Yesterday, with sunny weather forecast, I decided to take the day off to garden.

It was actually cold and grey, but my order of trees had arrived, so I had to clean the pots and transplant my new lemon, olive and lime trees. In my collection of old Italian favourites, which started last year with the fig tree, only the persimmon is now missing, which I am going to order shortly – I will try and grow it in a pot for the first few years, as I do not have the space in my garden right now. I love kaki fruit, and you need only one plant as the fruit is parthenocarpic (it grows without fertilisation of the flower). Oh, and uva fragola, what we call “American” grapes whose correct English name is actually Concord and that its Latin name is Vitis lambrusca – you can suck or squeeze the grapes out of their skins: delicious… But that will have to wait, although I see that Seeds of Italy sell that too and I am sooo tempted…

Anyway, then I went to the allotment and planted the Jerusalem artichokes, besides clearing another of the soft fruits bed. There’s much digging and clearing still to be done, and one of my magazine suggests the clearing work should be completed by the end of the month.

As a bonus for going out in the miserable weather, I found a very strange twisting leaf, apparently from a bulb, growing on the path among all sorts of rubble. I pulled it out and transplanted it in a place where it will not be trodden upon: the bulb is orange, starts oval but grows to a funny irregular shape and is all wrinkly, never seen before. Hope it’s not a weed. Certainly it looks stunning.

And at home I found an envelope with my Garden Organic experiments waiting for me. I will grow lettuce within protection of an anti-slug cardboard barrier, a spinach tree and look out for butterflies on flowers.

Now let me go and finish my flower and seeds summaries for the horticulture assignment.

Today I spent another great afternoon, on a delightfully sunny day, at the allotment.

There is not much to talk about, really, but it was great fun as I increased the size of the asparagus bed to plant the new ones I got last week – the hickory axe and the recycled fence panels from my garden are coming so handy on the plot: the new bed is much more solid and nice looking than before, and hopefully the asparagus will thrive!

I then decided where to plant the Jerusalem artichokes, on the side of a couple of shortish beds. I digged a small bed, just enough for the 5 or so tubers I’ve got, and built a wooden support for the plants, which can grow as tall as 2.5 m.

Jerusalem artichoke is actually a type of sunflower, whose tuber (a stem tuber, like a potato) tastes like an artichoke. They show a weedy behaviour, so they are always grown on the same spot. The tuber, which I read is a good source of iron, should be planted in early spring in well conditioned soil. I hope when I plant them in the next couple of weeks they like the spot I chose for them!

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You may have noticed that I have not mentioned study for a while… I will try to make the next post on that, and to write my paper this week.

What a tangible sign of spring when the broadbeans are out once again! For a moment I thought it was some horrible weed, as I could not recognise the shape of the shoots. But it’s definitely broadbeans, and I will probably manage to find space for sowing some more.

What a day: I started digging at 11 and was not done before 6!

It was very satisfactory physical work – was shattered when I got home (man who saw me on my way said: “Keep going!” and burst out laughing it was so obvious that if I stopped I wouldn’t start again!!!) and went to sleep at 9, but it felt really good.

As it was raining in showers quite a lot of the time, I managed to sow some more seeds, but otherwise the soil was surprisingly not too muddy, so by the end of the day I had

• marked the boundary of half the plot,
• digged and covered my potato bed, so the soil will get warm early,
• digged in compost in a very compacted bed that is going to be my chilli bed, and covered it as well.

I hope the compost I have used to sow the seeds will work out fine: looks a bit too rough and I am worried that the woody bits migh mould and affect the seeds. I have bough some organic and peat-free today for the rest of the sowing.

Today I also stocked up on clip top kilner jars on sales, ready for my jam-making in a few months. A few weeks ago I got the River Cottage preserves book, together with another book on keeping the harvest (which is very US focussed but interesting). Now I only need hubby to help me put up shelves in the kitchen, or I won’t have enough space for any preserved produce 🙂

P.S. One of the neighbour’s had cut back his share of bushes to make the path walkable – even though he did not uproot them, so they will be back in the summer – which is a tiny step forward. And tomorrow I am going to post my challenge to the notification letter.

Talking of a lot to do in terms of digging and clearing, I came home tonight to find a letter from the council: first warning, they will take my allotment away if I do not fix the path.

How the hell could that be, wonder I, when it was Yours Truly in the first place to ask the council and the allotment manager to help me deal with path clearing from tree stumps & other rubbish on the neighbours’ side? You all know I have cleared my own side’s stumps to set a good example at the time!

Will they really take away my plot, with all the nightmarish consequences to my well being and peace of mind I dread?!?

Anyway, turns out it was my own complaint that caused a letter to be sent to all allotments bordering on the path, par condicio debitorum…

While wondering whether it would be fair to contest it to the council – for fairness to my record – I do however appreciate the manager bringing up the issue – and hope this procedure will finally rid us of stumps, soft fruits canes (which I have cleared myself the year before last), plastic sheeting and other neighbourly rubbish.

So that I cannot be faulted in any possible way, I will also dig along the whole of the boundary so that a clear line shows: Sarah seemed to think it would define the path better than my plastic line, which however is going to stay, as an obstacle to careless visitors and crapping dogs.

A parcel was waiting together with the obnoxious letter: my potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes. Besides, I have to plant in the allotment the blackberries from the pots, before it’s March and too late. Got my work cut out for me this coming weekend.

Braving the snow showers on this Valentine’s weekend I decided sowing could not wait any longer and had to be done today. Tomorrow is going to snow more than today, and next week I will not be able to make it to the allotment, so it was basically now or never for several seeds, as February whizzes away, and March won’t be much better, until BST at the end of the month will finally give me some more allotment time.

The greenhouse was a cosy 0-10°C, the propagators clean and the seeds ready – in envelopes grouped by month during my stock taking last autumn – so it was easy to do a lot in a short space of time. Only glitch, I could not find any organic compost when I went to the shops.

In any case, a few flowers, tomatoes & tomatillos, sweet pepper, radish, celery and cardoon have started their new season’s journey today, all under cover and sealed in plastic bags where extra warmth was needed.

There’s still so much to do outside in terms of digging and clearing, I really hope we get a spell of good weather shortly.

In the meantime, I will go back to my study, where I have done good progress. Leaves and flowers are almost done, only seeds to go before I can tackle the paper!