Grumpy Again

Grumpy again and this time I am grumpy!  Last time I put pen to paper (or whatever it's called) it was raining, it's still raining and according to the forecast it's going to continue raining for the foreseeable future.  The spuds and me have had enough! I went to the allotment this morning to check the poly-tunnel and walking over the rest of the ground was like walking on water, puddles everywhere and of course the proverbial weeds.  My celeriac has been decimated by slugs, strawberries are rotting and the runners look like they have just completed a marathon.  Sowed some swede but I think the seed has rotted, same with the white turnips, drowned I fancy; never mind time yet to have another go.  I have been digging spuds for a couple of weeks, they aren't very big but they are tasty. I am digging Pentland Javelin, I know I said last time that I was scratching around the Red Duke of York and they are also ready, but the Pentland's are on a piece of ground that I wanted to clear.  The trouble is this particular piece of ground is very shallow and not really suited to spuds, but it was very weedy and although I'm getting a small crop, as I dig them I am clearing out any weeds that are left.  In the autumn I'll plant onions and garlic ready for next year.  Had a good crop of garlic which I lifted a few weeks back, they are dried and plaited now; the plaiting leaves a lot to be desired, don't think I would make a hairdresser, but it's hanging happily in the garage.  Tomatoes are setting but are taking an age to ripen, so far I have picked no more than a handful. Here's a picture taken a few weeks ago when hopes were still high.

We went to the Good Food and Gardeners World Shows at the NEC.  Came in a different entrance this time so managed to stay sober, even when we did make it to the booze section it was pretty stingy and not so many stalls.  I wasn't that impressed with the Good Food show, just how many curry sauces are there and anyway the Old Thing makes her own, with less salt I may add.  There weren't a lot of gadgets but fear not the Old Thing found the one and only, the best gadget in the whole wide world, the must have of the cluttered kitchen, the "but it does everything" gadget!  By the way it's called a Vitamix, or as they say in husband speak a VERY expensive Vitamix!

The Gardeners World show was much better, lots of wonderful tacky garden ornaments and things to adorn corners, cracks and crevices, much more to my liking and I have to admit, I spent freely.  Had I the room in the garden I no doubt would have purchased numerous plants, shrubs, tubers and rhizomes, but I haven't so I didn't.  The Old Thing didn't curtail me, she was by this point in an ecstatic Vitamix world of her own.  Mind you when I started hanging, draping, placing my tat around the garden it was to a chorus of "What is that you have there"  "Have you no taste"  "Take it down"  "No Grumpy, NO - is that a dead rat"

(Note from the Old Thing:  catch this in the corner of your eye first thing in the morning and believe me, it looks like a giant rat!)

Well it's still raining, a few things to do in the greenhouse, but apart from that I think the best thing to do is start planning for next year and hope we get some sun and heat.