A Dash for the Leeks

I think of it as you “can” go to the allotment, but I think “should” you? I also think that today you can go to the allotment, but tomorrow you might not be permitted to do so. You can’t plan more than 12 hours ahead in life at the moment. When the lock down was announced the other evening I was all for quickly going out in the dark to get the leeks before the “curfew” was in place. It was a relief to hear I wouldn’t need to do that in the end.

My main concern was all the leeks sitting on the plot just waiting to be pulled as needed, the rhubarb yet to have it’s first pulling, and the potatoes only just planted, trapped under fleece and not banked up. What a waste.

Working from home today I found that meetings all day online are even more boring than meetings all day in a meeting room. I used a one hour gap from the torture to go out to the plot, to collect what I needed, to prep everything to look after itself, and to say farewell for now, every vegetable for themselves…

With limited time I managed to:

  • pull up all the remaining leeks, the final weight it yet to be added up but there were “kilos of leeks”. We shall be mostly living off of leek and potato soup for some time.
  • take the first lot of rhubarb, what a tragic situation if we left that. I bought home nearly 1kg and yet it hardly made a dent in the plant
  • take the fleece off the potatoes (sorry potatoes) so when they start growing then are not restricted. Banked them up, I normally do this as they grow.
  • made sure the netting keeping the birds off of the newly planted onion sets was not too low, allowing onions to grow up and through if need be
  • collection of netting and fleece to take home
  • collection of tools to take home

Sure, the plot will be full of weeds in weeks to come, but I’m hoping the onions, the garlic, the broad beans will hold their own. The fruit bushes may end up feeding the birds. The extended strawberry bed I still have the plants at home, which is good luck.

We don’t have room at home to grow things, we only have a very manky lawn which this year we were going to do something about. I have a various seedlings and if we are still advised to stay at home when they are ready, it seems we will do something about the lawn after all by digging it up and planting the seedlings (finding ways to keep the cats off).



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