Oh Hi There, I'm Your Allotment, Remember Me?

One day my son, all of this...

Things have been awfully restaurant-centric on this blog of late. Not for no reason; the depths of winter are only for the most dedicated of gardener, and that is not us. However, even by my own half-arsed standards, a full month and a half without attending the plot once is the type of absence that makes the heart grow not just fonder, but almost forgetful of why we bother with all this in the first place. That being so, it was great, over the course of a few hours spent in nourishing sunshine today, to be reminded.

Hang on a minute...

Firstly, it was good to do a quick reccy and find that a) the plot was still there and b) no serious damage had been incurred as a result of our neglect. Kind of like forgetting you have a child while in a crowded department store; remembering, panicking, and then finding them still looking at the toys where you left them. Phew! No major growth of weeds and only a knackered old bit of fence having blown over = not a bad result. However, on closer inspection, we had a couple of forks and a spade nicked out of our shed. A thousand curses on the house of whatever vile swine is responsible. There is a good deal of continuing political shenanigans on our site with vandalism and thefts widespread, although especially directed at committee members. Could our tools have been taken hostage as part of this larger struggle? Whoever nicked them it is quite annoying, although not a patch on what some people have had to put up with. Ho hum.

A handful of parsnip

In more positive news, I dug up the last of our parsnips and jerusalem artichokes. I netted a good bagful of parsnips which seemed none the worse for their extended stay in the ground and are being prepared for dinner even as I tap this out. They were hard to spot, all the initial greenery having long since died back, although some had sprouted new green shoots which was kind of cool.

Scarlet protrusions of rhubarb are preparing to unfurl themselves. They look like weird, alien growths at this time of year. We had planned to cover some up to force them, but I think that ship might now have sailed?

Autumn planted leeks and onions are quietly and tidily getting on with doing their thing. Elsewhere, nearly all the garlic that I planted in place of the dud white onion sets at the very end of last year has thrown some greenery above ground. Good old garlic.

The sun was out and warming both us and the earth, birds were kicking out a right din, and much tea was drunk. Damn good stuff all round.

Kasia had a tidy of the shed, knocking it thoroughly into shape, we threw out a load of crap and generally had a bit of a spring clean. There's a lot to do. We need to figure out where we're going to put our raised beds for their maiden year, and make some sort of plan as to what we're going to plant where. All of this is going, with any luck and good sense, to take much more planning than in either of our previous two seasons as Toni, with whom we share the plot, is relinquishing her side of it. We need to have a word with the powers that be, but suffice to say we've bought a good deal more seed spuds than ever before...