Seed Prices

Have been studying last years catalogue and realised that with some seeds there has been a significant increase.

For example my purple sprouting broccoli has rised by a whopping 20p and my broad beans by 10p. Many seeds have remained stable in price, but with the increases in many and the reduction in discount this will see a considerable increase in the seed merchants profits.

This is bad new for many allotmenteers because although the hobby is still relatively inexpensive, folk will look to saving pennies where they can.

Or as one compatriot on the plots says, "If you cannot eat it, I don't grow it." So he will be saving on the flower seeds then.

The price of seeds

I just wondered if it was me................. but has the price of seeds gone up all over the catalogues ?

Like most seed merchants, my plot association gets a decent discount. Last year it was a 50% discount, but this year it has been reduced to 40 %. On top of that I am fairly certain that the price of seeds has gone up.

It was discovered last year that more people were buying vegetable seeds than flowers. Probably because the return for money was better.

I have looked at my list and it leans more to flowers than vegetables. This is because next year will be my first year of Not Working and I want to spend more time in the greenhouse experimenting with different flowers. For example, I have bought a rather expensive packet of 6 geranium seeds. Never having tried propagating a geranium, I am keen not to waste my money. But gardening is an experiemnt much of the time and I am keen to give it a try. At least they will have my undivided attention during the growing season.

I shall return to this subject later in the week. After I have compared prices in last years catalogue.

Crivvens..................

Have I really missed an entire month without posting ? Is this a record ? Or merely a blog ?

More importantly, Have I been missing all the exciting things that have been going on around, in my own patch ?

The answer to most of these questions, indeed all of them, is YES !

The problem has been a combination of the weather and what I'm currently up to other than gardening and toiling on the plot. The weather in Scotland over the past four weekends has been less than kind and it has been impossible therefore to write about the progress of allotmenteering up here. Secondly, all my energy is currently going into anticipating not working anymore. Yes, I have reached a point in my career when I have decided to give it all up and will shortly be counting down to Not Working.

And thirdly, I have been stalling with my activities because of one particular Blogger who has had a number of Big Events last month, including the arrival of a grandson, a famous spouses birthday and the premier of a major new film in Scotland........the one and only Mr Wilbury aka Allotment 81.
To whom I give big apologies because I did really try to get up to Pitlochry last week, but never made it. Hope it went well and look forward to seeing the Oscar nominations !

Perhaps a short account of the evening, and the film, would be a treat on your next posting, Woody. There was not a dicky bird in the Herald and only a ten second item on the Scottish news.

This is the autumn of our content.....

It's that time of the year. Growing has entered into the later stages and most stuff has been harvested and eaten or is being lifted and stored.

After the potato blight and after I had cut down all the culms down and bagged them for the rubbish bin, I was lucky to be able to save a lot of potatos. The Belle de Fontenay have been great and I shall probably grow these alone next year. They are particularly good for roasting in olive oil with shallots and garlic.

I was able to cut the last remaining healthy stems of rhubarb a month ago and made some rhubarb and ginger jam. This was with the allotment open day in mind. The rhubarb has died down now and I shall remove some of the decomposing leaves and stems and put these on the compost heap.

The compost heap is amazingly healthy and it is crawling with worms which I think is extraordinary when you consider all the expensive wormeries and paraphernalia that goes with it. This has all got to be dug into the soil during the winter digging process in anticipation of the arrival of horse and cow manure in the early months of next year. Peter, a few plots down, swears by seaweed which he collects in his car from the Ayrshire coast. He either stores this in a compost bin or will put it straight into the ground in his potato trenches and will then plant his seedling potatos onto this before earthing up. The potatoes he grows are massive.

I did not have great luck with my runner beans this year. Partly to do with the lack of my time and attention on the plot. Those that have grown too big I have left on the vine to expand. I shall then use the beans, not the pods, for soups and stews. However, the borlotti beans are designed to grow on in the pod and when harvest time comes I shall experiemnt with the cook and serve with olive oil method as a side dish.

The onions have all been lifted and there has been great success with these. I have hung them all up to dry on the side of the shed and they are now ready to come back to the house and stored in the greenhouse. From here they will be collected when required. We shall not be buying any onions for a few months.

The beetroot was lifted recently and this has been baked in the oven and now pickled in large one litre jars. We tried some the other evening. Not sure if I am getting it right, it still feels as though it catches at the back of the throat. I wonder if I should use a sweet pickling vinegar ?

Still to be cropped are the experimental celery and leeks. More about this in the future.

In the meantime, I am picking the occasional claret sunflower to take home for the dining room vase.

So, how was it for me ?

Italy, that is. I love Italy. I love the coffee culture in the bars and coffee places. The Italian cocktails and combinations with Campari are really good. The courtesy and formalities are different and pleasing.

I don't like the pushing and lack of queue discipline when folk get on and off trains and buses.

I love the railway stations and the railway culture. I suppose Mussolini has to be thanked for something.

This was the third Italian holiday in the past five years. We first went to Viareggio and just loved the old fashioned traditional resort. Its close proximity to Lucca and Florence helped. A taste of Tuscany. Our second trip was to Lake Maggiore. In making a comparison with Lake Garda, I realise that they are two completely different experiences.

Maggiore has a different, more regular and easily understood shipping system. There seemed to be more boats and at more sensible times going to a variety of places that were shorter to reach. This is partly because Maggiore is a longer lake than Garda but with a shorter shore line distance.

Garda's boats are difficult to understand and not as frequent. The time it takes to get to certain parts of the lake seem inordinantly long.

We stayed in the four star Hotel Vila Rosa which was a great place to stay in in a very nice location in Desenzano. This placed us next to the only railway station on Garda and a twenty five minute journey to Verona. Desenzano is a well heeled place with some very expensive stores and restaurants. The mid range trattorias were ok but wanted to be all things to all nations which might have pleased all of the tourists some of the time but detracted from the Italian experience for me.

Verona is a lovely city, very continental and beautifully kept. The Arena conjured amazing images of the Christians, lions and gladiators. Given that the opera festival had finished, it was a shame that we couldn't see the arena for what it actually was designed to be. Instead the staging and seats were still in situ where the gladiators fought their duels.

The most remarkable image I have of Italy is how clean and litter free it is. There's hardly a place with water in Britain where you don't see litter and detritus floating by or lapping the shoreline. Here in Garda we found none at all.

But in summary, was it for me ? I really did enjoy my holiday and it was relaxing. But if you plonked me on the Dorset coast, I would probably feel the same.

Dublin Bay Prawns in Desenzano

We had dinner in the Co-op on Tuesday night. Not the British Co-op mind, but an Italian outfit that exists to employ socially disadvantaged people. Thats what it said in the menu. But I dont expect many tourists would have read that page before going into the antipastis.

Gnome had: tagliatelle delicate and it had Dublin Bay Prawns (thats what the menu said, but to you and me they were langoustines) artichokes, cherry tomatos and a light cream that absorbed all the flavours. Gnomes wife had a prawn risotto with lime. This was accompanied by a mixed salad with a half litre of local wine.

In Italy the menu is designed to complicate things. You have a starter, then an antipasti, then a first plate, then a second plate, then a desert. But one plate alone would feed you for the night.

So we approached this meal like a couple of anarchists. We invented the third plate.

"We want one plate, with some accompaniments, served at the same time, please." We were bold, but we won the day for ourselves. The food was brilliant. It was as good a meal as any we had experienced in town this week.

Gnome took the bill to the counter. It came to 34 euros including the cover charge. We were so pleased we left the remainder of the two 20 euro notes as a tip. It was still 10 euros cheaper than any of our other meals.

So, why dine anywhere else this week ?

Restaurant Desanzanino (not open on Wednesdays)

http://www.cooperativalacascina.it/

Ciao, Gnome Baby

One week away in Italy. To Lake Garda. In Desenzano. A chic bustling town for the Italian nouveua riche. A town on the southern end of the lake with superb views to the north.

We arrived on Saturday night, late. So we did not see anything properly until Sunday. We had breakfast indoors because there are still a lot of smokers in Europe and they seem to hog the balcony outside the dining room.

The day was spent wandering around town in very hot weather. We had coffee. Best part of an Italian holiday. We wandered back to a beach restaurant for lunch. We returned to the hotel and lay beside the pool before returning to the town centre and an aperitiff with some people watching (us watching them) in their high heels and with their accessory dogs: "Look, theres a nice one."

On Monday we took our first boat trip on the lake. This is what one does, take boat trips to different parts of the lake. Today we go to Sirmione. A peninsular fort town that extends far into the lake. It looks verdant and as we get closer, we can see the land smothered in cypress and olive trees. And hotels and bars and cafes and restaurants and ice cream parlours. And private jettys and two small beaches. And seemingly no toilets.

A word about toilets on Sirmione. The tip of the peninsular is where all the tourist activity is. It is a honey pot for tourists between 11am and 3pm. and everyone swarms around the cafes who charge over the odds because its like a cul de sac and you have no choice. By law they have to provide a toilet. Our bar had one and there was a very long queue. "Lets go," says Gnomes wife. "Theres bound to be a public one somewhere." Yeah, right.

Lunch was an overpriced roll and salami in a public park, feeding some of Darwins finches. Or were they sparrows ? Anyway they seem to be evolving with some of my salami roll. We wandered through the Parco Maria Callas. She lived here during the 1950s. A public beach with a small cafe suggested a WC. Great, there was one. It was a hole in the floor affair. So no brownie points there, then. Only falling stars.

We arrived at the tip of the peninsular which ended with an arid seating area, no shade, and a Roman Grotto (closed on Mondays). We wandered back to the honey pot. A WC sign ! They were automated slot machine toilets. It took an Italian, a German, a French and English representative of the Legion of Tourists to work out the method of using them, including the cost (20 cents). A sliding door gave entry and after use the entire room was showered, washed and flushed in one fowl swoop. This was the only real public loo available for the thousands of tourists who arrive on the peninsular.

My allotments are better off than this.

Not like Britain then.