Although there is still a good amount of clearing to be done, it must be said that native ladybirds seem to like my weeds. Today I found two: one in my untidy compost pile and another one on a patch full of stones and overgrown with comfrey. Unforturnately I also found 2 Harlequin on my beans, but on the boundary of my neighbour’s plot – a thoroughly clean plot – I found 4 Harlequin adults and 3 larvae. Does that mean anything?
At the bottom of my compost pile I also found a bumblebee, whose burrow I inadvertently demolished (thinking it looked more the size of a mouse’s).

Well the untidy compost heap is gone: I have finally got round to build one with pallets – only two sides are final, but it works anyway and I put all my organic waste into it, while I wait for the plastic one to arrive, and to build the other one (you always need at least two, one filled and breaking down into compost, the other one filling).
I have also cleared the stony patch and the humongous comfrey roots, so that I can plant my soft fruits all together in neat rows at the top of the allotment where it’s a bit wetter and you can’t grow much else.

Unfortunately I did not manage to do anything else, like planting my artichoke, or the blueberry, or any of the October seeds…

… but I did measure the plot, and it’s most definitely not 250m2, in fact it is 36m x 4.5m.

I do wish days were longer, committments fewer and my energies enough to spend all the time at the allotment! I digged my way to a headache tonight, although the exercise feels good anyway. And the plot is visibly better for it.

P.S. for those of you who read my posts over the summer, when I was mentioning potatoes growing in the compost heap, I can confirm that 4 little potatoes came out, and very nice ones to boot!

I popped in last night to water the one artichoke I bought on holidays and the tomatoes in the greenhouse.

The brassicas are doing well, and so are the tomatoes, still ripening. My leek seedling seem to have caught, but they are still the size of tiny grass blades – not sure we will have any leeks this winter. The celery also looks too small, will have to try one. I tried the sweetcorn, which looked ok, but actually had nearly empty cobs: possibly too little water during growth. Amazing how after 40+ days of uninterrupted rain, we have not had a drop of rain for the next 40+ days…

Rats disposed of have gone up to 9 adults (10 since last winter) + litter of 5. Butter is great to lure them into the cage, although it takes longer than smelly cheese.

Later today or tomorrow I will go back and get some decent work done.

Price for the pole has gone up to £2.20 + £ 1.50 for water connection… how big is my plot? I was pretty sure it was 4.5 but the bill calls it 10.7 poles instead. It surely cannot be 250m2 (as it is 4.5m by 32m at most). Not that it’s very expensive, but I could do with some more land, if I’m paying for it anyway 🙂

Oh, and my horticultural books have arrived, and I joined the local library in search of more gardening books! Starts to feel exciting!

I had a look at the blog stats for the last year, since I started.

193 visitors have flicked through these pages, over 540 visits. 1.11% of my visitors (which means 2 people, if my maths doesn’t fail me) have come back more than 100 times! Now, it’s not my husband for sure, and it should not be me, as the stats are supposed to exclude my IP address.

What shall I say? I would have never thought when I started that I could write something to keep someone’s interest for so long, and it really means that you followed me from the very beginning (as I published just over 100 posts). So thank you, thank you for your loyalty: you know who you are, you two! And there is another 15.56% of you (30 people says my calculator) that is making it to 100 times, having crossed the treshold of 50.

Studying horticulture should provide me with some more topics to talk about over the next year, but the the pressure to please my audience is getting strong now!!! ;p

The next step in the development of the blog should be interaction, I guess… it is true that I have always considered gardening as my stress relief and solitary pleasure, but it is equally true that I really enjoyed talking organic farming with Neil at Bangors (we also made a video, which we’ll be publishing on YouTube at some stage). So if any of you readers feel like chipping in at any time, feel free and welcome… if you can bear with my inexperience as a hostess, that is.

I wish I could say I spent the whole of my weekend – in splendid weather – at the allotment. However, that would be too good, wouldn’t it? In fact, despite the fantastic weather I spent most if the two days indoor. The two hours I’ve been on the plot, though, have given much satisfaction.

I have to make an apology – the allotment manager got back to me in the end saying that manure was “organic”. I was tempted to go with that, but I decided to leave it for this year and see how I fare on green manure and my own compost. Since it will take me a while to put together my recycled pallet compost heap, I have bought one of those plastic bins to use in the meantime.

And I stocked up in organic seeds. Talking of which, I noticed there are plenty you can start off at this time of the year, so I am getting organised with more shelf space in the greenhouse. That will hopefully keep out the thugs this winter as a desirable side effect.

In the meantime I planted a booster collection of brassicas, which I hope will do well under beautifully supported netting protection and with a sprinkling of slug pellets here and there). And transplanted the leek seedlings, which are – however – frightfully behind (if you have a magnifying glass you might see them just beyond the brassica bed, tiny green threads timidly emerging from wet soil).

In terms of crops, tomatoes San Marzano have been unexpectedly prolific, considering the little care, and they did ripen, so tonight I will have a delicious Caprese. Besides the all-year-round self-seeded spinach beet, still cropping though in decline are: courgettes, beans, raspberries. Sweetcorn is almost ready, but I am not sure about the hundreds of celery plants that look too small, but had not time to examine closely. And in theory there’s still a bed of potatoes to dig out.

Won’t get bored any time soon.

Talking to Neil at Bangors, who is amazingly motivated as an organic producer, has made me reflect on my own beliefs and motivation.

So far, I have grown with organic methods, but not fussed too much about organic seeds. I have avoided any seeds which were treated with fungicide, and specifically bought organic seeds for those crops that are more at risk of GM: corn & soya (potatoes may be soon).

I am not a fan of GM – mainly as I am cynical of the human ability to discern between good and bad in the quest for progress, at least in the short term (examples of insecticides and asbestos may clarify what I mean). Therefore, I am wary of anything that is irreversible. And GM is in my opinion irreversible: pollen and seeds were specifically designed by nature to spread around as far and wide as possible – you cannot confine GM to test fields or any fields where such material is used. For the same reason, I find a bit dodgy any trademarks that go with GM seeds…
… and from a personal choice point of view I do not like at all that GM may well slip into my food without my knowledge (maybe it’s because I am Italian and with food I have a special relationship).

Anyway, this is all very good in theory, but in practice it is quite difficult to live by the principles.

In my allotment, for example, I have no control on chemicals or other contaminating materials that may be used by my neighbours. At Riverford Farm they explained that you have to put some barrier between organic & non-organic fields, in terms of some metre’s space and ‘filter’ hedges.

Another example – this is manure time. I have enquired with the allotment manager if we know of its quality: do they use GM food, chemicals or antibiotics at the farm it comes from? I think she simply ignored my email, and I can see why: why bother checking? Not very many care.

So I need some manure or organic compost to fill up the beds, but it would take a good deal of research to find a suitable supplier, without mentioning the logistics to the plot and the cost involved… This is just -after all- a hobby, and even my husband thinks it is a waste of my time, energy and money…

But the thought of Neil and his work is nagging at my conscience, so I decided I will do without manure, making the most of the green one and will count on my compost-heap-to-be for the rest.

And last night I have searched for organic seeds suppliers (I was pleasantly surprised at finding so many in the US!):

• Garden Organic seed catalogue – used
• Delfland (seeds and) plants – advised
• Tamar organic – advised
• Some seeds at Seeds of Italy – used
• Some at T&M’s – used
• oh and I was forgetting The Green Chronicle – used
• Growers Organic plants – bought a couple at Riverford Farm shop

I want to steer clear of “fundamentalism” in any shape or form, but I think the way we live is hardly sustainable and often unhealthy: serious gardening, being so connected to nature & the seasons, brings it home strongly. So I will try and do a bit more this year: my crops may not end up organic anyway for external causes, but I want to support the effort made – often by small producers – to be more sustainable.

— Post From My iPhone

Basking in the lush aboundance of produce in the end-of-summer season…

Do you see how beautiful my three first-ever rapa bianca lodigiana specimen are? I have tried to grow that turnip for more than a year, and now it has come out (possibly because the weeds competed for attention of the slugs…) … and the first ever ripe, red tomatoes? Grown in the open, not in the greenhouse!

Beans are still climbing profusely, surely as it has been very dry, and the potatoes you see are a representation of the 14kg I picked before going on holiday (there’s more scattered around).

Rasperries are also cropping: there seems to be a second round of yellows on their way!

And I finally got around picking the nasturtiums… fancy a look at the salad I made with them ? – in case you were wondering ,the salad leaves are not mine, I did not manage to grow any this summer, but I could have a go with winter lettuce.

I am thinking of organic seeds next…