TIME TO STAND AND STARE…
Admiring the work of Mother Nature is one of the real pleasures of life on the plot
How I love these long, balmy June nights! Having spent many hours on the allotment, weeding and planting during the morning, it’s great to return in the late evening having feasted on your own produce to sit and look at the plot. I sit on the step by the greenhouse and I can survey the whole of my li le piece of paradise. To quote a famous poet, ‘what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’ Very apt on an allotment.
The backdrop to the plot is the wooded hillsides of the valley, which right now are a verdant green. I wonder at the changes that have occurred in this former mining valley, where the hillsides have been reclaimed from the black slag heaps and restored to their previous splendour of hundreds of years ago. In my small lifetime on this allotment I've witnessed many of these changes first hand, and I'll be eternally grateful for the privilege of experiencing nature reclaim her own. www.gardennewsshop.co.uk
But enough of this daydreaming; I’m soon brought back to reality when one of our many plot holders passes me, at a safe distance, and says ‘how’s the plot faring?’
The greenness of the plot is being broken up by the appearance of flowers here and there, and no more so than on the ‘walls’ of runner beans, which have reached the top of their canes. Their bright crimson flowers conjure up great expectations that, in a few short weeks, we’ll be harvesting the tender young beans. The runner bean is probably among my most favoured vegetables as it provides the most prolific crop for the smallest amount of ground used. All it needs is very fertile soil, plenty of water to flourish and the help of many bumble bees to pollinate the flowers. These will then fill your dinner plate right throughout summer and, in addition, will stock the freezer for those winter hot dinners. There’s nothing be er than the taste of a runner bean in a winter dinner to rekindle pleasant thoughts of the summer past.
With the plot nearly full the plant swap has, at least, come to an end. All our surplus plants have been exchanged for various crops we weren’t going to grow this year! Also, all that crop rotation planning and spacing has gone out the window as more plants are squeezed in to an already crowded plot. Must say no!