THE JOY OF POTATO PICKING!
Nothing can beat the excitement and anticipation of digging out those tasty white spuds
July's upon us and we’re entering the month of harvesting on the allotment. All of our early endeavours are turning into fruitful crops and this is the nearest we get to experiencing the bounty of a good harvest of our 10 perch ‘farm’.
It’s an exciting moment when you harvest a crop whose edible bit is hidden beneath the ground. With crops that produce above the ground it’s predictable what you’ll get and when it’s at perfection. However, for those crops whose treasures are hidden in the soil there’s an air of apprehension as you unearth these concealed beauties.
There’s joy at lifting your first white, pebble-like potatoes as they come to the surface and their li le eyes blink at their first encounter with daylight. And there’s nothing to compare with the taste of the first potatoes of another season.
The dinner plate is filling with freshly-gathered produce, and trips to the supermarket can now fade into a distant memory for the foreseeable future. Not only is the dinner plate filled
With the beans wandering away to the top of the canes and flower stalks appearing among the foliage, it’s time I gave them a helping hand to continue growing while trying to set the beans. To aid them to multitask I take a handful of hydrated lime and put this into a two-gallon watering but my harvest extends to fruit gathering, too. Raspberries, gooseberries and rhubarb are now at their sweetest best and provide for those tarts and crumbles, adding yet another dimension to the dinner table. It’s these special moments when the unbeatable joy of growing your own hits home and all the ba les with the elements, lurking pests and diseases makes the whole ethos of gardening so worthwhile. It's also the time on the allotment when the ‘bartering’ season kicks off. It’s a strange old game, this hobby of gardening, for even in a patch of 40 plots all sharing the same climatic conditions, can. Stir it well so that most of it dissolves, then soak the base of the hard-working beans. This helps them take up nutrients from the soil and at the same time help the early flowers set. Lime is a natural organic material so doesn’t compromise my organic ethos! some crops on neighbouring plots fail and others succeed.
This is when you can trade your surplus for those that haven’t yet reached the cropping stage or, in extreme circumstances, have failed completely. It’s amazing what you can get for a large ‘Hispi’ cabbage or a bag of broad beans. It’s like the world money market and the rate of exchange can vary daily! The best week's bargain has been a large leafy le uce being exchanged for a small but perfect ‘Bella’ cucumber. All helps to meet the needs of the dedicated salad eater.
He’s at it again! Alan, one of our younger members, is walking tall through the allotments offering the first courge es he’s picked to us ‘old guys’ who aren’t ready to harvest them yet. He loves to be first!