Allotment gardening

I buy some new netting from the horticultural association which looks superior to the B&Q batch - at least it is not all twisted. While my son does a bit of digging with his Bill and Ben tools I manage to string netting between the bamboo sticks. It is still by no means easy but, two hours of unraveling and winding it round sticks, ends with little rows of netting for my peas to grow up. I hope they appreciate it.

I have a go at putting up some pea netting. My wife has bought 4ft bamboo canes so I try and run some of my twisted B&Q netting between two of them. But I cannot unravel it for the life of me. After half-an-hour of swearing, I decide I need some better netting.

My uncle Jack is in London and wants to come and have a look at my plot. He is a very experienced gardener who grows all his own fruit and veg in his garden on Merseyside. Funnily enough I am nervous as I lead him and the rest of my family to have a look at my bit of land. I'm sure he's going to see my peas, beans and onions and burst out laughing. But amazingly he doesn't. He thinks the beans look good and actually says my onions are doing better than his. Wow - I've despaired of my onions thinking they weren't growing but Jack has given them the thumbs up. He also comes to the rescue on the pea netting front. He reveals that you are not supposed to lie it over the top of the plants but rather thread it through some 4ft canes and push them into the ground next to the plants so they have something to grow up. We put one little fence of pea netting up and I will have to go and buy some more canes so I can do the same for the other plants. It does stagger me that none of my books made it clear that that is how you use pea netting. I am very grateful that my uncle has shown me how to do it - and also pleased that he was impressed with my first few crops.

Following the advice in my various gardening books I have bought some pea netting. My peas are of a height now where they need some support, bless them. I got a roll of very unpromising-looking green plastic netting from B&Q and try to unravel it to roll it over the budding plants. Unfortunately it doesn't prove to be so easy - I can't even roll out the netting, it is all caught up on itself. I try my best but in the end give up and make do with bending some twigs over some of the plants in the vain hope that it will provide them with some support.

I take a camera down to the plot to try and record some of the changes. I bought a book on allotment gardening and it recommended sowing broad beans in double rows - something I didn't do. I notice some of the other plot holders have sown broad beans - and of course they have sown double rows. My inferiority complex kicks in. The way I have sown my beans and peas means I'll probably be lucky to get a plateful. I'll have to make sure I don't make the same mistake in the spring.
Here is a photo showing how the plot looked when I took it over in August and then how it looks today.



You can just see the top of the shed in the picture on the left and the roof of the greenhouse. The green stuff growing in the foreground of the picture on the right is the much talked about green manure. All-in-all, I think I haven't done a bad job.

My wife rings me at work to say that the seeds I ordered have arrived. A bloke from the Malden and Coombe Horticultural Society delivered them to the front door. We have got lettuce, tomatoes, courgettes, squash, carrot and parsnips as well as some garlic bulbs. I eagerly read the back of the packets to find out when I can start sowing them in the greenhouse. I can't wait for the spring.