Icy blasts mean it’s not a plum time to grow fruit

THE cold winds of April are doing their cruel work.

I fear for the blossom on my plum tree on the allotment. It’s likely there will be no fruit this year, the second in a row.

The white petals had hardly begun to show before a –4C frost sharpened by Arctic blasts swept down the Aire Valley, killing all before it.

I have no control over the weather, but a natural caution stopped me from planting out in the raised beds. Some broad beans are in, plus garlic, but they’re both quite hardy and should survive.

Oh, I forgot about the onion sets. They’re just showing some growth through the iron-hard ground.

I’m looking for some seed potatoes, but fellow allotmenteers tell me you can’t get them for love nor money.

And now there will be family competition.

My brother John has taken on an allotment in our home town of Normanton, West Yorkshire.

He’ll want to prove he’s top gardener, so I’ll have to look to my laurels, if that’s not too horticultural an analogy.

Mind you, rather like me, he does get these enthusiasms. He was going to tour the canals of England in his boat, HMS Moneypit. I think that was its name. It’s certainly what it was, before it sank in the Aire & Calder Navigation.

In the face of nature’s war against our efforts, we may both take comfort in the ancient Chinese proverb which says:

“If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. If you want to be happy for a week, kill a pig. If you want to be happy for a month, get married. If you want to be happy for ever and ever, make a garden.”