Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
November 18, 2008: club together with gardening pals
This week Terry Walton eyes the mouth-watering seed catalogues, and offers advice on getting the best deal on seeds
Where have my hillsides gone? The temperatures in the valley have been somewhat balmy for mid November and this has brought in lots of fine misty rain and low cloud shrouding the hillsides. I know the major beauty of these hillsides has diminished as the autumn has progressed but they are still a pleasure to behold.
When I was a lad, a long time ago now, I would have willed this cloud to hide what were then dirty, black capped peaks. The valleys were scarred by the slag and debris that was brought out from deep underground in the quest for the coal that fed the steel mills and the large power stations. This discarded waste was dumped indiscriminately on the hillsides removing all the wonderful scenes of the rolling mountainsides.
Long gone are those ‘black’ days, unfortunately killing off the mining traditions of the valleys, but in their wake we are now blessed again with beautiful sights that change constantly with the seasons. It is amazing how with a little help from mankind how nature can reclaim what is hers and restore the natural beauty and obliterate all signs of that industrial past.
But what happened to that brief winter spell we had at the end of October? This wiped out the last of the summer crops and left a blackened mess in its wake. But since then the unseasonable weather has returned and has sparked off some strange sights in the garden for the time of year.
Whilst breaking up the flattened soil between my wallflowers I was surprised to see the firm green shoots of the daffodils appearing. Is it February already, I asked myself? These daffodils were planted later in September than normal but have made so much growth in the warm soil that their shoots are appearing months ahead of schedule. Will I have a bunch of these brilliant yellow-trumpeted flowers to act as the centre piece of my Christmas dinner table?
If the pictures I saw in the newspaper are to be believed, at the Botanical Gardens in the west of Wales the daffodils are already flowering. How much more proof do we need to show that climate change is well and truly here?
These lengthening dark evenings are the perfect time to forget the malady and get out the seed catalogues for next year’s offerings. It is good to get away from the front of that television screen and sit at the dining room table and think ahead to what we are going to grow to tempt our palates next summer.
The glossy pictures of all types of vegetables grown to perfection are too much and lured me into buying more than I planned. I try to stick to much of the crops that have served me well in the past, because the number one objective of allotment gardening is to take home some fresh, tasty vegetables.
This does not stop you trying new crops and some of the pleasures of this way of life are to add a challenge and variety to the plot. I try about four or five new additions each year, some being vegetables I have not grown before or some new varieties of some of the standard vegetables I grow most years. Mind you rarely do they grow to the perfection of the picture that tempted me to buy them in the first place!
In these days of the ‘credit crunch’ it is well worth a group of gardeners getting together and combining your orders. Seed companies offer massive discounts to bulk purchases and can be up to 50% off the catalogue price.
Show that same sharing and caring community spirit that exists out on the plot and apply it to a group buy. This will bring you all together in these winter months and into the bargain will keep some extra cash in your pocket.
More from Terry Walton
- The plight of the humble bee
- Terry Walton's weekly allotment sagas archive
- Visit our allotment section for news, views and features
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
