Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
May 29, 2008: holiday weather? Don't bank on it
This week allotment blogger, Terry Walton, laments the bank holiday deluge and reports on his visit to the Chelsea Flower Show, where he just couldn't resist stocking up on some new plants
Why do we have Bank Holidays? The days leading up to them are warm and dry, making expectations for a weekend on the beach or in the garden high everyone's minds. But in reality what happens is the winds raise, the storm clouds gather and the whole weekend is a washout. They should be called at a moment's notice when a big, fat high pressure zone is sitting over the country and we could all do the wonderful things we planned!
Last week for me brought a change in routine. There was a train journey far afield to London to visit the country's leading horticulture show. Yes, I went to Chelsea.
This is probably the country's most prestigous show where leading garden designers tout their wares and design the most elegant of gardens. A gold medal at Chelsea is what they are in search of and this makes an impressive addition to their CVs.
These gardens are exotic and very pleasing to the eye with a mixture of hard and soft landscaping blending together to give that wow factor. This never ceases to amaze me that they have only been constructed in weeks leading up to the show and are created to look as if they have been a permanent feature for many years. Such is the skill of these clever people.
To my simple gardening eye, this year's gardens seemed to be very green with only a small splash of colour and usually white. This coming from a gardener like me that produces those gaudy borders containing all the riotous colours of the spectrum.
The plant of the garden designer this year was almost certainly the Alliums. These large balls of white or blue flowers standing proud at the end of its long straight stem were evident everywhere. To me the allium signifies an onion gone to seed, beautiful but a waste.
The floral marquee is the place to visit to admire the wonderful displays put on by the trade growers. The scent and colour that hits the eye as you enter this gardeners' paradise is something to behold. Here again the thing that amazes me is the range of plants for all seasons which are at their best in this tented arena. There are spring flowering daffodils alongside the towering delphiniums, all at the peak of their perfection. These growers have certainly mastered the art of deception by fooling Mother Nature to bring this plant to perfection for the show.
With my wallet empty but carrying my newly-acquired beauties, it is back to a reality check on my valley hillside.
The weekend brought an unusual mulching to the plot as many leaves were ripped from their branches of the trees and scattered amongst the seedlings which are emerging everywhere. Such is the anger of the wind!
Yes it is the end of May and the plot is reaching the stage of being filled up. Just enough room to plant the last of the crops that are going to feed me during the darker winter months. The leeks are given the short back and sides treatment as the leaves and roots are timed before popping into a hole so the only the tips of green show above the soil surface. And the seeds of my swede are the last major crop to be sown. These are left this late in the season so that I can avoid the mildew that affects these if sown and growing on too early.
Only enough room left now to squeeze in a few catch crops of salad type vegetables.
We can now look forward to those lazy cropping days of June and the bountiful harvest days ahead. But that is for next week!
More from Terry
More gardening
- Plant portrait: the 'drumstick' allium
- How to tackle aphids
- The window box allotment
- How to grow herbs
- Chat to other gardeners at Saga Zone
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
