Going beezerk at the allotment

Yesterday there was some excitement at the allotment as bees began to swarm on someone's water butt (there's a joke there somewhere). They continued to swarm there for a few hours while I did battle with what has become a rather sorry excuse for an allotment, until in the early evening they moved to the upper parts of one of our larger sycamore trees.

The allotment has been the primary victim of the turmoil in our lives of recent months. Following two house moves, renovations, work going crazy and a bout of pneumonia added to the wettest June on record and yup, you guessed it, the allotment is a war zone.

The greatest casualties have been my apple trees. Given I came first in last year's show for my apples, the fact that they have all succumbed to decease and excessive moisture is a real shame. I cut them back really hard yesterday before spraying them with anti- fungal treatments and found only two lone apples on trees that last year produced a thousand.

Katie's Pavlova with
allotment strawberries
drizzled with home made
strawberry jam

The horseradish and bindweed have really taken hold and, with help from family including my lovely nephew Tom, I fought them like mad until my back was screaming. Under a carpet of luscious green bindweed we found a pretty healthy strawberry crop, which is remarkable. The rhubarb, on the other hand, has really lost the fight with the horseradish and on removing most of this voracious plant the rhubarb plant was found with only seven leaves. The runners have at least enjoyed the rain but the courgettes have not; they have yet to produce a flower and have already developed problems associated with the damp weather.

It's not going to be a great year for me, but that is the world of the allotment. You win some, you lose some and if you turn your back for a moment you get stung.

All in apple pie order

I had an amazing day on the allotment yesterday with my nephew Tom Woodford. He did some serious heavy lifting of wood chip mulch and manure and I pruned for Britain. Starting at the front, I cleared back the asparagus, autumn-fruiting raspberries, gooseberries, Jerusalem artichokes, blackberries and grapevine.

Tom mulched the paths with the free wood chip that the council leaves at the site gates and also helped me bring 28 bags of manure down to No 31 to feed and protect the soil.

Tom, glad its's the last bag!

Tom is a keen rugby player and used to play for his university team in Newcastle but he still found that gardening is more than a little physically challenging. Watching him, I was hit by those thoughts that all adults feel when looking at children who have grown up around them. How do they get so big? Gardening, like family, is all about lifecycle and in preparing for winter we are making way for the next generation, the life yet to come.

It was a real treat to have a bit of muscle and I made the most of it. At this time of year I really enjoy putting my allotment to bed, but it is a brutal job involving very heavy lifting. I now have an 8ft tall pile of cut vegetation that will need burning when it has dried out a little and some serious digging to do.

So, thanks to Tom, I have made a great start towards my annual pre-Christmas goal of having the whole site tidy, fed and dormant for the big freeze. I have long since modified my ambitions for winter harvesting as the slugs, wind, birds and snow usually deplete anything I have tried to grow in the past, other than horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, cavello nero and beetroot. This year I haven't even put in broad beans as the snow really knocked back last year's autumn-planted crop, which was greatly outperformed by those that went in later in the following spring. Gardening is all about learning lessons, and I have learnt mine, which is: don't fight the weather.

Yesterday was also very special because of the heat, we actually caught a little sun and for near December that is extraordinary! And as for my apples, despite taking baskets to SEL and giving bags away, we are still nowhere near working our way through them. So today I will be making an apple pie which, if it is any good I will post a picture of.

I heard it on the grapevine

It's show time!

Katie hangs on to them as the wind picks up

Today was the allotment show, our largest annual gathering of the 280 sites from in and around Richmond and East Sheen and a chance for the general public to take a look at the fruits of our labour.

A quiet war waged on the allotment

Bob keeping a watchful eye on my poor old apples

You can tell I've been home this week because both the allotment and garden are looking pretty tidy. I have to say, my garden is stunning this year with waterfalls of roses and clumps of geraniums taking centre stage, giving the house a delicious slightly decadent smell.

Down at the allotment, however, things are not going so well. Today I lifted my red onions because they had bolted. This could have been due to an early sowing or the particularly cold spring we have had but, either way, once the onions had tried to flower, I knew it was game over. So out they came and I've put some bulb fennel seeds in to see if they can do any better in my sandy free-draining bed.

Shedding no tears for my sad onions

My apples are, however, the things that are really worrying me. After a good start with a large number of flowers setting to fruit, I now have disease coming at me from all sides. The leaves have red spider mite, leaf curl and some mildew, which probably came from the self-seeded forget-me-nots I allowed to grow under the trees, and I've got the first signs of codling moth (oo er missus) to make it a clean sweep of misfortune. So today I decided to take this growing crisis in hand and did a very naughty thing by cutting back as much of the damaged growth as I dared (it being a rubbish time of year for pruning most things) to increase the air circulation in and around the trees, which at the front of the allotment I have trained into a rather pretty espalier. Then I sprayed the fruit, wrapped glue tape around the base of the trees to stop ants and the like carrying more disease up the tree, placed hormone decoys in my codling moth traps and fed the roots. I cleared as much of the diseased foliage and dropped apples from around the base of the trees as I could – this avoids continued contamination –  burnt the cut foliage and watered the trees for hours and hours. I can do no more so let's see if my efforts bear fruit.

On a happier note, I was thrilled to find frogs in my allotment pond, and the broad beans and sunflowers are coming along nicely as are the beetroot, parsnips, strawberries and gooseberries. All good.