potato fright

Oh no! I think my potatoes have blight. I was over-eager and ordered all my seeds, onion sets and seed potatoes in January. The box containing all these I put in my studio and forgot about for a fortnight. The seed potatoes, seduced by central heating and the dark containment of the box, began to sprout far too early. When I remembered I remedied this and thought I’d saved them but now I may be paying for my neglect…

…Just spoke to my allotment neighbour who tells me there was a frost two days ago - so it’s not blight after all and hopefully only minimal frost damage – hooray! I earthed up most of my potatoes last time I was here, perhaps I’m becoming more intuitive than I’d realised.

what to do on a rainy day

Sowing seed this afternoon has seemed very playful, particularly some of the extraordinary pumkin seed that fell into my hand as I shook them out of their packet. I took to my shed during a shower of rain and caught up with my sowing and re-potting. French beans haven’t germinated outside so I’m trying again inside.

ordinary aesthetics

Arrived straight from a tent at 7.30am – Council lorry day. Jobs done, I’m gasping for a coffee. A pair of swans just flew over… and now back again… I always wonder at the sound of their powerful wings in flight.

This may be a habit worth developing – first coffee of the day at the allotment. I’m sitting by my pea and cabbage seedlings that I watered 2 days ago – they’ve shot up – should come on leaps and bounds after this weekends predicted downpour.

I was chatting with a neighbour earlier who was saying he always takes a breath of honeysuckle on his way to and from work. This is a huge and straggling bush situated in my wild area that overhangs the wall and hence the adjacent path. I’m guessing it is home to a whole host of wildlife as well as being redemptive to a sensibility that looks for the aesthetic in the ordinary. (bell hooks, Art on My Mind: visual politics, 1995).

death of a hedgehog

I feel so sad and responsible for the death of this beautiful hedgehog. I hope the stones that I have now provided as a ladder will prevent any more accidents of this kind.

Potato progress for Dave

Orla - first early, Desiree - first maincrop, Verity - late maincrop.

After speaking with my friend Jane about a quandary I find myself in she suggested, in the style of my research, that I ‘dig on it’ to discover what emerges from the process of doing instead of thinking, so here I am.

I stopped to take a rest from digging and stood back 2 paces from my fork. A robin flew and perched on it, dropped down to pick up a worm then flew off to my wild corner. A strange little grating squeak alerted me to turn and focus on a small, fat, brown bird with wide-open beak… the recipient of the afore-mentioned worm.

I let my kettle boil too long and my shed now smells like a sauna.

It’s a new moon I can see it even though it’s only 3pm, it’s beckoning to me to do some planting.

Scilly mnemonic

I heard a familiar sound whilst digging today and looked up to see a helicopter circling overhead and reappearing at regular intervals, sightseeing flights I think. I was reminded of living in Newlyn, Cornwall and seeing the Scilly helicopter flying over to the islands and back, like a bee to its hive, day in day out. During our penultimate year there this sight triggered a repetitive emotion. Our then 18-year-old was working on Tresco, which though only about 20 miles away involved a prohibitively expensive flight or sea voyage. Having taken the job and departed all within a brief period of 7 days our first offspring quite literally flew the nest.

At this time I had negotiated with a neighbour the use of some land behind our house and was digging up the most insidious rhizome I’ve ever encountered - bamboo. This was when I ‘discovered’ digging in all its glories. The patch I was working had obviously been used as a rubbish tip. I dug up some strange metal objects that may have originated from the harbour below, also some tiles from an Edwardian fireplace and my most intriguing find a discarded empty tube of oil paint. The land I was working was just in front of a house occupied in the last century by one of the more famous artists of the Newlyn School. I want to believe that the contents of this object are now seen and admired by many, perhaps in the painting ‘Blue Door’ that Harvey must have painted from about the spot at which I discovered the redundant tube.

Here, today, on my allotment poppies are popping.

after the rain

Early afternoon, warm and dry but still overcast. Once it finally started raining last week it did it steadily for several days, almost filling the water butts and waking up the dozing seeds. All of a sudden germination is happening – carrots, lettuce, endive, chicory, peas and cabbage both red and green – everything reaching for the sky. I’ve discovered that what I thought was comfrey and transplanted in the corners of my bean and potato bed are foxglove. Fruits are swelling, some gooseberries almost fully grown – I’m guessing the goldfinch gang will be first to know when they’re ripe.
I dreamed last night that one of my neighbours had rotovated the bottom part of my allotment behind their bungalow and was using the space for hanging out their washing. I think this must be separation anxiety on my part as I’ve been at home writing the last few days.
There are a whole gathering of poppies bowed and swelling in amidst my raspberry canes.
I’ve plans to rig up a poly-lean-to behind my shed to acclimatise my young tomatos and to collect the rain.
I must now be a qualified gardener, a robin just perched on my fork.