanks to the help of one of my neighbouring plot holders with a chain saw the mess was soon cleared up. It is sad to see such a fine specimen of a tree laid low by the weather but its remains have been put to good use. The thick parts of the trunk have been cut into logs and placed at the bottom of the plot to make homes for frogs, toads and friendly beetles, whilst the twiggy branches have been cut to size as pea sticks to support my rows of peas later in the season. So in nature everything has its uses.

I hope these winds are going to recede for the future because it is fast approaching ‘cloche time’. These useful covers are a godsend in protecting early sowings from the extremes that the weather can conjure up throw at us gardeners at this time of year.

The first use for my cloche is to warm the ground up where I will sow my parsnips. I cover the area earmarked for sowing them with a fleece cover draped over an arch of stiff avothane pipes. The advantage of fleece is that it protects the sowing from the weather but allows moisture in and out of the covering.

I find it strange that during my many years of gardening that I am planting my parsnips later and under protection. My father always planted parsnips in February and he used to reckon they grew better if there was a fall of snow after planting. He had this theory that this formed a blanket over the ground and when the snow melted it provided the moisture to accelerate germination. This was before the advent of F1 hybrid seeds and the seed then seemed better able to cope with the earlier planting. Who knows?

After the cloche has been in place for a week, conditions allowing, I peal back the fleece and prepare to sow my parsnips. This is where I use the most unusual tool in my shed. I use a crowbar. No, I am not a retired burglar and this tool was handed down to me by my father! I use the crowbar to produce a tapered hole about twelve inches deep and I fill this hole with a 50:50 mix of coarse sand and compost. I plant five seeds per station and space each station six inches apart. The seeds are then covered with the same mix. Pop the fleece back in place and anchor the edges well. Leave for several weeks and check occasionally for that exciting moment when the two bright green seed leaves pop through the soil.

This coming weekend is Easter, the traditional time when gardening starts in earnest. This year beware, Easter is very early and almost the earliest it can be. Garden centres will be packed with lots of tempting plants and there is the urge to go out and buy. If you have no means of protecting these tender plants keep your cash in your pocket there is plenty of time yet to buy these plants later on.

If mother nature is kind to us over the Easter break get out and enjoy your garden, there is plenty to do and the earlier the ground is prepared, the easier it will be to swing into action in a few weeks' time.

Remember gardening is all about patience and judging the right conditions to get started, if you don't have these little tricks up your sleeve to protect your sowings... WAIT.

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The Hillside Allotment by Terry Walton

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 at £12.99. The book is available from Amazon.

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