The window sill of my room, overlooking a quiet suburban road in North-East London, is busy with the seeds and seedlings of anticipation of a new growing season. The tomatillos, sown on 10th February, are stretched and leggy and I really should have waited until the middle of March to sow okra. The okra seedlings, like the tomatillo seedlings, are not benefiting from the relatively short daylight hours, even though their growth has been assisted by grow-lights.
What's growing on the window?
Tomatoes, hot chilli peppers, sweet peppers, aubergines, tomatillo, okra, incaberry, french marigold, parsley, coriander, basil, sweet peas, chickpeas, celery, celeriac, and earthnut peas.
While I have been busy sowing the seeds, I have been distracted by ongoing difficulties with a neighbour to the allotment garden of Nowhere in particular. I have made some sketches of how I would like to use the seedlings if they make it to being plants for planting out however my focus on that planning process has been undermined. The various circumstances and issues involved in our difficulties are complicated - and made more so by the involvement of several interested parties.
What would you do if you rented an allotment plot and a neighbour came onto your plot and dug a hole in it without permission? What if the digging of that hole could cause flooding and water-logging? What would you expect from the allotment officer? What would you expect from the neighbour? How would you feel, and what would you think, if such an act on the part of that neighbour was just one of several (or more) that he/she pretended to be sorry about, declaring the best of intentions - but repeated, seemingly without any fear of sanction from those in authority? I have refered to the situation as 'our difficulties' however I have not been trying to do similar things on my neighbour's plots. The neighbour has been acting antagonistically for more than a year and I am struggling to keep my patience with my neighbour, but perhaps more, with the people who supervise the neighbour and the allotment site as a whole. While the territorial psychodrama plays out in my head I have managed to keep going with some of the many tasks that need doing in the garden. Today, we:
B9a - the asparagus bed received a top dressing of 'blood, fish and bone' - followed by a protective layer of chicken wire to keep the foxes from digging the bed up.
B9b - more processing of the slow compost heap
B5b - some of that compost made it's way to the daylily bed.
A6a and A7a - there were quite a few spare yacon crowns so we are trying planting them whole.
and in the twilight - the lovage, just over a month on from this
Comments
Post a Comment