Allotment

It was all too much for me this morning, so I took the traditional male line, and ran away. Just for an hour. It was about to rain, the wind was blowing, but it wasn't cold. I went to the allotment. It was glorious.

A blackbird kept up a constant aria, an absolute delight as I planted runner beans, black French beans and 'Golden Sweet' yellow-podded mangetout peas. Fortunately a hedge had been trimmed nearby, and the clippings remained, long branches of hawthorn, which made perfect pea sticks. This variety of mangetout can grow to 5-6 feet so I pushed in plenty of sticks. Must now hope that the blackbird wasn't watching too closely as I planted the seeds!

Raspberries are about to flower, and the one gooseberry bush looks as if it will be loaded with fruit. I started to clear away some of the long grass around these bushes, but there were too many nettles to make much of an impression without gloves.

A female blackbird flew down beside me, just to tell me that she'd be back as soon as I left to plunder the worms and other juicy snacks I'd uncovered.

We are strange creatures, encouraging the birds to eat the worms, when the worms do us more good than the birds. Although that blackbird's song did leave me feeling elated. An unbroken melody that went on for the whole hour I was on the allotment.

Potatoes are starting to come through. It's strange how some have pushed through and have already formed fair-sized clumps, whilst others have still to appear. My neighbour, a great weeder, has pulled his spuds up into ridges. I'm never sure about all that, you may get more potatoes, but if we have the promised drought they may all be too small to eat. I'll leave mine alone.

Spuds bring back sore memories. I had a five-acre field in Spain, and one evening I had a long discussion with my Catalan neighbour about potatoes. He said the seeds could be cut up, allowing more plants to be obtained. I argued that the cut potatoes stood more chance of getting blight. He resisted that idea, and we agreed to plant my field using both methods. He took the western side of the field, which took the brunt of the weather. That year it rained. His potatoes were soon blighted. It was an awful sight, watching the haulms collapse to yellow-black as the blight reached each plant in turn.

Eventually mine suffered as well and so I lost the whole crop - which had been planted by hand. It's a horrible feeling to pick up a potato that looks OK from the outside, but can be squeezed to reveal the blackened pulp inside.

I always plant the whole tuber these days.