pom poms

Dahlias always remind me of allotments and are some of the last flowers still going strong as autumn arrives. I love their different shapes and colours.

Cultivate

Sadly I've given up my allotment as I was not getting enough time to devote to it. I actually feel a great sense of relief rather than sadness and I'm ploughing all my energies this year into cultivating fruit and vegetables in my garden instead. I'll let you know how I get on.
© 2011 nicky linzey for illustration friday.

Giant

I picked over 12 lbs of gooseberries from just one bush on my allotment - some of them were giants!
© 2010 nicky linzey for illustration friday

End of season

There was actually a fine day on Saturday so went down to my allotment to do some much needed digging. My allotment was bare but look at all the colour I found walking about.

Harvest

We harvested the butternut squash from the allotment this weekend. Much better than last year, we harvested 30 HUGE squash. They will keep us in soup supplies all Winter.

Summer's end

The last of my sweet peas for this Summer. This is the first year I've successfully grown them from seed.

Contained

When I went into my allotment shed on Saturday I saw that it contained a gnome. I'm sure he wasn't there the other day!

© 2009 nicky linzey for Illustration Friday

Numbers

I needed some leeks for a recipe and remembered that there were still some on my allotment, so I went down there this morning. That was a joke - I couldn't even get one prong of my fork into the ground - it was as hard as concrete! I should have realised seeing as it's one of the coldest days this winter. So I took some pictures instead.

More squash

This is the first drawing of the squash I did that led on to the 'packed' illustration.

I've now found out more about growing these from seed - they are known for being promiscuous! Apparently I should pollinate them by hand if I want to retain the variety as they can cross-pollinate, then I would need to put an elastic band on the top of the flower to stop any insects crawling inside. Sounds like a bit of a palaver to me. I haven't had any problems before and I rather liked the shock of all the strange shapes growing. We tried some for lunch yesterday, they were yummy and, as we're still here, not poisonous!

© 2008 nicky linzey

Packed

My allotment is packed with all these different squash this year which is very strange. For the past 2 years I've grown butternut squash which I love, I've collected the seeds from them and grown them from these seeds, which is what I did this year. So I was more than surprised when no butternut squash grew - only all these weird and wonderful varieties. Apparently, as I've now found out, if you keep using the collected seed, they revert back to their source as they are a hybrid. So I'm laden down with all these fascinating shapes and colours but not sure if they're edible!

© 2008 nicky linzey for Illustration Friday

Tommy says:

I can't believe some of the weird shapes that my tomatoes have grown into this year and no I didn't eat Tommy!

Healthy chocolate

I decided to have a healthy salad last night - cut fresh from the garden - it tasted great - I was very pleased with myself. And then I remembered something . . .

...

. . . needless to say, it didn't last long!

Seed

The other day I planted my runner bean seeds which I collected from last years plants. I love the patterns on the seeds & the glossiness and feel of the shiny cold beans clinking together in my hand as I plant them. They've already started to come up, the green leaves pushing through the compost, almost ready to plant out.

I've drawn them for IF this week and given them a psychedelic feel.

© Nicky Linzey 2008

Wrinkles

I love the wrinkles on the skin of garlic - the pale tissue like membrane. It's one of the main crops on my allotment & it's always exciting when the time comes to dig them up & see how big they've grown! Took me a while to think of what to do this week on IF for 'wrinkles'.

Earth

I spent this morning with a blackbird. It's the first opportunity I've had for some time to go to my allotment and do some digging. Each time I turned over the earth the blackbird swooped down and plucked up a fat juicy worm. He was not scared of me at all and after 2 hours I'm surprised he could still fly!
© 2007 Nicky Linzey

Great value

It's difficult to imagine that Spring is around the corner when there is week after week of cold wind and rain. I was in my local garden centre at the weekend and spied a display of seed potatoes - it seems too early as I can't plant them until March but I had to buy a sack as I nearly missed out last year.

I've also had a reminder to renew my allotment rent for the grand total of £17 a year. Isn't that wonderful value?

Home grown pleasure

A corner of my allotment

The last few meals we've eaten have been almost entirely produced by us, in that the ingredients have been grown from seed, planted, tended, weeded, watered, cropped and cooked. This gives me such pleasure as I eat - I remember the cold January day planting the onions, watering the courgettes, warding off the pigeons from my peas, pulling the carrots from the earth, uncovering the little white potatoes, the gorgeous smell of Gray's freshly baked bread straight from the oven, mmm...

Simple ideas?

I've just finished reading The Permaculture Way by Graham Bell and found it extremely interesting - although not easy to suddenly change your life to this way of living - I think any change for me will be gradual. I know that I would lose my allotment if I didn't keep it neat & tidy and free from weeds - although the idea of no weeding is very appealing - they seem to grow so quickly, if only my vegetables would do as well! One idea that has stuck in my mind though is why do parks authorities plant ornamental trees rather than fruit trees? Apparently they say people will take the fruit - isn't that the idea?

In the pink

Look at this lovely rhubarb, the first of the season for me, I love the intense colour and it tasted gorgeous stewed up and eaten with yoghurt. On Sunday I went to the allotment and used the rotavator for the first time - nearly demolished my raspberries and a neighbour's greenhouse! I came home feeling quite shaken - literally! A friend bought me some hyacinths, they smell beautiful. Bit of a pink blog today!

© Nicky Linzey 2007

It's nearly time

© 2007 Nicky Linzey

I'm getting excited as the time is coming to start planting out my vegetables - anyone who does this will know how I feel. I'd always wanted a vegetable garden since seeing the beautiful ones in almost every garden in France and I thought 'one day when I have a bigger garden I'll have one of those'. Time went on - still no vegetable garden. I woke up one day and realised how ridiculous this was and by lunchtime had dug up half of my lawn to plant vegetables. I haven't looked back and now am in the third year of owning an allotment. It's fantastic to grow, pick & eat your own produce and this year I'm growing garlic, shallots, potatoes, tomatoes, radish, carrots, beans, courgettes, beetroot, salad leaves, butternut squash, raspberries, rhubarb and gooseberries. I recently went out for lunch with someone who asked me 'what was the most exciting thing that happened to you last year?', when I replied that I had cropped 34 butternut squash in the Autumn he looked at me as if I was mad. Growing things also inspires me so much creatively and if I have a mental block then a couple of hours digging & tending my plants sorts me out and there's always something to draw. Just think - 5 years later - I could still be waiting for that bigger garden . . .

My first vegetable patch