I had a strange conversation with a passing fellow allotmenteer this morning and am still pondering if she was being derogatory or funny.
She stopped as she was cycling by, nodded disparagingly at my scarecrow and asked:
“Do you think that works?”
I laughed and replied:
“I don’t think so but it does work in as much as people stop and talk to me.”
This was received with a bit of a snort so I continued:
“I have always had this fun idea that allotments should have a scarecrow and sunflowers.”
Much to my surprise she said:
“That is a misconceived idea of town folks don’t you think?”
Which she then followed with:
“I grow vegetables.” as she cycled off!
I know I’m only a beginner and this is my first allotment season, but it made me wonder if I do have a misconceived idea. When I looked around there are lots of vegetables being grown, in particular an abundance of sweet corn, but only about 3 other plots with sunflowers and no other scarecrow that I could see. What is your take on this? Should an allotment be a place for a little bit of frippery or should it be taken seriously under the control of the ‘allotment mafia’?
Now that is off my chest, let me share the goodies growing on the allotment today.
The blackberries are almost ready for picking – there will be some jam cooking soon!
The sweet corn is coming along just fine, with at least two silky tops of emerging cobs on each plant.
After a slow start and the first lot of flowers being eaten I’m delighted with the sugar snap peas, and collecting a good harvesting on each visit.
I’m gobsmacked with the pumpkins and how fast they grow. This one has doubled in size since Sunday. Something had a little nibble but I think it’ll be ok. It was recommended that I place the pumpkins on stones or slabs to prevent them from rotting, so I found a few large stones lying about the plot and have used them.
There is a little apple tree on the plot, but I have no idea what variety they are, or whether they are cookers or eaters, but I expect I’ll find that out soon.
I’m happy with what I am doing, although I have made a few rooky errors, having a scarecrow and sunflowers are not one of them! What do you think?
