July 19th, the 200th day of the year, annual Small Far away day, and if you happen to be a Father Ted fan it’s the day Marathon became Snickers, Galway was liberated from the Indians and everyone packed up and headed to the caravan for the Fr. Noel Furlong jig fest…
July 19th is tipping day as we call it, the day when you undeniably concede that the year is definitely foreshortened, but, if we’re lucky, we get a day like today that is promising to be the hottest day of the year, with expected highs of 28 Celsius under clear skies and light southerly breezes. It will be a bumper day for 99’s and dry cider and disposable barbecues, and every route to any stretch of sand with water will be choc-a-bloc till sunset.
Of course, it being a leap year means that yesterday was actually the 200th day of the year, and as such yesterday was tipping day on the Monster in the Corner. We unearthed all our onions and set them to cure on the bed rails. We also harvested a lot of the bunching onions and dug up some good sized beets; we picked about 4lbs of blackcurrants and another 4lbs of Hinnonmaki red gooseberries which we set about jamming once we arrived home; we took some of the last of the rhubarb for this year for once July is out we leave the rhubarb to nature’s devices; the shallots we set to dry 2 weeks ago are curing nicely and the pots of basil are doing well. Not one of the sunflowers has opened its head as yet but they have put on good height with some already over 7 foot and in the next 7-10 days we should see the first of the sunny faces. The Redbor kale is leafing well and the parsnips have plenty of lush top foliage which is an indicator of subterranean developments.
All in all the Monster is looking well, and considering that this day last week was a very challenging day when Mrs. Dirt-digger had a very nasty accident on the allotment site, stepping onto a length of timber with 4” nails protruding from it that someone had mindlessly discarded onto one of the walkways and in the process spiked her foot badly…sometimes all is not as rosy as it first seems on an allotment site, and they can be challenging and dangerous environments. Still, the Monster’s pro’s always out-weigh the larger allotment site con’s, and as steering groups and committees don’t like such dangers being acknowledged and/or pointed out, we are thinking about a couple of simple signs:
CAREFUL NOW!
Down with this sort of thing…
More anon everyone…
Monster In The Corner... 