Wednesday 29 September 2010

on the plot again



a new and long-awaited allotment






Re-locating to Cornwall from Derbyshire in 2008 meant I had to relinquish my allotment and adapt instead to gardening at home. However, on 2nd August I once again took up an allotment tenancy at a newly-founded site here in Cornwall and I have resumed my process of digging. My new plot is a sixth the size of the previous one and one of sixty, marked out by posts with narrow paths between. The overall site was previously arable land on which maize was grown last season. The soil is rich, dark and well-draining. My first task was to mark my boundaries with string and then to gather specimens of the plants currently growing within it. Couch grass is most predominant and I have come to admire it and recognise why Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari single it out for attention in 'A Thousand Plateaus', in their explanation of the term 'rhizome'. I am aware that couch grass will always be with us, a constant reminder of underground resistence.

caterpillared cabbage for lunch?



Some of my cabbages have been almost entirely decimated by caterpillars so I am feeding the cabbages to my hens who enjoy holey cabbages and caterpillars and then produce eggs with richer yolks.