I have started clearing the wilderness that both my plot and hubby’s had become, the endless rainshowers having not so much made the soil muddy as workable again -especially the new bit, which was compacted and very much like concrete under the spade.

I will take sone pics over the weekend, as it is starting to look good again. And there is a lot going on, despite the indefatigable chomping of slugs and snails (I must be sowing at a rate of three times as much as I get).

At the moment, my favourite crop is redcurrant: the red berries look like jewels dangling from among the lush green leaves, and are delicious straight off the plant when properly ripe. But some ofthe salad colours are equally spectacular, the one I like most having light green leaves with curly edges in purply red.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This year I have lost my gooseberries to pigeons once again. It happened in the first year when I did not know what that bush was.

Then I netted it the second and third years, and had bumper crops.

This year, despite the netting, they were gone and I was left with only 2 punnets, when only last week I could see plump, almost ripe berries on all branches… which I did not have time to pick. Yes, I think it was a matter of timing. Once the berries were ripe, pigeons found ways to get at them – even though they are green and barely visible. They throw themselves on the netting, bend or break the branches, and eat all they can. The rotters.

Anyway, two punnets I got, and there might be some red berries on the newly planted bushes, the ones I hope will start cropping seriously from next year, their third.

You really have to like gooseberries, because picking them is not for the faint-hearted. Today my arms look like I had a fight with a rather aggressive cat. It did not help that to avoid a thorn, I ended up with my hand in a clump of nettles! The British seem to like them better cooked, in crumbles, fools etc. I like them raw (and so do all my Italian friends that have heard of them). When they get soft, and from clear go cloudy, having lost the worst of their acidic edge, gooseberries have a mild yet delicious aftertaste that is difficult to describe.

I have some with me for lunch today!

— Post From My iPhone

… so this morning, when I found myself awake in bed at 5 AM, thinking of the plumber and work, I decided I would get up for a change and go to the allotment to relax. And so I did.

Rather strange for someone who, like myself, is definitely not a morning person, I thought the sunshine out of the window warranted a go at sunrise gardening.

The three hours I spent weeding before breakfast were very productive (true in Italy there’s a saying that goes “Morning comes with gold in its mouth”), and I got home with a good crop to boot!

Still picking the come-again salad, while the second sowing slowly grows. Salad is really a worthwhile crop, has saved me good money this year, so I took advantage of the current Thompson & Morgan 3 for 2 offer on salad seeds, and also bought some corn salad from Seeds Of Italy, which should crop late in the year.

Now though – slight drawback – it will have to be bedtime already.

I arrived at the plot a bit earlier than usual, between 19.15 and 19.30 and it was quiet. Soil was ok and I managed to do some digging while having some banter with the neighbours. All good, except that suddenly I could not hear them any longer and I realised when I came back from wherever I was, just before falling face forward, that I had almost passed out. Ok, I am quite tired, I know, maybe low blood pressure.

But then I understood why it felt so quite: no bumblebees whatsoever – none on the phacelia, nor on the sage and not even on the borage that has started flowering. Quiet as death: it was horrible. I love insects, alive, going about their business and keeping me company. No idea where they all were.

While wondering about bees, my eye fell on the garlic: it had died back. So I had a look: most of it had not even grown,. and all was rotting in the ground. I planted three times more than last year just to be on the safe side, and my crop might turn out to be ZILCH. I’ll try and dry up whatever is left and see how it fares, but I’m not too hopeful.

Not the best of evenings. I thought my ROI is very low, would I ever be able to make a living out of my gardening? If anyone ever tells me that – having gardened for a few years – they are an expert, I will laugh out loud…. How long does it take to learn?

Mr Tod was running after crows on the football pitch outside the alltoment.

I have been to the plot a couple of evenings this week, and befriended a fox.

A sign of my loneliness, or possibly to exorcise my fear of him scaring the living daylights out of me by jumping out of nowhere, I started talking to Mr Tod when he turns up just before sunset. Running away or ignoring me were his first responses.

Yesterday, though, he was a bit more sociable, and even posed for me, at a safe distance (bigger pictures on Flickr).

I think we like him, as we have a hope he might chase rats away.

Besides the fox, wildlife is thriving, I even spotted a striped bumblebee I had never seen before!

Although I spend a comparative little time on the plot, the experience of the last few years seem to have resulted in more going happening: I have veg at all stages of development: from the brassicas who have just germinated, through the broccoli white eye that I potted on last week, the courgettes I planted out yesterday and the tomatoes and aubergines that, outside and in the tent respectively, are growing on, to my successionally growing salad.

Fruit also provides a varied landscape: from the wines that are prolifically flowering, through the strawberries that are overwhelmingly being prey to birds despite the cover, to the almost ready gooseberries and the raspberries, whose first few we enjoyed this week.

For the first time in four years I have managed some succession sowing, so I should be sorted with salad leaves most of the summer.

In April I had sowed some misticanza leaves in one of my two plastic “tents” for protection. By the time I came back from holiday in mid-May, they were ready to pick, and – hoping they might be cut and come again (the packet did not say) – I cut about a fifth of them leaving about 1 cm at the soil level, instead of pulling them out. Just to be sure in case they would not come again, though, I also sowed some into the other tent and…

Yeah! They did come back, so – as I picked another fifth – the first one is regrowing. In addition to that, the other bed is starting to germinate right now, two weeks on. This is great, and the first time I manage to do it successfully.

Pity I have not managed to do the same with rocket (it did not come up for two months and is just starting now to germinate, quite erratically) or radish (it bolted rather than swell at the root). I will leave both to self-seed. Last year leaving poorly germinated rocket to self-seed was the best thing I did, as it came back with a very decent crop the second time round, more or less September time. However that is not enough: I want more. If I manage to go a bit more often to the plot now, I will try some more direct sowing.

I have not written for the best of a month, what with my exam and – after that – some longed-for holidays.

The plot is not in bad shape, probably because it did not rain so much as to set the weeds on rampage (not even nettles!), but just enough to get the crops going.

Yesterday I picked a meter -ong asparagus, that was not even too woody all considered, and there is salad ready for next time I manage to pop in. The pumpkins I had planted out just before going away got frosted on their first night out but have done very well after that, and I will not praise enough the rather rough “Botanico” small growhouses I bought on Greenfingers.com (apparently no longer in stock 🙁 ) which have turned out to be deeply loved by the seedlings (or maybe it’s just the position they are in, under some blackthorns that shade them a bit).  Most seedling are in perfect shape, not least because of the precious help of lovely Carol, who has taken care of my greenhouses while I was away.

Hubby’s plot has a pretty grassed area covered in Veronica persica: speedwell (which I have always known before today as little Virgin Mary’s eyes, as my mother used to call it), and Leuchantemum vulgare: oxeye daysies.

Looking forward to a summer of gardening, now.