Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
October 28, 2008: winter salads
This week, Terry Walton tries his hand at growing winter salad to go with his Christmas treats
What are we doing to our days? Why do we have to play with time and move the clocks around? It is bad enough at this time of year that the daylight hours are progressively getting less without moving this daylight to the wrong end of the day.
I don’t know about you but I am very much a creature of habit, and a naturally early riser, but it is approximately the same time every day. I cannot use this extra daylight to any meaningful use at that time of day.
I enjoy that hour or so after tea to potter in the garden but that has in one day been stolen away from me! There is no light left to use.
So there is no alternative but to stay in and find something useful to do. I am like a caged animal when unable to go out in the fresh air and I am sure if the days just progressively get shorter I would adapt better.
This is the one time I am glad for the passage of time and that I am retired and my time is my own. At least I can use what useful daylight there is to get out on the plot but I sympathise with those still at work who can only visit their allotment at the weekend.
It seems the downside of the passage of time and becoming older is that you can all too easily become a ‘grumpy old man’.
We are approaching the bewitching day of Halloween and this is a memory jogger for me as it is the time I traditional plant my garlic. This ritual protects my plot from those evil spirits, or so I am lead to believe. It is also a time of ‘trick or treat’, another influence of our American cousins.
In my younger days it was more lovingly known as ‘ducking apple day’. How many of you remember that happy family evening of Halloween when the kitchen would be alive with the sound of laughter as the all the family joined in the tradition. A bowl would be filled with water and newly harvested apples would be bobbing about in the water. Everyone in turn would be blindfolded, hands placed behind your back, and you attempted to pick up an apple between clenched teeth.
Oh, how much simpler was life then.
I told you this moving of this hour was having a profound affect on me and I have become more irritable and prone to reminiscing.
Still all is well when I get back to the pleasure of my allotment on this welsh hillside. There things move more slowly and in an orderly fashion. No sudden changes in tempo there.
The greenhouse has been emptied of its summer crops and the last of the cucumbers and tomatoes harvested. This is a month earlier than normal, I presume due to the dreadful summer past.
After emptying the borders I thought to myself 'What can I do with this space?' I quickly removed the soil, refilled this border with well-rotted manure, covered it with the contents of two green Dalek compost bins and soon it was crying out to be replanted.
I searched through my remnants of seed packets and found some wild rocket, spinach and a range of various salad leaves.
So this border is full of newly-sown seeds and I shall wait with bated breathe in hope that these pop through and grow on quickly to give me some fresh salad to go with my cold meats at Christmas.
That would be a welcome treat and save me a few pennies at the local supermarket - the poor summer may have brought rich rewards in the depth of winter.
So this is another first for me in the world of gardening.
We shall wait and see what happens!
More from Terry Walton
- October 21: banish your woe with a hoe
- Terry Walton's allotment sagas archive
- Chat about gardening at Saga Zone
Coping when the clocks go back
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
Reader comments
terry' i enjoyed your look back at halloween,we called it apple and candle night and it was all great fun.may i say how much i enjoyed yor book,it is being passed around the area and brings back the memoris in awondefull way,the last i heard the local vicar had it.i also made good use of the recipies especially the marrow rum which will be ready for xmas.thankyou again lynann beynon
Posted by: lynann beynon | 04/11/2008 10:25:27
