More Planting

Having spent the entire week feeling decidedly under the weather (swollen glands in neck, terribly sore throat, body aching from head to toe, and feeling constantly exhausted, no idea what that was but at least it's gone now), it was with some trepidation that I ventured onto the allotment today.

I'd started coming over all ill and icky whilst pottering about on my allotment last weekend, then spent the week feeling somewhat dazed and confused. Most people take large quantities of illicit narcotics to achieve that effect, though I've no idea why, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Without this blog I'd not actually have remembered what it was I'd done last weekend. Even so I was rather concerned that I might have left tools and seeds scattered around the site, I couldn't remember putting them away you see.

Mind you, I'm sure that the Wise Old Bird in Residence would have telephoned me and given me a piece of his mind had I left the tools he's loaned me scattered to the winds.

Fortunately I'd done nothing of the sort. And to my utter delight I discovered that the garlic bulbs I'd planted last weekend have started to sprout.

Cor... growing things... amazing.

Herself took the piss, by reminding me of Neil from The Young Ones with his "we plant the seed, nature grows the seed, we eat the seed, we plant the seed..." witterings. Pah!

So far so good. Time for some more planting.

In went 70+ pea seeds. Apparently I've overplanted them, you don't need to plant anything like that many all at once. Do I care? Nope. I don't like peas anyway, they're nothing but green poo-bits from the arse of a leprous cabbage. Yuck. Herself likes peas, and that's why I am growing some. No doubt the forces of modern technology will win the day when we end up blanching and freezing boxfuls of the horrid things. Cap'n Birdseye, eat your heart out!

Oh, somebody asked me which variety of peas I'd planted. Er? Green ones? Bloody stupid question, who cares what variety they are? They're all of the variety 'Horribilus Anus' if you ask me.

I put a bit of white fluffy stuff called garden fleece over the soil where the peas went in, to stop the birds from digging in and eating the seeds. Hopefully that'll protect them whilst they germinate and sprout. If not then maybe I'll catch and kill the birds, and we can eat them instead.

Next in were the onion seeds, all very easy. I think we'll get 40 or 50 onions out of that.

And that was that. No more seeds left to plant until I buy some more. Which was a bit of an anticlimax.

Meanwhile in other news:
The horseradish that I found and transplanted doesn't seem to have died, but it's hardly on the rampage either, it's just sitting there where I planted it. Maybe it'll take, I hope so anyway because there's nothing quite so yummy as a good bit of horseradish and if push comes to shove you can always boil it down and make an antipersonnel spray out of it.

The rosemary bush that I transplanted seems to have survived. Which is a good thing.

My friend and fellow allotment holder the Wing Commander had wanted some of my Jerusalem artichokes, and I'd told him that he was welcome to them. Today we met and chatted, he'd taken a spade to the patch and apparently they were not Jerusalem artichokes at all but were infact dead sunflower stems. I do hope his target acquisition skills were better than his plant identification skills when he was flinging bombers around the sky. Not that I knew any better, but it was funny.

I mentioned to the Wise Old Bird in Residence that the haggis had let me down and I wasn't going to get any tools next week after all. At this point the WOBR promptly announced that he had some old spare tools that were just gathering dust and I could have them whenever I wanted them. Excellent news! As soon as my shed's up I'll take him up on that offer.

I've been speaking with the Head of Beans (Counting Division) at the allotment site, and it seems as though we've found a way to get our paws on a few tonnes of well rotted wood chip, for free. Apparently we can spread this on the ground over our fruit bushes and trees and it will help to retain moisture during the hot weather. Which is good news.

Finally, I've now committed my planting plan to electrons and put it somewhere where I won't lose it. Which is probably a good idea.