Category: Allotment

Allotment, Allotment Gardening, Bloom Festival, Gardening, Show Gardens

A Blooming Good Weekend…

Fallow Deer in the Phoenix Park (en route to the Bloom Festival)
Fallow Deer in the Phoenix Park
(while en route to the Bloom Festival)

After a long cool spring, summer actually arrived on time this year and with it came that five day hiatus at the end of May when the RHS puts on its annual showcase in London, The Chelsea Flower Show, while across the pond here in Ireland we’ve just had our Bloom Festival, celebrated each year during the June Bank Holiday weekend.
Always chock-a-block with amazing plants and planting schemes, the Great Chelsea Spring Show has consistently managed to combine old-worldly traditional charm with contemporary cutting edge garden design and all the latest trends in horticultural development.
We’ve never been to the Chelsea Flower show, and as much as we’d love the experience of visiting the truth is we’ll probably never get to visit and for many diverse reasons prime of which is we live in a different country. But, the hay was saved once again as the BBC did what it does best each year when it goes into saturation coverage mode. So although we’ll probably never get to go to Chelsea, at least we still get to take part in this annual floral extravaganza from a distance, and we still get to see The Great Pavilion and the Show Gardens. We also get the Behind the Scenes looks at things, and can even take part (viewers in the UK) in the voting of The People’s Choice Awards not to mention the spin-offs, repeats and more fringe adaptations than you’d have seen on a 1964 episode of Top of the Pops.
And we had Monty, and Carol, and a breezy looking Diarmuid; and there was Gold and Gilt galore, dashed hopes and career-breakthroughs, new cultivar debuts and Bests in Show. And there was good food and banter, sunshine and showers, expert gardening tips, and before the presenters could shake a brolly at a passing downpour or we could set our Smartphone reminder to alert us to the live daily updates and streams… it was all over. Done and dusted. And as Saturday’s plant sell-off got under way the meticulously planned planting schemes were suddenly and unceremoniously thrown into reverse, as the process of uprooting and moving the show’s gardens to some other more permanent elsewhere had begun and the Royal Hospital’s ground beds were cleared for another year.

The period from mid May to end of June is (in the northern hemisphere at least) the high point of the gardening year, and so it is no accident that most of the big gardening fetes and floral festivals are timed for this period. We here in the Emerald Isle purely by dint of geographic proximity and a shared cultural history of over 800 years get to watch this great British summer tradition every year, and it was no great surprise when12/13 years ago, one of our own quasi autonomous governmental organisations decided we here, in Ireland, needed Our Own Chelsea! Okay, so it wasn’t the most auspicious moment in slogan development, but rather naively and frustratingly that’s how the idea was originally pitched. And so it was that in the summer of 2006 the Phoenix Park played host to, and we attended the very 1st Bloom Festival, Ireland’s premiere food and gardening fair…
However in the ten years it has been in operation our BLOOM festival has developed its own unique identity and dare we say that it is only in the last year or two it actually seems comfortable in its own clothes.
In our desire to keep the experience fresh (and our pockets in good health) we attend only every other year, and as this year marked the tenth anniversary of the festival we were certainly going to do so again. Of course our daughter was also involved with talk and discussion sessions through the GIY organization on three of the five days, so of course we were attending this year..

As with all outdoor events the weather is the one uncontrollable element that no amount of planning can legislate for and many’s the time it has put a dampener on things, and although at present there seems to be an extended band of unsettled weather right across mainland Europe with record rainfalls and flash-flooding, we here in Ireland have enjoyed a welcome period of relatively settled and sunny weather which has not only helped the event planners and the Show Garden designers prepare, but has also enthused the public to attend in greater numbers than normal.
So over the coming days we’ll embark on a hindsight excursus or two here on Monster in The Corner as we post the odd photo from Ireland’s premiere food and gardening festival…so, here are some for starters.

 

Out The Other Side: Hope Garden
Out The Other Side: Hope Garden designed to offer hope to Breast Cancer Survivors (hammock made from women’s and girls bras)
Yi Garden (friendship garden) Gold Medal winner,,(my personal favourite)
Yi Garden (friendship garden)
Gold Medal winner,,(my personal favourite)
Allotment, Allotment Gardening, Pleasure, Wheelbarrow

In the gardener’s absence the garden remains

May 15th
Memo to self…enjoy the Monster!

One of the great pleasures of the gardener is in knowing that even when he or she is not busy weeding and watering and cultivating the garden, the garden goes on being the garden; that even on those occasions when the necessary activities of daily living get in the way of your gardening plans, the vegetable patch will continue to do what it does best, and continue to be the vegetable patch.
In the gardener’s absence the garden remains. The sun and the wind and the rain of those days when the gardener is in absentia continue nature’s innate pastoral care that the most experienced gardener, often times, takes for granted.

Another of the gardener’s great pleasures is in receiving those wonderful free gifts that only the garden can give: self seeded Lupins ‘neath the rose bushes; red orachs germinating next to the lemon balm and mint; purple tansy, rape and clover all showing in flower at the same time and each one a hive of activity with passing honey bees and bumblebees, and self-seeded thyme and marjoram seedlings sheltering in the cover of prostrate rosemary. More grows than the gardener sows and at this time of year a keen eye will help in reaping some of the garden’s unexpected rewards.

Bumblebee on Tansy & Red Orach
Bumblebee on Tansy & Red Orach

But perhaps one of the greatest pleasures of the garden is in simply beholding it: another and altogether more honest gardener than I taught me this. Gardening can be, if so desired, a constant round of frenetic seasonal activity, a continual trolling through lists of what to do on any given day of the year. But sometimes it’s good to take time-out and to simply sit in your garden or on your plot and to look and see, and to listen and hear: to gaze across your lawn or along the herbaceous perennials and rose border; to gauge the clambering clematis or your favoured rambling rose; to sit on your allotment and watch as bees make their buzzing route to your peas and beans and rape and tansy; to catch a glimpse of a furtive song thrush rummaging in the bark mulch, or to listen to blackbirds and robins perched on the handles of your upturned summer redundant wheelbarrow, almost exhorting you to dig up a drill right there and then in the hope of gifting them an easy lunch.
There is a great satisfaction in working and preparing the soil each autumn and spring, and in then sowing seed and watching the seasons make it respond to their will and whim, and  a seasonal contentment in watching the pods swell on beans you’d sown only 12 weeks previous, just as there is a feeling of good fortune and delight in watching your strawberries crowns blossom and your red and green gooseberries set fruit.

There is a great sense of achievement in sowing your onion seed in January and bringing them to crop in August, just as there is a sense of personal pride in managing to get the year’s first sowing of parsnip seed to germinate, early. But don’t neglect the pleasure of simply enjoying your garden or allotment for its own sake. The garden will always be there, just as the allotment forever lurks in the shadow of your effort and toil, even when you are not physically present.
In the gardener’s absence the garden remains, and we should not forget the simple pleasure of enjoying it for its own sake occasionally.

Allotment, Allotment Gardening, Gardening, May, Redemption, Spring, Springtime

The Monster’s Redemption…

The Monster's Herbs....
The Monster’s herbs…

Finally, the deed is done; Spring crawls through a rotten stream of 120 crappy days in a row and May comes out the other side clean. Ok so it’s not exactly Abrahamic, and it’s certainly no Lukan prodigal nor even a Saul to Paul  experience; it’s not Shakespeare’s Leontes nor Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov; and hell it sure ain’t no Andy Dufresne, but make no mistake, after weeks (if not months) of delay and retardation the early days of May have reported for duty ushering in light winds with warm pulsing rain and in the process have managed to redeem not only this year’s spring, but have also compensated for the total lack of that season from last year’s annual cycle.
The year’s attempt to trudge winter’s tale into March, April and beyond is terminated, and where till now it could reasonably have been thought that winter was being extended interminably, from here on in any inclement hiccups must simply be classified intemperate spring days.
As warden Norton may have noted; Winter, upped and disappeared like a fart in the wind…

Phacelia & Rape
Phacelia & Rape

We spent quite a few short sleeved hours this weekend spot dropping the cosmos, alyssum and marigolds onto the Monster’s face with the scent of sun-cream wafting from neighbouring plots, a noticeable increase in the volume of activity from the ladies’ hives in the corner, and the sound of children giddily making the most of stray spray form those plot holders who’ve suddenly switched from using watering-cans to cultivate their plots and have resorted instead to the use of the summer hose-reels.
The sky was bright, the air was mild and the soil finally warm enough to allow us sow our French beans, which we duly did. We also scattered a ridge of curled parsley seed together with troughs of coriander and fennel seed. With these sown we are now left with only the winter kales, courgettes and cucumbers to sow at the end of the month, and once we a pop those few pumpkin seeds in the ground at the beginning of next month there will be little else sown in the annual schedule of plot 49.
Of course the odd successional tray of lettuce, basil and beets will be needed by mid-summer, but how quickly the Monster’s schedule is fore-shortened and for all the worrisome angst through the slow cold days of late March and April we are now most certainly heading to a consideration of summer with all the latent promise of that season.
We are harvesting the rhubarb, and the radishes and lettuces will be ready soon enough. The 5 gooseberry bushes have set fruit, as have the Ben Lomond’s, we’ve thinned the parsnip and beetroot to final spacing, and as said in the Monster’s previous outing we are weeding, especially in the onion beds. And lest we forget to remind you, we are weeding in the onion beds…
And to round off with an ol’ Redism of sorts, this time of year there are basically two options on The Monster in the Corner, you either get busy weeding, or you get busy weeding!!!

Broad Beans
Broad Beans
Allotment, Allotment Gardening, Blogging, Diary, Gardening

Waiting on the weather to turn…

Daffodils and Beans...
Daffodils and Beans…

April 26th and it’s another cool, bright and blustery spring day with temperatures still below average and a forecasted return to night frosts for the next 3-4 nights.

Everything in our allotment garden is at least a week, if not two, behind for the time of year. Germination is slow and patchy, and anything that is germinated seems simply to be marking time as though waiting on that rise in temperatures that will make it worth the while stretching their necks and reaching for the sky.
With things suppressed on the meteorological front, activity on the Monster’s Face has also slowed, and there is little point in popping peas and beans into drills of Terrum Frigum, for once ground temperatures recover to near normal, sowings made then will soon catch earlier sown seed-lines that will have slowed and stood still with cold feet.
With most of the springtime activity on the plot presently curtailed by weather (or complete lack thereof! ) we can at the very least still cultivate the monster’s blog.Or can we?
Writing a blog is no easy thing; and the fact that just about everyone with access to a smart phone, keyboard and an internet connection can begin blogging-or invariably already is blogging- does not mean that writing a blog is easy.
To blog is to create a weB Log of personal activity or interest on a chosen subject. Our blog here on Monster in the Corner is a web diary of our activity and experiences on our allotment plot and in our garden.
Our aim is to develop the personal story diary of the day to day activity on our allotment, and to keep it as topical and insightful as possible. A diary entry lacking one of these fundamental tenets should still communicate a great deal; it could be topical and insightful but lacking in personal content; it could be a personal and insightful entry but not very relevant or topical, or even a very personal and topical entry, yet lacking that certain insight on the subject matter or situation to hand. Yet each of these diary entry scenarios could and should still be broad enough having at least two reference points ‘twix which to draft an update of interest.
A blog update entry however, lacking two of these 3 principled reference points will not hold the reader’s attention for long: a personal blog written purely for its own sake but on no specific topic, runs the risk of offering little or no insight into anything in particular and as such becomes a personal rambling account probably concerning nothing much at all; just as a topical diary entry without a little personal filler and qualified content will most probably read like a tedious trudge through a dried -out tea bag. So what precisely do you blog about? What do you put in, and what do you leave out?
Perhaps one of the best things about modern blogging is that it is immediate. Perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks of blogging is that it is just as immediate. Gone are the days of the handwritten diary page updates and entries. Gone are the days of writing, and re-writing and copying and proofreading. Gone too the posted letter to your favourite gardening magazine and the month long wait to see if your entry had been chosen by the editorial staff for publication.
The speed and capacity of digital devices and social interface platforms has developed at a mindboggling rate. If you’re not constantly Tweeting or Pinging, Facebooking Snapchatting and Instagraming you begin to feel positively Jurassic and not very Pinteresting at all.
Today you can sit on your plot or in your garden with your Smartphone or Tablet, and if your signal is good enough or there is an open Wi-Fi connection available you can thumb-type a log entry with predictive text, take an instant photo of some fluttering by butterfly, or your broad bean bed right there beside you, then copy and paste, upload and post to the freshly pressed World Wide Web and all while sitting on an upturned barrow on your allotment. An instant What you’re doing and Where you’re doing it so to speak.

Now that’s Blogging for you: in your face; instant and immediate and at times wholly unforgiving. A smidgeon of the personal hoping to be relevant and with a modicum of insight thrown in for good measure; blogging a lá Monster In The Corner.
Et viola! a flash lunchtime visit to your plot becomes something of something; something to blog about; something you do while waiting on the weather to turn…