Skywatch Friday - what sky?

Last Friday I took a day off work for a combined allotment/Christmas shopping blitz. It was a day of freezing fog, and not surprisingly I was the only person mad enough to be working my plot that day. While I was working - hard - I was warm enough, but as soon as I stopped the damp chill seeped into my bones. I drank my thermos of tea sitting on a deckchair inside the shed, looking out at the foggy view, and felt very...British and eccentric.

More skies from around the world, including some with sun, are at Skywatch Friday.

Wish list - Forsythia

Does anyone else remember the old-style Woman and Home magazine, that our mothers and their friends used to get? Before its makeover into empowered womanhood and a 'brand new attitude'? It was a 1950's time capsule of household hints, knitting patterns, soft-focus short stories, and flower arranging. Even in my childhood I knew this magazine was seriously out of date, but there was a certain comfort about it. Most of all, it has left me with a love of Forsythia, that brave winter flower that seemed to feature in all the 'arrangements' between November and March.

I long to have Forsythia in my garden or at the allotment. Not that I am into flower arranging, but a few sprays of it in an IKEA vase would brighten up the gloomiest December day. And hurtle me right back to my childhood.

For the moment I have to make do with this sunny patch at the entrance to the allotment site.

Still working

It may not seem like it from this blog, but things are still moving slowly at the allotment. A bit like this worm, disturbed as I cleared out the dahlias that seemed like a good idea at the time. I did have a slight pang of regret as I dug them out. They were strongly established, with huge tubers. But they need staking, and they don't attract bees, and they get so heavy and sodden in the rains of September and October. And they're full of forky-tails (Scots for earwigs). So it was out with them the other week while the soil was still workable.

In digging them out I disturbed not only worms, which of course I was glad to see, but several ladybirds hiding under fallen leaves. The work went all the more slowly because I kept gently relocating the ladybirds under a different pile of leaves, and they kept stolidly heading back to where I was digging so I stopped again and...

I see other garden bloggers are still busy, but I've had no time to visit. I hope to have a big catch-up treat once this last crazy week of work and school end of term finishes.

St Andrew's Day - allotment style

Even allotments fly the Scottish flag, albeit in a tattered state. A bit like the rest of allotment life - determined but a bit ragged round the edges.

A national holiday today, and of course more fireworks this evening. That's two lots in seven days here. We could perhaps have a rest from pyrotechnics until Hogmanay..

Still green

The green manure is still green. And downy. It was only when I was up close to it yesterday, with the low sun slanting across the leaves, that I noticed the fine hairs on the leaves of the red clover.

Lots of lovely nitrogen fixing going on. I will definitely sow clover again. The other green manure I tried this year - field beans - not so sure, since they didn't give the blanket effect I was after, and were a pain to dig in. Mind you, I haven't tried digging in the clover yet.

After the gales

It could have been worse. The frame supporting the netting was still standing firm, and our shed was untouched. The plot next door wasn't so fortunate. They have a classic allotment shed put together from offcuts and old doors, and the recent gales tore away one whole side. I didn't take a photo. It seemed a touch voyeuristic.


I found a stout stake to replace the cane that this plant had been tied to, and tied the stake to the metal frame to make doubly sure. Although the ground was still sodden from all the recent rain, I couldn't push the stake in very far even with leaning all my body weight on it. I would have needed a man with a mallet (as opposed to a woman with a chainsaw - anyone else know that campfire song? 'I need a woman with a chainsaw...to keep me warm at night').

As these things do, the date has embedded itself in photos I've taken over the past couple of days. It must have happened when I fumbled with my camera in the dark while considering whether to try to take a photo of the 'lighting of the Christmas tree fireworks' yesterday. I've spent a frustrating hour this afternoon reading the camera manual and discovering how to embed the date, but not how to reverse the steps to un-embed it. Eventually, by dint of my favourite technique when dealing with anything mechanical - random prodding of buttons (which drives my family crazy), I seem to have got rid of it. Until the next time.

Poor neglected allotment. Bad weather, extreme activity in schlepping daughter and harp and violin around the place in the run-up to Christmas, and general November lethargy mean that it's further down the priority list at the moment.

Skywatch Friday - portents

Sunday's blue skies began to change as I worked at the allotment. To the south, all was cloudless and calm, but to the north mares' tails appeared. I felt a sense of foreboding, and checked the netting over the broccoli in the face of what I was sure would be wild weather overnight. The broccoli is coming along well, protected from the pigeons this year.



On my walk home the eastern sky was full of portents too. I was even more certain that we were in for a stormy night.


But Monday morning came with the first white frost of the year, and my first thought on seeing it was that I didn't have my frost-loving winter planting garlic in yet. My second thought was relief - at last some seasonable weather.

More skies around the world are at Skywatch Friday.