Ring-a-ring-a-Ringley...

Sunday was a very warm slightly humid day, so we went for a walk along the canal and back through Ringley woods. It was lovely and I enjoyed it a lot. Such a pity the weekend is only two days long.

The wilt alternative...

Although I wouldn’t say it was my dream home, our little house in Farnworth is comfy and, since they put the insulation in, cosy. It’s big enough, except for the long thin crappy kitchen, it isn’t too full of junk and we have pretty much everything we need. Once I remove the bee hives from the front room, we’ll have space again, so all is looking good.

The yard, however, is another story. The house doesn’t face due south, so the amount of sun we get is limited and despite the wall now being as bright as I can get it, it is still chilly during the afternoon. This has affected the plants with the result that tomatoes are stunted and yellowing at the edges, the ogórek have wilted and died and some of the flowers are listless and slug food. This time last year we had a glorious crop of plants, all brought on in the garden of my parents and strong enough to survive – until the rain blighted them all away – in a sun-free yard.

It’s an almost desperate task to bring plants to maturity. The greenhouse we put up on the allotment is almost complete and I am frantic to get some of the tomatoes into it to try to get them growing properly again. Going out every morning to inspect is a sad and depressing job, as they don’t seem to be growing or even looking any stronger week on week. I’d like an allotment of our own but I read a piece in the Manchester Evening News this week that said the waiting list in Bolton was around three years. So far we’ve done three months or so. A few years back you’d walk straight onto a plot, not now. What irritates me is those people who have taken on plots in times of low demand are still managing to hold on to them despite long waiting lists. Surely it’s one each and those who have two, three or more should give them up.

One alternative is a community plot but I’m not convinced that’ll be a good thing. Have to find out more about it. Until then, I guess it’s struggle on and do what we can. Learn from experience and try to do better next year. It’s a depressing thought, though, no tomatoes for a second year.

As there are no photos of plants to look at, here's a couple of us putting up the greenhouse on the allotment.