21st May

My wife was ill today and our youngest was running a high temperature and seems to be teething on four corners. He is clingy and sad. I stayed off work to be nurse to allow my wife to sleep. I thought the best thing would be to get the boys out of the house to leave it quiet so among other things we went to the allotment. The little lad was content in the car making cute cooing noises as opposed to crying. By the time we reached the allotment he was asleep so the eldest and I set to work. First of all, my assistant wanted to see how his sweet peas were developing. Out of 8 that were planted, 1 is growing! Then onto hoeing which at first seemed an exciting prospect. The young-un set to work hoeing between some sprouts (thankfully protected by those milk bottle cloches!) whilst I made multiple trips to and from the watering cistern.

As I had feared on Saturday, a lot of the wrong sort of growth has been occurring at the plot. The bindweed in the section where the leeks are going is rampant, and it is also doing well for itself in the onion section. Apart from that, small annual weeds were carpeting the soil with a light green tinge. As far as the crops were concerned, the onions look well but something has nibbled off the tops of the shoots, and the ground they are in is cracked with dryness. I have lost 1 or 2 sprouts, and 2 of my 4 cauliflowers. The leeks are not showing yet, neither is the rocket, and only 1 carrot. The salad crops look OK and are now easy to differentiate from the weeds, and a few small chard seedlings are up. With the courgettes and pumpkins being sown I will soon have to dig in the manure on section 3 and weed that and section 4, although that does not look like a tough job. The garlic is going great.

By the time I had finished my watering and inspection, my assistant had become rather bored with hoeing all of 8 inches square and was now entertaining 2 visitors, parents of the plot holder whose plot is between mine and my Dad’s. My parents paid a visit themselves while we were there and Dad gave me 4 stems of rhubarb – the first crop of the year. They also invited us back for lunch and I bit their hands of in acceptance. At their home, the 1 year old fell asleep in my arms on the sofa and so I laid him to sleep on the nice thick rug in the lounge enabling me to eat lunch without worrying about him. After that, he woke up and needed me to hold him and so I sat with him watching the Chelsea Flower Show, which was nice and relaxing, especially as we do not even have TV at home. Concerning Chelsea, I was informed that my Dad’s mother used to go to Chelsea every year as well as one of the RHS gardens and on the sly, take little cuttings from the show plants and took them home to grow!

In the garden, we have a great display of dark red carnations in the rockery, and one well endowed red rose.