A Glass of Shiraz Mangetout Anyone?

‘Why are your peas looking sick?’ asks Robin whilst he watches me water the plot. He sits there perched on top of the brassica netted frame as if he is directing all operations whilst secretly watching and listening for grubs.

‘I don’t know. It must be the hot weather, but I haven’t planted them down there before and Freddie Fox used that area as his private toilet last year.

‘But what has grown is a funny colour’ Robin says eyeing up the odd purple pod.

‘They are mangetout, not peas, and supposed to be purple. They are called Shiraz’ I reply.

“Trust you to pick an alcoholic veg’ Robin says as he pops down to wrestle with a small worm. The tug of war is short, and Robin soon flies off with his wriggling prize.

I look at the miserable plants clinging on for their last rights against the twigs they were supposed cover. I give them some water but there is no reaction.

Everything else is blooming and although some vegetables have come early, others are quickly catching up and if the slugs and snails can keep themselves to themselves everything should be ok.

I turn my attention to the two grape vines on the top section. There were a gift along with two others from Caroline, a good friend of Annie’s who live in deepest Kent. She still has six vines and I wondered if she had a drinking problem or secretly ran a pub.

The vines on the top took straight away, were cut back and everything looked well. They flowered and have little bunches of grapes but are still subdued and probably wondering where their mates are and what the are doing in London. Their mates I planted in my reclaimed bank and they didn’t take kindly to the move but now are in their element with shoots all over and big developing bunches of grapes. Perhaps the others need to live on the bank too?

The challenge is that until the grapes develop, I don’t know which is white, which is red, and that will teach me for losing the labels on transfer. I wonder if the mangetout Shiraz up top is jealous and it is a Shiraz below on the bank that is stealing the show?

The sunflowers turn their heads, watching and waiting to be given a drink. Now they don’t need any help and pop up in spring, get moved into position and only require a tall cane to stand proud and shine all summer. Mind you Sidney and his gang of squirrels fight the bees and birds for the seed heads as soon as they start to turn. It’s amusing to watch them scurrying up the stork and biting off the heads of the flowers, watching them drop to the ground. They start back down, pick up the flower head, and then they are off the hide it somewhere they will probably soon forget. They sow seeds on their journey and it’s rather funny to see them running away down the path with a flower head bigger than them and often still with a bee after the last drink.

Lottie hates squirrels so she is very annoyed I haven’t put trip wires around the sunflowers and mined the area under them. She just barks at them which probably encourages them to come back, knowing she is tied up and can’t chase them.

Back to today’s watering.

The other new plant this year is the kiwi vine. It’s not mine but my neighbour’s whose plot I am looking after whilst she is self-isolating with her shielded husband. The vine looks great as it straggles the arbor but has done little until this year. Happily, it’s  it had masses of little delicate buttercup style flowers all over. Apparently it has never flowered before and maybe it is going to give me a special reward of fruit this year.

Alas there doesn’t appear to be any fruit setting and not being a kiwi expert or having grown it before, I don’t know what the baby fruit should look like at this stage. I’ve searched the internet and got lots of advice on everything except what I should be looking for. Robin even told me off, thinking I was looking at a bird’s nest. I bet birds around here have never seen a kiwi fruit, let alone flower.

Back to the more traditional watering, the Patti pans and courgettes. Now if this was wine not water, they would be permanently drunk with the amount they consume. I wonder if they’d like some Shiraz?

Companions on the Plot

‘If I didn’t come to keep you company at the allotment, who would you like to be here with you?’ asks my allotment whippet companion Lottie.’

‘I am very happy that you come to watch over me’ I replied a bit sarcastically.

‘It better not be Sidney and his gang.’ thinking about that Mexican stand-off she had with him only yesterday when he climbed on the tree over her head and taunted her on her bench.

‘Now why would I have a squirrel as a friend?’ I realise that this is either a fishing expedition whereby Lottie makes me realise just how loyal a companion she is, or it’s one of her I am bored I’ll ask some silly questions mood.

‘I don’t mind it if you want to keep chickens,’ she says with those doleful whippet eyes which either says she’s hungry and would love some chicken, or it’s time to go home.

I sit back and my mind wanders to chickens on the allotment. 

Some would like to keep chickens which would give you eggs, maybe dinner and provide rich fertilizer. But we would have to build Fort Knox to keep Freddie Fox and his gang out. I remember when the farm was putting up extra fencing. I asked why and was told that unless it was well over a couple of meters high the sly old things would climb up and over like it were and assault course set to keep them fit. Then the fence must be extended underground to stop their expert tunnelling skills.

In fact the crows are more problems to the farm as far as the chickens are concerned and the phrase ‘headless chicken’ comes to mind.

I look at the farm’s ducks and geese, all of which have to be locked up every night and let out in the morning and the same with the chickens and turkeys and well, I can buy eggs fairy easily, I can buy chicken manure, and I don’t fancy killing them let alone plucking my dinner.

‘Sorry Lottie, chickens aren’t allowed on the allotments’ I tell her.

‘Ok no chickens but why is that Freddie fox always here?’ asks Lottie as she turns down on her pillows on the bench and flops into a new more comfortable position.

Freddie could keep anyone company as he is a loner and keeps himself to himself. At the slightest glimpse of a human, he’s off.

The problem with Freddie and his pack is that they have no toilet training whatsoever. They poo all over and even on the vegetables. However, we have a pact and they do keep the rats away and we leave them alone to police the allotment for rodents. Considering we have a farm next door the only rodent I have seen in some 6 years is Sidney Squirrel and the flying pigeons.

‘No, Freddie doesn’t like to make friends. The only company he likes is the pack.’

‘Well if we ignore pigeons and squirrels who we both don’t like, who’s left?’ asks Lottie.

‘There’s Robin,’ I respond quickly.

‘He doesn’t count. He lives here.’ Lottie says in a matter of fact way.

‘Well occasionally I find the odd frog or toad lurking under the squash leaves. I think they know they will get a daily wash and plenty of grubs, but I haven’t the faintest where they come from or live’ I offer.

‘I don’t count them. They aren’t very good for anything but to play with and to watch jumping all around when you disturb them.’ Lottie is clearly getting bored.

‘They are good for the plot and don’t make any noise until after dusk so are never heard by the plot holders.’

‘I can’t remember them saying anything.’ Lottie cleans her face with her paw and settles down to have another nap.

‘A badger wouldn’t survive on the Isle of Dogs here in the East End of London.’ I say.

‘A badger? No don’t know them’ responds Lottie.

I think about it and realise that although we may have the ideal habitat in the Farm’s parkland they would have to swim across the Thames or negotiate Canary Wharf and some very busy roads to get here. I think we will always be badger free.  

‘The one animal I would love to see here is a hedgehog’ I say, thinking about the good works they can do on the plot. ‘They tried to introduce them some years back but it failed.’

‘No way! They have fleas and spikes and I can’t play with them at all’ Lottie says.

‘I thought this was about me and my companionship’ I reply and Lottie starts to close her eyes and is now drifting away.

I would happily build a dedicated compost heap just for a hedgehog, leave some cat food out each evening and know he would devour those little critters even more efficiently than Robin and his flock. But alas it’s not to be.

Now talking about bees…

‘You know all this virus stuff has to make you think about others and companionship. And I am not getting any younger you know.’ Lottie mutters as she closes her eyes and drops off.

I rise from the bench, pick up my watering can and fill it from the trough. If I didn’t have Lottie with me at the allotment I would go mad having weird conversations with other animals and birds, and that just wouldn’t do, now would it?    

It’s a Dog’s Life at the Allotments

This article was written before the sad news of the passing of Monty Don's Golden Retriever Nigel this week but i hope reflects the true bond between man and dog.

Clap!

I turn and see Lottie trying to catch a bee in her mouth.

Clap! She misses again as her jaws snap empty and the bee goes off grinning, bored and in search of his forage.

‘I’ll get one, one day,’ mutters Lottie to herself as she flops down onto her pillows on the allotment bench.

Lottie is my seven-year-old whippet and like Monty Don’s two faithful Golden Retrievers Nigel and Nellie, she comes with me every time I go to the allotment. But unlike Monty’s two, Lottie does not wish to follow me aimlessly around the plot and is satisfied snoozing on her bench and quietly keeping watch over me and occasionally waking up to snap at the odd low-flying bee, out stare Freddie fox and his friends or bark to clear off that farm cat.

Unlike Golden Retrievers, whippets and other sight hounds require a good fast run out once a day then sleep, eat, demand love and generally nap. They are like cats in many ways except they don’t have attitude and don’t go out in the dark.

‘If you ever catch a bee it will be painful,’ I suggest.

She ignores my advice, stretches as if practicing some new yoga position which usually involves exposing herself in an un-lady like pose and then starts another nap.

My red breasted friend Robin perches himself on the back of the bench and looks down on Lottie. ‘I bet she isn’t aware that Sidney Squirrel is on the plot,’ he says cocking his tiny head to one side.

‘Leave her be,’ I reply turning to look at the pair of them taking over the bench. ‘She’s already had a lot of excitement to day chasing squirrels on her way here.’

I look over the back of the plot to see Sidney poking around under the climbing rose.

‘Now where did I hide that stash of sunflower seeds?’ he asks himself as he continues to search. He took enough sunflower heads to seed half the Island and already self-seeding sunflowers are coming up all over my plot, next door’s plot and half the plots on the site.

‘I bet she didn’t catch any squirrels,’ offers Robin looking at Lottie.

‘No. I am glad to say she didn’t, but she did come close. There was a Mexican standoff with one and they were some six feet apart and they both froze. They tried to out stared each other. It was if they had never been here before and wondered what to actually do. The squirrel blinked first and scurried left and up a tree before Lottie could get her running shoes back on.’

‘Was she wearing her red coat?’ asked Robin.

‘Of course, that’s why she has it on so they can see her coming,’ I respond, trying to whisper so Lottie can’t hear.

‘I can hear every word you are saying,’ pipes up Lottie hardly stirring and wondering if there is something in what I have said.

‘I could have caught her, but I only chase those that run away,’ Lottie says with a somewhat proud expression now across her face.

‘It’s just a game to you, but what about the squirrel?’ asks Robin.

‘Did you say Sidney is here?’ Lottie asks raising her head off her pillow, quickly changing the subject and looking straight at Robin and then attentively around the plot.

‘Was here,’ responds Robin and with a broad grin and with a wave of his wings flies off.

At this Lottie looks at me, then at her pillows and decides its time for a nap.

‘Tell me when its time to go home. I am hungry,’ she says Lottie shifting both the subject. 

A short while later Lottie adopts a new pose which mimics the ‘downward dog’ yoga pose. She then looks over to me and has a wake up shake. This is like a wake up call to her body and I know I am being to told allotment time is up. I dutifully obey Lottie's request and start to put away my tools and finish my daily allotment chores.

‘Pillows,’ she reminds me as she promptly jumps off her bench.

I pick up the two pillows which are warm to the touch where she has been sleeping and deposit them back in the shed.

On leaving the plot Lottie has a little ritual. First, she nibbles some goose grass as I lock the gate then 20 yards or so later in the same spot as yesterday and the day before, she relieves herself. A further short distance and it’s time for a poo and that means a poo bag collection. It’s as if she knows the dog litter bin is only five yards away and wants to save me having to carry a bag to the next bin or all the way home.

Strange, Lottie can be on the plot all day and never relives herself once, but as soon as she is outside the gate it's time to go. I think I have Lottie ‘Lottie Trained’, or is it she that has me trained?