Allotment – Helen Yemm

Skirmishing in the trenches

Fabulously and at long last – I have got the upper hand on my allotment. All raised beds are built (some, to my great personal satisfaction, using recycled decking), spuds (Charlotte, Vivaldi and Anya) are up, autumn raspberries are a foot hight. Strawberry plants (Florence, Honeoye and Alice) are doing well in their smart new home and someContinue reading “Skirmishing in the trenches”

Calling all Garden & Horticultural Society Presidents

Quite out of the blue I have been asked to be the President of a local village Horticultural Society – a purely ‘ceremonial’ role, I expect, but one that I am really pleased to take on. I should love to hear from anyone else who has done, or is doing, something similar and hear about their experiences.Continue reading “Calling all Garden & Horticultural Society Presidents”

Posies of roses and other allotmenty things

Roses in my garden are so much part of the over all picture that I am reluctant to pick them. I have planted some Hybrid Musks (Penelope and Buff Beauty) and a couple of Rosa glaucas and a Rosa chinensis mutabilis, a gloriously scented velvety deepest-crimson old shrub (‘Charles de Mills’) some Rugosas and aContinue reading “Posies of roses and other allotmenty things”

Rhubarb…rhubarb…rhubarb…

Apart from the last few of last season’s leeks, that’s about all there is on the allotment at the moment. Evil cold wind, unpredictable weather, a week ‘off sick’ and another one recuperating have meant that I’ve done little since I installed my new raised beds.

Well here goes

Easter Saturday, and the sleet is horizontal outside my window. Even the little wagtail hoovering up the scraps left by the blackbirds – male ‘Raymond’, female ‘Biddy’ – Blackster that is, (sorry, I have a bird thing) where was I , yes, even the little wagtail is looking a bit chilly, wagging at half mast,Continue reading “Well here goes”