Soilman's Allotment Blog

Dear God: Enough already

More deceptive weather, more deceptive growth. Any other time, and I'd welcome sprouting lilies. Now they seem like a bad joke; tonight we're getting sleet and snow.

I realise, of course, that this allotment blog is taking on a Cassandra-like character. All you get is moans and weather warnings. Like Jenna Jameson reading the shipping forecast.

All I can say is: if you're not whingeing, could you please start? If enough of us rant at the Almighty, He might deign to cancel winter.

He's clearly not getting the message from me.

Heralds of...Winter

Pretty tasty, huh? These are sitting just outside my garden door, and the smell is so strong it's indecent. I'm almost excited about it.

Almost. But not quite.

You see, it's a false dawn. Winter's back with a vengeance at the weekend: snow is forecast. So here we go again.

Will this sodding winter ever let go?

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.

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.

Most excellent, dude

Very flattered to be given a vote of confidence by Melinda at Elements in Time. I'd like to thank my wife, my agent and my pussycat.

Ashamed to say I'm ducking the challenge of naming 10 other excellent blogs. Seems invidious to pick out 'specials' from so many great bloggers. Suffice to say that every site in my 'Other Blogs' list has my implicit approval. I enjoy them all.

Seeing as it's still winter, and I still can't sow seed seriously (wow, get that alliteration), I'm reduced to posting more flower pix. Check out this gorgeous Paphiopedilum orchid:

PS I'm aware this is a vegetable gardening blog. Honest. Cut me some slack here.

Name that flower

Well, here it is. Spring has sprung. This gorgeous daffodil had barely opened before it was felled by a -5C frost last night. But hey. It's the thought that counts.

Visited the new glasshouse at Wisley RHS yesterday. Was amused to see this pendulous 'flower', which put me in mind of... well, it made my wife laugh, anyway.

So here's a Soilman quiz: What is it? No cash prizes for correct answers, I'm afraid, just the Shackleton Special.

Lilies are go!

It's time to sow lily seeds. Lilies can flower in their first season if you get cracking early. For those who got some Regale lily seeds in the Soilman seed giveaway last year, here's how to germinate them:

1. Put some gravel in the bottom of a medium-sized pot (top left)
2. Fill with a mixture of 3 parts compost to 1 part fine grit (top right) and water well
3. Sow lily seeds on surface (bottom left), no less than an inch apart
4. Cover with a clear plastic bag (bottom right)

Put the pot on a sunny windowsill. The seeds should germinate in 7-10 days.

Remove the plastic once the seedlings are obviously established. The pot can go in a cold frame in mid to late March – but acclimatise the seedlings slowly.

I still have some seed left. Email me if you'd like a packet.

Darkest before dawn

Here's a definite sign of Spring. When japonica camellias start to flower, daffodils aren't far behind.

It still feels bloody cold, though. The cat is my seasonal barometer. Before leaving the house, he gingerly extends a paw to test the temperature of the patio flagstones. If they're very cold he jumps as if scorched... then refuses to go out.

He hasn't been out much yet.

New year, new hope

No earthly reason for posting this. Just needed something to cheer me up. Through a combination of family illness and bad luck, I have ended up alone on New Year's Eve... which is a tad depressing.

I took this photo at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens in July. Delphiniums, to me, are still the most beautiful flowers in the world. One day I may even have enough room and sunshine to grow them in my own garden.

For now, here's hoping 2008 proves a great gardening year.

No veg, only orchids

The weather's been atrocious this week. It's raining so hard today I didn't even want to get out of bed this morning.

No change there, come to think of it. But you take my point.

All I can do is look out of the window and mope. And admire my lovely cymbidium orchid, which has gone berserk this year. It's a cultivar called King's Lock, and I have three flower spikes. Outrageous.

Normal service resumes any time I can get out of the bloody front door. Which doesn't look like happening any time soon.

As you were.

Christmas rose?

Now that we've had a couple of sharp frosts, my confidence in climate 'normality' has returned. Things are not good overall, obviously. But at least winter still has a bite – albeit a small one.

What's blowing my mind now is the hardiness of this rose. It's been frosted – hard – twice. But here it is, gamely flowering in front of my house. It's a hybrid tea called 'Nostalgia'.

As befits its name, it seems to enjoy a taste of old-fashioned winter weather.

The twilight zone

Strange things are happening in my garden. It's late October, and we've had a frost. Yet this dahlia is preparing to flower again.

Weirder still, so is my Acanthus. And I've never heard of an Acanthus flowering this late:

It's all jolly... weird. I'm not complaining – far from it. I'm just a tad worried that during the night I appear to have been transported to a parallel universe where things grow in the wrong seasons and the loss of a rugby match causes national mourning.

I mean, come on. Who'd want to live in Australia?

Soilman seed give-away

Pods of lily seeds ripen round about now. I'll harvest this Regale pod today before it cracks and spills its seed everywhere (can I write that on a PG-rated blog?).

Seeds from Trumpet and asiatic lilies are dead easy to grow. Keep them somewhere cool and dry over winter, then sow in pots indoors in February. I fill a big, 8-inch pot with compost, then sow about 12 seeds on the surface and barely cover them.

Put a clear plastic bag over the whole to keep it humid. The seeds germinate in about 7 days. Grow them on until they're ready to be potted up separately or planted outside in April.

I've got tons of regale seed this year. They're forgiving plants and will grow pretty much anywhere, given full sun and reasonably well drained soil. Email me and I'll post you some seed.

If the wretched Royal Mail staff feel like putting in an honest day's work any time soon.

Soilman, soft southern wuss

It's dank and dark and autumnal. But the light and the damp can be rather beautiful. This dahlia never looked better, even in the sunshine.

I was going to dig out the sweetcorn today. I was up bright and early, undeterred by the rain. "It's only a drop of water," I told myself. "You don't mind getting wet. You're hard as nails."

(Note to self: Stop watching that bloody Royal Marine training programme on the TV).

So I went to the plot... for about 2 minutes. The spade never made it out of the car.

There goes the sun

I was looking back at my summer photos and found this. Seemed a shame not to post it, for shamelessly nostalgic reasons. Another summer chalked up to history.

I get gloomy at this time of year. As the days shorten, it feels as if I'm climbing down a deep, narrow well. The light is slowly disappearing and I'm getting claustrophobic.

Winter totally sucks.

Rosy-fingered Dawn

Insomnia drove me to the allotment at the crack of dawn today. Couldn't think what else to do.

I'm not really the poetic type, but it was very beautiful. Dewdrops twinkling on everything and pink light flickering through swirling mists. Felt glad to be alive (a rarity).

Plus I managed – for once – to capture some of it in a photo:

Vulgar and loving it

Snooty British gardening experts have a lot to answer for. They usually pooh-pooh 'gaudy' flowers like gladioli. They get all excited about 'species' this and 'alpine' that. Anything big, bright and blowsy is treated with patrician froideur.

What's wrong with a cheap and cheerful cultivar? And how come roses are always exempt from scorn?

Well, I love vulgar flowers. I grow several examples at the allotment. Let's hear it for gladis, Siberian irises, lilies, hollyhocks, poppies and dahlias. They're bloody wonderful and I won't hear a word against them.

Whistling in the dark

I visit the allotment these days with a knot in my stomach. What new disaster awaits?

I'll come to that later in the week. For now (because I can't bear to show you the bad news today) here's some good news. From my garden, admittedly, but there. Cut me some slack.

This is a trumpet lily that caught me by surprise. The RHS Lily Group sent me some species Regale seed that I duly sowed two seasons back. All bar this one flowered last season, and I assumed it was just a bit late. Turns out it's a hybrid whose seed must somehow have got into the packet. Something like Golden Splendour or African Queen.

Whatever. I'm delighted. It looks gorgeous and smells heavenly. Thank God for a pleasant horticultural surprise in 2007.

Thank God, too, for this hemerocallis. It's a cultivar called Moonlight Masquerade that I've been nurturing for three seasons. Very slow grower. It produced just one tiny flower last year. Now, at last, this:

Bloggers bloom day

Given the bloody awful UK weather this weekend (again), I can't get out on the allotment. So I'm going off piste with today's post to participate in Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.

I'm a day late, of course. But that's because I only just found out about it. So hey.

The garden (as opposed to the plot) is looking pretty tasty right now. My pride and joy is my lily collection. Many of them are now out:

 

There are the big ones, too – the species lily Regale...

... and my favourite Orienpet, 'Reverie':

And just to round things off, here's a random selection of other things blooming in my garden today:

 

 

Soilman, Web Dictator

I have no good reason for posting this picture. I could try the flimsy excuse that it relates to garden pests. But that's shite.

Truth is, I just like it. And I couldn't invent a decent reason to use it. So there.

I love the absolute power I have on this blog. It's corrupting the hell out of me, and I don't care. Shame I've got bugger-all influence over Nature. I might be eating more veg by now.

The scent of summer

I confess I've let the flower theme take over this week. But I can't resist, you see. There's something about the first new roses that is, to me, utterly entrancing. This is a hybrid tea called Lady Hillingdon. The scent is so strong it makes your head swim.

Pity you can't do scratch 'n' sniff online.

It's lucky there's a long weekend coming. I must get everything out on the plot before it scorches in my lousy 'greenhouse'. Or dies of boredom.

In the meantime, there's 45 mins of allotment watering every evening. Just these two warm days have turned the plot into a desert. Sod the watering cans. I need a camel.

First lily

Here's the first lily of the season, an Asiatic called 'Lollipop'. I have a bed of lavender by the house, and lilies look particularly lovely in front of it. Also it discourages lily beetle... or at least, so I assume. I never find beetles on plants growing near lavender.

Did some serious planting at the allotment. Courgettes, gherkins and the (surviving) sweetcorn are all in. Will post pix later in the week if they all make it through the next few days. Which is a bloody big 'if' this year.

Rain stops play

It's pissing with rain and I'm livid.

I know: there's no pleasing some people. Last week I'd have given a kidney for this weather. Now I'm gutted because I can't get out on the plot. And there's SO much needs doing.

Got lucky yesterday – we had a two-hour dry window in the afternoon, so I planted out the peas. Their toe-hold on existence is a bit precarious when you first slide them out of the gutters, but given a few days they'll 'take'. Slugs and pea weevil permitting.

I also thinned my carrots and covered them with Enviromesh – an essential hereabouts. Without it, the carrot fly runs amok. I'm not a fan of slimy larval corpse with my boiled carrot. Any gardeners out there not suffering from carrot fly? Wherever you are, I want to move in with you.

22ºC on April 5th!

Ludicrously warm in central London today. It's freakish. As well as being a vegetable fanatic, I also have a thing about lilies. Here's one of the 14 different varieties I grow. It's a oriental/trumpet cross (often known as an 'orienpet') which I got from a fabulous nursery in the States.Normally this would just be breaking the surface in early April. Look at it here. Crazy.

Having flunked out of sowing the carrots and beetroot last weekend (too bloody cold), I'm doing it over the Easter break. Here are the varieties I'm sowing:

Bolthardy is a no-brainer, but I fear the Burpees Golden won't work. They failed to germinate last time I tried them, two years ago. Will follow up their progress in due course.