Soilman's Allotment Blog

National weeding week

No need to pinch yourself, reader. This is not an illusion. The sun is shining and I have got out of the house.

Jeez, I was even warm enough to take off my jacket – at 8.00am. After the deluge of the last few weeks, I felt like Noah on Mount Ararat.

It was all frighteningly productive. I planted onion sets. I trimmed borders. I dug seed beds.

And of course, I weeded. Famous though I am for my can-do, glass-is-half-full attitude (Ed: Er, hello?), I can't help feeling pretty cheated here. I mean, we've had the March from Hell and nothing's grown... but the plot's already getting choked with groundsel and couch.

It is, in short, a very weedy sort of Spring. Anyone else got this problem, too?

Growing for broke

They say, don't they, that it's a sign of madness to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result. Hence my favourite dictum:

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

I try to live my life by this creed. So the question begs itself: Why the bloody hell am I planting garlic again?

Two years running, rust has all but destroyed my crop. Now I'm seemingly going for the hat-trick.

Nurse: The straitjacket.

Rained off and pissed off

Intellectually, I know March is a crap month. Always has been, always will be. Yet hope springs eternal - goddammit.

You see, it's not the despair. I can cope with the despair. It's the hope.

Anyway, the weather is so spectacularly appalling that indoor gardening is the only option. I've been potting up my celeriac and okra seedlings. Dull, dull, dull.

An apology

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Celeriac 2007: RIP

Here's the last of 2007's root crops. They achieved a good size in the end, despite the grotty weather.

I could lie to you and say I'll cook them in some exotic gourmet dish. Truth is, I'm bored shitless by celeriac. We've been eating it for months. So this lot's going to another home.

I end up giving away something like 20% of the vegetables I grow; I can't bear chucking stuff on the compost, and there's only so much you can face during the gluts.

Does this sound particularly generous or mean to other vegetable gardeners? How much do you give away?

Pride before the fall?

Ready or not, it's all about to kick off. And actually, I am ready. For once.

Except for those leeks by the water tank, I've cleared the winter veg; I harvested the last bucket of celeriac and carrots today. Best of all, I've dug the whole plot and manured everything bar the roots bed.

It's raining now, of course, but this morning was gorgeous. The sun shone (sort of – nothing to write home about), and it reached 16C. Can't say fairer than that for mid March.

My early potatoes went in last weekend, so the Soilman allotment regime is bang on schedule.

All far too good to be true; something ghastly is sure to happen any minute.

Lilium regale seedlings

I'm fed up with pictures of pots. I want to be out on the allotment. You know, growing vegetables. Not poncing around with a camera like a horse's arse.

*Sighs heavily*

You'll gather from the above that the UK weather's been shit. And I mean, really shit. 'Gale' seems a trite word for such destructive power.

So while I'm stuck here, being a horse's arse (again), I thought I'd show you how the lily seedlings are coming on.

These are the cotyledon leaves, which grow from the seed case. The first true leaves should emerge any moment now.

And who knows? I may even do some bloody gardening one of these days.

Bhindi balls-up

This is my 2008 season car crash. It's okra. And here's the thing: I know it won't work.

Most years I attempt an exotic – or at least, something vaguely out of the ordinary. Nine times out of 10, it fails miserably.

For what it's worth, okra apparently needs a long growing season (so says my work colleague, who used to grow it in Mumbai). So I'm bringing it on indoors until it's warm enough to plant out. Anyone have any okra tips??

My hopes are not high. Ladies and gentleman, I bring you... this year's miserable failure.

Promises, promises

I have three hippeastrums flowering at the same time and I'm thrilled.

Shame I can't say the same about the vegetable plot. Haven't been since Saturday. No point – it's deader than a dead thing in a cemetery.

It even looks a bit like a cemetery. Give me a few mourners and a hearse and you'd never know the difference.

This weekend, though, it's going to be different. The potatoes are definitely going in. I'll finish the digging and edging. I may even hoe weeds and plant onion sets.

And pigs might fly.

Sowing parsnips

At last it's warm enough to sow something direct. I chose a fairly crap day for it, but there it is. For anyone who's not done this before, I hope this may help:

How to prepare a soil bed for sowing parsnip seed http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1439819457http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1213897953