Our first bowl of summer salad! Floppy golden lettuce leaves, a light scattering of dill, a couple of crisp radishes. The plot thickens.
The climbing French beans (a flat yellow, plus a smaller blue and Cherokee Trail of Tears) have survived the attacks. The small stick fencing has done its work. The blackbirds and I are back on better terms. Though, to be fair, I don’t know it was them.
Howard’s classic Swiss chard will soon be spaced and allowed to spread. We will have too many sunflowers (a spreading rust red and a tall Ukrainian yellow), but I may take a few home soon and transplant them to Kala’s garden.
The calendula is happy, though the nasturtiums are being battered. Our baby plants are growing. The season’s birthing is near complete.
The soil is warmer, the days are longer. Our tasks now mainly watering and feeding (a liquid seaweed, mostly), an occasional light weeding. Keeping company.
The tall orange cosmos (sulphureous) is coming. The deep scarlet tagetes ildkongen, too. There will soon be hot summer colour.
Our babies are growing. In a few weeks I’ll be needing them more than they’ll need me. I stop by one early morning to tie up tear peas and sweetpeas before work. With soft string, gently done, to keep them off the ground.
It’s about this time when we’ll start to take more note of what other allotment growers are doing. To wonder what planting and ideas might influence us.
I am already envious of a neighbours’ giant comfrey plant so I have ordered in seed from Beans and Herbs. I am as yet uncertain where we’ll find enough room, though that will come. Now your turn. Please tell, how does your garden grow?
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
