Sunday, 5th September
The carrots were the only thing I had grown specifically for the show and the first one I removed from my barrel of 7 was a beauty; 2 more like that and I was practically guaranteed a coveted red card. Alas, it wasn't that easy. Of the next 3 I pulled out 2 had warts and one was bent. Fortunately the others, though not as big as the first, were more or less blemish free and I must admit I felt pretty confident when I set them out on display. And they won! So I might try again next year although maybe not in one big barrel again. Growing just 7 in one big barrel was a bit of a gamble really and I was lucky to get three similar decent carrots. Still, musn't moan and the show was very enjoyable even if I didn't make a big splash. (Must have been really tiring - I didn't wake up this morning until 9.30am!) A report of the show, with pictures, will appear on the News Page in due course. Monday, 30th August
Bank Holiday Monday so a drive out to Chichester. We were looking for bathroom tiles but didn't find any. It didn't help that most places on the industrial estate were shut. Still we had a nice look round Chichester and a cup of tea and a bun. I must get to the allotment tomorrow but it's not going to be easy as I've got to wait in for a builder and I've promised a friend I'll call round sometime tomorrow. And I've got to get a dental appointment (why do teeth always break on a Bank Holiday weekend?) and a doctor's appointment (never you mind!) But I need to take a last look at the plot to see if I've got anything for the show this weekend as the deadline for entering is Wednesday. Have you entered yet? There's a link to the show schedule on our Home page and this year there's a whole new Novices' section open to anybody who's never won a first prize (Modesty prevents me from saying I'm not eligible) and some of the classes there look eminently winnnable if you've got anything at all. Have a go! What have you got to lose? It doesn't cost anything. I have been to the plot at the weekend. I intended to dig up all my potatoes but after one row my back said, "NO" so I went picking runner beans, courgettes and raspberries after that. Not quite so heavy going. Ian gave me some strawberry plants while I was down there so I will have another go next year but I can never get them to do as well as the raspberries. Do you think the fact I prefer raspberries has anything to do with it? At home I have been exfoliating (?) the tomatoes in the greenhouse and picking up windfall apples. Not sure if they'll be good enough for the show- the quantity is there just not the quality. I've also hacked back the buddleia as many racemes/flowers were past it and it was taking over the garden bench. Get back, you swine! Tomorrow night is Pub Night at the North Star where I expect last minute arrangements will be taking place besides a bit of drinking and general chat about the weather, holidays and other matters of great import. I'll concentrate on the drinking bit! Wednesday, 25th August
I think this rain is just a tad too late for my runner beans which are not prolific this year and going "beany" too quickly, my blackberries which haven't swollen and my potatoes which are also disappointing. I can't see me having much if anything to put in the show although I have got a lot of apples, courgettes and tomatoes. But it's quantitiy not quality. My great hope is my carrots but there's no telling what they'll be like until I tip them out of the growing bin. There might be nothing there! I will enter the photograhic competition but with no real hopes of winning. Oh, for those heady days when I first entered full of confidence and enthusiasm and walked away with 4 firsts and 2 seconds at the first attempt. Now, if I enter I am thrashed by Mrs N. But whether I enter or not I expect I'll be there on the door. Still before that there's Pub Night next Tuesday and a chance to find out what others are doing. Tuesday, 17th August
I suppose this must be one of the best times in the gardening year - cropping time. At the moment I am cropping cabbages, potatoes, courgettes, raspberries, blackberries, runner beans and tomatoes. Not that I've been a very active cropper recently; as you may have gathered from the lack of postings I have been off gallivanting again. First there was a few days in London to see "Oliver!" (a belated birthday present for my wife) and then a little stay in Norfolk. (Before that I sliced my thumb and couldn't do much anyway) Personally I can't stand musicals but I have to admit it was very well done and Russ Abbott was surprisingly good as Fagin. Previously when in London we have always used the tube but this time we tried the buses and were very pleased with them; they're very frequent and much cheaper than buses round here - £1.20 for any journey no matter how far and free of course if you have a bus pass. They are a bit slow what with all the roadworks but you do get to see more than on the Underground. It wasn't what you'd call a horticultural break but we did take in quite a few parks. The parks there were showing the same signs of a lack of rain as everywhere down here. By the last day though we'd had enough of parks, museums and galleries and took in Harrods. Well, it was Mrs N's birthday treat when all said and done. We didn't buy much.
Then back to the allotment yesterday morning picking stuff before dashing off to Southampton till bedtime.Today Mrs N and I have been out to Uppark with a couple of allotmenting friends. Tomorrow I'm off to Kent. All go, isn't it? Thursday, 5th AugustThunder and rain! But I didn't really see it as I was in
Tesco's at that time yesterday afternoon. I'd just finished a little walk
round Durrington so we were pretty lucky, I suppose. Although we needed
the rain it was pretty bad timing; I'd spent yesterday morning on the
allotment watering my plot. Not only that I then went on to water a neighbouring
allotment for someone who's on holiday! And when did Saturday, 31st July
Rain!!!!!! Well, a few hours of very light drizzle which was enough to persuade me not to bother watering things on the allotment. I don't take a lot of persuading. I still had to water everything in containers at home though and in the greenhouse but I didn't bother with the vegetable patch. But - quelle horreur! - what's been attacking my onions? I didn't know anything liked onions apart from onion fly and unless this fly had a spade I'm hazarding a guess it was something a tad bigger: 3 onions dug up and moved and a hole excavated. This week's horticultural conundrum is, "What did it?" I don't think it's cats as since I put the sonic cat-scarer there the cats have stopped using the onion bed as a cat poo area. I know there is a fox living in next door's garden but he would have made a much bigger hole, I reckon. Other evidence includes a lot of bird feathers on the lawn with little grisly bits of bird attached and 2 dead frogs but they could all be unconnected.
Outside I have been cutting back the geraniums, not the red pelargonium type but the border hardy geranium. They've finished flowering now so if I give them a good haircut they might come again later in the year. In the meantime I'll plant some pot grown verbena bonariensis there. They even have the same colour flowers so it won't affect my colour scheme (plant whatever you've got where there's a space). Tomorrow I must go to the allotment sometime as I haven't been up for a few days and the courgettes may have taken over control. Tuesday, 27th July
I actually thought for a moment it was going to rain when a couple of drops landed on me but in no time at all the light shower had gone and the ground is still bone hard. How my fruit could do with it, to swell the blackberries and apples in particular. Not that the birds seem to mind; they've started on my apples already even though they are nowhere near ripe yet. Some birds had a feast yesterday evening too: we were just finishing our dinner on the patio - posh phrase for back yard - when we noticed birds, seagulls, circling overhead which they are wont to do on flying ant day. Doesn't seem much of a snack, an ant for a great big seagull but there are thousands of them and sure enough when we looked down we saw a nearby flower bed was teeming with them and the queens were taking to the air. We took off indoors.
Thursday, 22nd July
I had to drive to the far side of Southampton and back the other night on an errand of mercy. I know the way as I go that way quite often so I didn't think it would be much hassle - WRONG! First the Boulevard was closed for resurfacing, Not much of a problem as I could go down Titnore Lane - it was closed for roadworks. Still I managed to get out onto the A27 and headed confidently westwards - as far as Crossbush, just this side of Arundel. Then the A27 was closed for some reason and you had to follow the diversion signs towards Littlemapton and through Bognor Regis. Unfortunately this takes in a level crossing and the gates were closed for ages before a little 4-carriage jobby chugged across. Next stop somewhere in the Felpham/Bognor area where they are building a couple of new housing estates; so they've shut down half the road and the area is now controlled by temporary traffic lights. There was another diversion at the other end just before my destination so a one and a half an hour drive for 50-odd miles. Did I mention there was a police landrover on the M27 which nobody dared to overtake of course? It did eventually turn off. Coming back wasn't so bad as I knew what was in store so I joined the A259 eastwards as soon as possible. Amazingly Mrs N was still up when I got home. I hadn't been able to phone her as on setting off back I dropped my mobile somewhere down the side of the passenger seat and couldn't find it. I couldn't spend too long looking for it as I had already put my car parking card in the barrier thing and there was a time limit on it or you were shut in the car park. What has all this got to do with gardening? Nothing, but I thought I would just use the experience to show you that even a super-hero like me is affected by all these little things that can go wrong and inevitably do. Like my carrots! Where are they? Sunday, 18th July
Well, that bit of wind certainly thinned out my apples somewhat. I was complaining that the lawn was brown but it's certainly green now - and bumpy. A bit like one of those kiddie's ball pools except all the balls are green. It also damaged our orange tree which our eldest started from a pip about 20 years ago. The wind snapped one of the main branches. I tried lashing it together but it's not really a one-man job. The branches move when you try to bind them and they have viscious thorns. I count myself lucky to escape with a prick in the forehead, scratched arms and bloody fingers. After that pruning and picking the gooseberries and raspberries seemed a piece of cake. We still have a glut of soft fruit although I have been given a couple of recipes to try and I've put them on our Recipes page. Don't be shy of sending me any of your favourites to share with the gardening/cooking/baking world out there. We've (Mrs N) made a decent quantity of jam now but it's getting the jars, isn't it? Maybe next year we'll save them but we had no idea we'd have so many raspberries and things that we'd have to resort to jam making. Courgettes don't jam so well, do they? I swear they grow about 6 inches every time your back is turned. On the other hand my carrots and my potatoes have been a disaster. Few carrots germinated despite several sowings and those that did just haven't shifted. Some of the potatoes look as though they have died and when I dug one up there was nothing there - well, 2 marble-sized things. I think next year I shall just grow first earlies so we can have some new potatoes and then buy the rest from Tesco's. Not as if they're expensive, is it? I might as well grow something else we really enjoy and give them a bit of room. I need to renew my strawberries as well. Any ideas out there? Someone recommended Marshmellow but then others have told me they are apt to keel over and die mid-season. I'm open to suggestions. (for strawberries too) Wednesday, 14th July
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Our back garden is now taking on a definite red hue what with fuchsia, honeysuckle, hardy geranium, begonias and red lilies in flower interspersed with splashes of yellow from the hypericum and eleagnus. I feel quite satisfied with it which is more than can be said for the front garden. What a disaster! The main feature of the front garden is a circular lawn. Earlier in the season I noticed quite a few small weeds so I dosed it with a lawn weedkiller. It killed everything it touched including the grass. And then there's been a virtual drought so the new grass won't germinate and I can't give it enough water without a sprinkler. Final appearance: horrible.
The two gardens I saw yesterday in Goring open under the National Garden Scheme put me to shame. I think the first was in Brook Barn Lane. Big imposing house but what a garden - stuffed to the gunnels with plants. Quite intensive to maintain, I should think, with a lot of containers but also established plants and structural features including several home made arches. Judge for yourselves from these pictures.
The second garden was less than 5 minutes walk away and £4 got you into both. And the second did cakes - £2 for a mug of tea and a piece of cake as big as your hat. Again the garden was well designed with slightly more variation: it had a lawn, a large pond and a vegetable patch. It also had some interesting outbuildings and structures including a shrine in mosaic. In fact mosaics were a bit of a theme here. Here's some more pickies.

Back to the allotment today where the raspberries are starting to go beresk. I don't know if it's my experimental pruning, the weather or my fruit cultivation skills but they're really good, far more prolific than the strawberries were. I picked a load this morning but I'll give them a rest tomorrow and give the poor old runner beans a bit of attention; they're smothered in blackfly. A morning of squidging tomorrow then.
Another fine, warm day and no surprise to hear it's been the driest start (Jan-June) to any year since 1929. Now that June's gone perhaps my apples will stop falling, presumably because of the well documented phenomenon of June Drop. I'm surprised we've got quite so many apples as we have as I don't recall seeing many bees about earlier in the year. Not that I'm complaining.
My strawberries have come to an end now but the raspberries have started good and proper and I'll continue picking the rhubarb for a short while. In our home garden I have put in a few flowers but in the main it's been the same routine as on the allotment: watering and weeding. I'll have to be careful I don't wear out the hoe and the watering can. (And Mrs N!)

On a personal front I started walking again on Wednesday afternoon with our Easy Walking group but kept at the back at a very steady pace down Ilex Way and back to the Mulberry. I survived a few hours sitting down at Pub Night on Tuesday as well although I admit the beer may have helped. Conversation turned to where we would like to go for our holiday next year - as I won't fly it does impose a few restrictions. Last year we went to the Belgian Flower Festival (pictures on Photo Call pages) and the year before to Paris and the Jardins du Luxembourg. Prior to that it was the Dutch Bulbfields. Any suggestons?