A germinating field bean. Picture: Howard Sooley
Coffee and a bun on the way up to the allotment provide fortification on this damp blustery day. It's been very mild lately, in our part of London we've barely been touched by frost. But what we have had is a procession of alarmingly damp dark days as we step quietly toward the shortest day. I suppose I had been hoping for unseasonably high temperatures to help the green manure germinate, and when I arrived I wasn't disappointed, not much sign of life from the rye grass or clover but the field beans had all split and where pushing their first root down into the soil.
We have some cow manure left that we were considering spreading over the green manure seed to help insulate the soil, but I'm a bit worried that given the thick lumpy nature of the stuff, that the soil depth will be too deep for the rye grass and clover to germinate... has anyone any advice on this... I'd be pleased to hear.
Allotment bird food. Picture: Howard Sooley
Much has changed on the allotment since my last visit, the leaves are mainly gone from the trees now, the silver birch lost the last of it's golden leaves and faded back into the dark silhouetted trees behind. A blackbird sits in the old apple tree a couple of plots along, pecking at the remaining apples and a jay screeches at its base and hops around noisily tidying up the windfalls. But on the whole there is a stillness about the place, and that palette of colours that only reveals it's self in the darker days of December is there for all who venture out to see. It's a much eerier place than it was a week ago.
