Saturday, 30th June

Not much of a day weather-wise, was it? The day before I'd been on the allotment for an hour or two weeding carrots, runner beans and strawberry plants as well as picking raspberries and rhubarb. Seems like a decent year for rhubarb and I do like rhubarb crumble. But today I was under cover in the big white marquis on Broadwater Green for the Worthing Horticultural Society's Show. What a lot of flowers! And not just flowers but fruit, vegetables, cakes, jams and so on. It was nice to see some superb arrangements from Northbrook College NVQ students, the children's "Grow a potato in a bag competition" and children also among the winners, including Downsbrook Middle School. The BBC, the Southern Counties Orchid Society and our Association also had display stands. I enjoyed the refreshment area too, £1 for a cup of tea and a lovely piece of sponge cake. Can't be bad.                                    (A full report will appear on our News page in due course.)

Thursday, 28th June

Japanese Garden

It wasn't raining today so I mowed the lawn. The grass isn't half growing in these damp conditions and it seems I have to mow the lawn every time it stops raining to try and keep up with the rapid growth. But when you do, oh dear, what do you find? Well, me at any rate - I find that lustrous green appearance is due more to moss than beautiful turf. I've run out of moss-killer and grass seed again. I think a combination of circumstances (shade, rain, clay soil, etc.)is making my chances of success pretty remote but I'll keep on trying. You wouldn't believe it but Japanese gardens actually feature moss lawns! I wonder if they get upset when grass appears in the moss.

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Wednesday, 27th June

A lovely evening at the North Star last night and another new face plus the regulars, including one chap who comes from Sompting allotments! Thirsty work this allotment talk but luckily I had my wife to walk me home. All day I'd been praying it wouldn't rain in the evening so we could walk to the pub, as I refuse to drink and drive and my wife does neither. Not that I'm an alcoholic but it is an enjoyable, convivial evening and it is nice to share a relaxing drink with friends. Why don't you give it a go? You don't HAVE to drink alcohol or buy a round - again my wife does neither but still enjoys the chat. The next appointment is at the North Star on the Littlehampton Road on the evening of Tuesday, 31st July. I usually get there around 8.15pm - 8.30pm. If you turn up you could get to see what I look like!

Monday, 25th June

By gum, it rained this morning! Came down like stair-rods it did. I think I was the only one on the allotment at the time. Thank goodness I took the car. Despite my rural upbringing I'm not sure I've actually ever seen a drowned rat but my imagination can now fill in the gaps. Conditions for staying in, I think, reading a magazine or playing on the computer bringing the website up to date or doing the insurance, anything but daytime television. "Fern" might sound horticultural but I'd sooner watch my seedlings grow.

Sunday, 24th June

Wet stuff, all day from when I got up, during our journey home, through till bedtime. Well, we were due a drop, I suppose and it means I don't have to do any watering today except in the greenhouse where I'm a bit worried the tomatoes are growing fiercely but don't appear to be producing many flowers. The peppers don't even appear to be growing but they are the product of seeds taken from supermarket peppers so I'll be interested t see how they turn out. Will they be ready priced?

Saturday, 23rd June

                           
                                    Eastbourne Bedding                                                       Eastbourne Pier

Eastbourne Seafront

Sunglasses and T-shirt order again today as my wife and I headed to Eastbourne for a couple of days. I like Eastbourne, in particular the front with its floral displays. I always think they rather outdo our efforts in Worthing and although this year's display was largely a mix of easy, fairly common material such as red geraniums, cineraria, petunias and begonias, they were combined to very good effect and demonstrate municipal formal bedding at its best - bright and cheerful.

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Friday, 22nd June

Well, another glorious day here in Sunny Worthing. What is all this talk about rain everywhere? I must admit, I did notice the ground was wet when I came out of the Swallow's Return last night but we'd only been in there for an hour at the most and it wasn't raining when we went in or when we came out so it can't have rained much. If this carries on I'll have to do that well known rain-dance called washing the car. In the meantime I'll just enjoy it, so today I carried on planting up containers and planting out some spare tomato plants. I think I'm probaby a bit behind really which is a shame as I had considered entering the Front Garden competition this year (the entry form will be in this month's Plotholder magazine) but some of my flowers won't be ready. Apparently there were a lot more entries in the Best Allotment competition this year - I wonder if the extra prize money had anything to do with it. Keep an eye out for Show details on the Events page on this site and in the Plotholder.

Thursday, 21st June

I thought I'd go and pick some strawberries today. My own. that is, on the allotment. What a disaster! 3 strawberries! Three that were fit to take home, I mean. Well, it wasn't worth it, so I ate them. They tasted all right but something else must think the same because it's getting there before me. Can't understand it; last year we had loads and I've covered them in fleece just like before so it can't be birds.

bindweed

I did discover something else when I lifted the fleece - bindweed. Loads of it and I thought I'd got rid of it on that patch. Perhaps that part of the plot is cursed. Anyway, I won't be putting strawberry jam in the show. I suppose the schedule will be coming out soon but I've got some new ideas. Blow the longest runner bean competition! I reckon we should have a prize for the longest piece of bindweed. Not as easy as it sounds, as you'll know if you've tried pulling it out. It's very brittle and snaps very readily so there's an art to getting a good long piece. But I'm getting silly; I think I'll go down the pub and forget it all for a little while.

Tuesday, 19th June

Worthing from the top of Cissbury Ring

"Go with the flow," they say and it was such a lovely evening yesterday that's exactly what I did. My wife and I joined other walkers from Broadwater Strollers and Durrington Walkers for a climb up Cissbury Ring from Nepcote Green and walked round the top before coming back down into Findon. Going up we had lovely views of the Sussex countryside and once up there a quiet, peaceful view of Worthing below. We had the pleasure of observing a buzzard in flight as well as seeing and hearing the skylarks and other more common birds. Yes, it's not just on the allotment you can get close to nature although that's where I was again this morning, hand-weeding onions. Why did I plant so many?

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Sunday, 17th June

Another lovely day in Sunny Worthing so I took advantage of the elements to do a bit more planting for the slugs; courgettes this time. I include the picture to show what they looked like before they got ravaged. Still, I mustn't keep going on like a whingeing Pom because the conditions have been good for things other than the nasty brigade. Plants are pushing on in the flower borders with the geraniums (cranesbills) and the lilies doing very well with little intervention from me. I have also been planting up hanging baskets and containers and tending the tomatoes in the greenhouse where, I must admit, I am not averse to using the naughty blue pellets as the hedgehogs can't get in there.

                               
                 Geraniums                                        Lilies                                                             Containers

Friday, 15th June

What a lovely day again! I was on the allotment first thing this morning, first thing for me that is. I planted 5 squash plants and I'm wondering how many will be left come this time next week. Everybody seems to be moaning about slug damage. I reckon we should bulk buy lorry loads of these nematoad things and water them into all the allotment site then we should never see another slug again. But it's woodlice that's eating my strawberries. Don't try telling me their jaws aren't strong enough to damage the fruit and they only get in when birds have pecked them already. I don't believe it, primarily because birds can't get to my strawberries.

Ever the optimist though, I also planted some celeriac. I've no idea what to do with them but they were free, given to me generously by a neighbouring allotmenteer so I'll give them a go. I usually try to grow something a little bit different; last year it was butternut squash and they were so successful I'm growing them again. What an adventurous soul I am. There must be somebody out there growing really exciting stuff. Tell us about it.

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Tuesday, 12th June

As I wandered round the allotments I wondered how everybody else coped with these little set-backs. While it was sickening to see tons of unprotected strawberries had been left completely unscathed whereas my protected crop had been slaughtered, I was struck by the ingenuity and determination of some fellow plotholders as they endeavoured to protect their produce. Here's a sample:

                              
                                                                       Traditional Scarecrows

        
                                                                                 Other Scarers

             
              Bottles which rattle in the wind                   CDs which flash in the sun                          Companion Planting

                
           Covered with        Fleece                                        Netting                                                 Polythene

                          
                       Uncomfortable Shells                                Derris Dust                                 Oh, dear - Blue Slug Pellets

Monday, 11th June

"You need to get a life!" I was told by somebody who'd been reading these pages. So, you take a couple of days off and look what happens - more things go under: the slugs have now discovered my squash and my cosmos. I'll show you some of the devestation reeked by our most common foes: slugs, snail, woodlice, blackbirds, pigeons and aphids.

           ex-beans (has beans!)                                      ex-comos                                                     ex-squash

                                       attacked strawberries                                                           woolly aphis attack

Still, it's not all gloom and doom. Some of our allotmenteers have come up with some cunning plans to deal with these little pests, as I hope to demonstrate tomorrow.

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Friday, 8th June

Another fine day yesterday, just right for a spot of hoeing, I thought. In dry weather regular hoeing certainly helps to keep down the weeds so I thought I'd have a go between the rows of onions and was quite pleased to get away with only one decapitated onion. On the other hand it was a bit of a shock to see some of the other crops. I haven't been able to get to the allotment regularly for a little while and it was not a pleasant surprise to see several runner beans had been eaten, half a dozen cabbage plants had disappeared and the strawberries had taken a right bashing. I thought these slimey creatures were supposed to like the wet not the dry sunshine we've been having and then today it chucks it down, so they'll be in their element and all those weeds I hoed up yesterday are probably re-rooting. Still, look on the bright side - it should help the potatoes grow.

Thursday, 7th June

I tried to fix my compost bin yesterday. It's one of those big, black plastic jobs they were selling off last year. Somehow it fell to bits and as the green waste was piling up I decided I'd better have a go at putting it back together again and make the plot a bit tidier. I don't know if you've ever tried putting one of these things togeher on your own but it couldn't be easier. There's just 4 interlocking sides and a lid. So, what's the porblem? All you have to do to put 2 sides together is locate 4 lugs on each side and simultaneously push them together. Bear in mind they're made from a wibbly-wobbly plastic material that flexes and bends as you try to line up all 4 lugs and push them together. Well, I did eventually manage to put the first 2 bits together but then it gets worse because you have 2 or 3 sides to hold still while you try and fix in another one. Eventually, presumambly after recovering from fits of laughter, a neighbouring allotmenteer offered his help. Thankfully he used to be an engineer and with him holding the outside and me standing on the inside to line up and insert the tabs we managed it OK, only to find that we had then built the bin around me and I couldn't get out. The material is not substantial enough to bear your weight so in the end he had to lift one side while I crawled out through the bottom hatch. Who says we don't know how to have fun on the allotment?!

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Monday, 4th June

Pretty little critter, isn't it? But it's bad news. It's a lily beetle and I found two of the little beggars on one of my lilies today. I dispatched them forthwith. They're not easy to crush between thumb and first finger but this does incapacitate them then you can tread on them, sole of shoe on hard surface. If you don't, the next thing you'll notice is a horrble black gunge between the stem and the leaves. This is the excreta of the lily beetle grub under which they hide before going on to massacre your prize lily.

Sunday, 3rd June

Well, did you see it? "The Great British Village Show" I mean, on the telly tonight, BBC1 6.50pm, this and every Sunday for the next so many weeks. I did and there was John Trim, the bloke who gave us a talk on growing vegetables at the Charmandean Centre last month, judging the vegetables to see who should go throught to the finals at Highgrove. We'll never be able to afford him again now he's been on the telly! But did you see those vegetables? I mean, how many inches of a 23 foot carrot can you eat? And how do you get a 912lb pumpkin in the oven? But if you're interested in showing, be it vegetables, cake, jam, knitting or whatever, then this is the programme you must watch. I grow for the pan rather than the bench but I'll certainly be watching again next week

Saturday, 2nd June

It's happened again! Something's eaten half of my parsnip seedlings. None of the parsnips I sowed in the open ground germinated but you may remember I foresaw this problem and sowed some in cells then planted them out. They seemed to be doing fine then, all of a sudden, WALLOP! half of them have disappeared. What is it? Whatever it is it's done it for the last 3 years now and I'm getting fed up with it. Any ideas? The problem is in my own garden not on the allotment. If it's slugs, why didn't they eat the lettuce next to them?

It was that bit of sunshine encouraged me into the garden today although I spent most of my time in the greenhouse staking my Gardener's Delight tomatoes which are about 18" high now and planting some young basil between them. Somebody told me tomatoes and basil go well together but it might have been when eating, I'm not sure.

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