Of Fig Trees (1)

There can be all the difference in the world between reading advice and taking advice from a person you respect...

February's RHS magazine tells you how and when to prune figs for the best fruit yields.  I must have read or skimmed this article, and I knew it was appropriate to do some light pruning in November, but it was not until I was on the plot talking to H, our resident horticulturalist, that I saw the point.  We first had a wide-ranging conversation down by the manure heap and then H walked up the muddy path to visit our warmest plot.  She complimented us on our autumn sown broad beans and the primulas under our apple tree and then turned her attention to the fig trees by the small greenhouse.  She told me to break off and discard all of last autumn's unripe fruit. 

I must admit, I had left these figs on the trees.  They gave the illusion of fruitfulness.  Many were rotting, some had a dark ressemblance of ripeness but were dry and bitter, others were hard and green.  Some had fallen down among M's daffodil pots.  I asked H for a reason because I respond better to advice when I am given an explanation. 

So H told me that last season's unripe fruit, if it remains on the tree, will inhibit the growth of this season's fruit.  Unlike Cyprus, the fig in these northerly latitudes will bear one crop, not two.  The second crop stands no chance of ripening.

So I broke them all off, straight away, as H suggested.  The trees looked a little bare.  This year's figs were tiny and unformed, hardly the size of the fingernail on my smallest finger.

Later H came back, bearing a small fig in a pot that she had propagated to be kept under shelter in the greenhouse.  It is a gift for M when she gets her own plot. 

The Constant Gardener

I have found that persevering on the allotments, whatever the conditions is a test of constancy and good intent.  John Bunyan, who found his way through plenty of muddy sloughs, believed that faith triumphs over that fatal affliction for gardeners, discouragement:

Come wind, come weather.  I experienced both today.  It rained at the onset.  Then the rain eventually stopped.  I barrowed out two loads of manure along muddy paths in the downpours and one in the sunny period that followed.

Who so beset him round with dismal stories.  Snow, it was predicted in 2013, would blanket Britain at midwinter.  Autumnal red berries abounded and country folk who reputedly know about these things posted warnings.  Some of our neighbours read these and kindly informed me.  The snow has yet to fall. 

Then fancies fly away.  I could easily imagine the worst, but in hope I carry on.  I uprooted a bed of broccoli that had come to the end of its productive life and culled more greens for tonight's supper.  The whiteflies, deprived of shelter and sustenance fluttered feebly away. 



  

 

Potagers

Today it was warm outside (10 degrees C, 50 degrees F and 62 degrees F in the big greenhouse) so I moved the strawberries (Kyril) from a narrow, windy bed reckoning that as they are of Russian provenance (see my earlier post) that they would stand the surprise of being transplanted on my birthday rather than in the spring.  I lifted each plant and made sure that there was plenty of soil underneath their shallow roots.  Then I arranged them around three sides of a recently enlarged bed which I had thought at one stage of turning over to strawberries when the broccoli had finished.  Then it came to me, a border of strawberries, let's get on with it.  I had already moved some manure, so my husband mixed it in further to ensure that it was not too rich. 

Most of the Kryil were of a good size and now they have space to extend as I have spaced between six and seven on each side of the square.  Smaller, leftover plants have found a home in a bed next to the big greenhouse.  Now I have what I could call a potager.   There were also enough strawberries for an adjacent bed by the shed where the line of February Gold daffodils might this year live up to their name.

I am conscious of how my views on allotmenteering have changed over the last five years.  I can have garlic chives, daffodils, rocket, penstemons, sweet william and now strawberries all in the same space.  I plan to attract bees, to provide cut flowers, for scent and display in early spring and for salads.  I leave pot marigolds where they have self-seeded and let sunflowers spring up and surprise me.  The allotment has become my kitchen garden.





  

Play Ground

A regular sound on the allotments - along with the screeching of parakeets and the chugging rotors of police helicopters over the cemetery - is the noise of the playground.  In term and out of term I can hear a neighbouring bell ring for mid-morning break, lunch and afternoon break. 

The allotment is a playground.  As a true child of the 1950s I have permission to get dirty, move earth and water, construct and demolish structures, plant seeds, talk to animals in generally friendly terms (foxes and pigeons excepted), drink out of my water bottle, snack on fruit straight from the trees.  I wear green wellington boots that go 'gloop' in the mud, I get earth under my fingernails...

And it is not.  It is a workplace with real tools that grown-ups use - spades, secateurs, rakes that have to be laid down carefully when not in use then cleaned and put away.  I have to tidy up after myself and remember to lock the shed.  I need to be aware of my diabetes.  I have to plan, although planning is always contingent and changes season by season with our increasingly unpredictable climate.  It is a place for team work.  I collaborate with and take account of the preferences of my husband.

The allotment is a school where I communicate enthusiasm, demonstrate and then stage the tasks for M in the hope that she will take things further for herself.  It's also a place where I continue to learn from the experienced oldtimers and experts and from the young men who've been busy finding out things from the Internet.

Is the allotment my life?  Not literally, quite often metaphorically.   It is my recreation ground. 

Turf Stacks

Last week M wondered why our grassy paths on one allotment were so wide and suggested we could grow more stuff with bigger beds.  A good point.  So I showed her how enlarge a bed by cutting turves, shook off as much loose soil as possible, then piled them upside down and made a turf stack.  Initially this was an informal arrangement in one of the hedges, but today I continued the task after my husband had reassembled the pallets for the winter squash area.

{An added incentive for this was the little box of squash seeds my sister had saved and sent after our new year visit.  When I successfully download from my mobile phone to the computer I will post a picture.}

Today therefore I began a vegetative sandwich in the squash bed with turves at the bottom, compost from the communal heap and then another layer of turves.  The grass will decompose over time. 

When M eventually gets her own allotment, as we pray she will, it is probable she will have to start clearing it from scratch.  As she cuts out her new growing areas, the turves ought to form her first turf stack.  The enlargement we have started now is the first practical step towards this.

January's Rose

We went away to family, did some gardening and returned to three allotments sodden with heavy rain.  We started back to work in earnest this week.

Today we sorted a large heap of branches, leftovers from the helpful deeds of the relations of the lady of the house.  It is piled towards the rear of her garden, supporting brambles and bindweed and although not discernable from the kitchen window, is still something of a mess.  My husband chopped it down to recycling sized pieces ready for the next green bag collection.  Two robins came to investigate what was on offer.

I worked along one of the shrub borders, at times closely accompanied by the robins, taking ivy off the new fence, pruning back the buddleia, tackling another unnamed shrub and finally cutting suckers from the base of the climbing rose.  This rose had leaves and yellow rosebuds. I have taken home one inadvertent pruning and put in a vase. 

January's rose is usually the hellebore, the Christmas Rose that flowers first before it sends out leaves, coming up from the earth.  I have some yet to bloom under the apple tree in the allotment.

This morning, in this sheltered spot was like late February or early March.  The buds on the shrub I was pruning were beginning to turn green; bluebell leaves were visible and the bulbs we planted for our customer had survived the squirrels and were beginning to poke above the compost. 

I do not know what judgement to pronounce on the weather.  I am just grateful that we can work.