Nicotiana, Nasturtiums, and the Water Pressure War

 It is hot. Properly hot. The sort of hot where Sara opens the back door at half six in the morning, takes one look at the sky, and says "you'll want your hat" in the tone of voice usually reserved for telling me I've left the gate open again. She's not wrong either. I've taken to watering the plot in my crocs before anyone's awake enough to judge me, which is a look, but needs must.

Iris reckons I've gone "full grandad" this week, on account of me now checking the weather app roughly nine times a day and saying "ooh, twenty-eight again" to absolutely nobody. Sam just laughs and gets on with the watering can relay, because at least one of us is being useful. 

But first — flowers. Because even in a heatwave, even with all the watering palaver I'm about to tell you about, the plot has been an absolute picture this week, and I'd be a fool not to share it.

Nicotiana — the quiet show-off

Nicotiana, or tobacco plant if we're being plain about it, is one of mine and Sara's favourites, and I genuinely think it doesn't get nearly the fuss it deserves. By day it's a perfectly pleasant, slightly understated thing — tall, slender stems, star-shaped flowers in white, pink, deep red or that lovely lime green that always gets people asking what on earth it is. But come evening, especially a warm one like we've been having, it absolutely transforms. The scent that comes off it at dusk is something else entirely — sweet, heady, the sort of thing that makes you stop deadheading the petunias and just stand there like a lemon, breathing it in.

It's an easy one to grow too, which I always think is the real test of a flower's worth. Sow it under cover in spring, harden it off, and once it's in its final spot it just gets on with things — full sun or light shade, a decent water when it's dry (ironic, given the week I'm about to tell you about), and a feed every fortnight if you're feeling generous. The taller varieties want a bit of support in windy spots, but round the back of our shed where it's sheltered, mine stand there like little sentries, nodding away. If you've got an evening seating area — a bit of decking, a bench, anywhere you sit with a cuppa as the light goes — plant nicotiana near it and thank me later.

Nasturtium — the plot's best multitasker

Now nasturtiums, on the other hand, are nicotiana's complete opposite in personality. Where nicotiana is subtle, nasturtiums are an absolute riot — that classic peppery green leaf, almost like a little lily pad, with flowers in fire-engine orange, red and yellow that just keep coming all summer long, whether you ask them to or not.

What I love most about nasturtiums, and the reason I think every lady reader with even half an inch of growing space should have some, is that they earn their keep about three times over. First, they're gorgeous, trailing over the edge of a raised bed or tumbling out of a tub like they own the place. Second, they're brilliant companion plants — I let mine sprawl near the courgettes and squash because they draw the blackfly and aphids away from the veg and onto themselves, which sounds harsh but is basically nasturtiums taking one for the team. And third — and this always gets a reaction when I mention it — you can eat the lot. Leaves, flowers, even the seed pods. The flowers have a lovely peppery bite, gorgeous scattered over a salad or used to brighten up a cheese board, and they make any plate look like you've made far more effort than you actually have. Sow them direct, they're not fussy about soil, and honestly the less you feed and water them the more flowers you tend to get. A plant that rewards a bit of neglect — what's not to love.

The Great Water Pressure Saga

Right. Brace yourselves. This is the bit where I have a moan, and I'm not even sorry.

It's been so dry that watering isn't really optional any more, it's a daily job, same time every morning, same as feeding the chickens used to be a few years ago. Sam, Iris and I do a sort of relay up and down the plot with cans , getting everything a good drink before the sun's properly up and it all just evaporates off again. Sensible stuff. The trouble is, our allotment committee, in what I can only describe as a triumph of saving pennies over common sense, has decided this is the year to throttle the water pressure right down. Apparently it's to "manage demand." What it actually means is that if more than two of us are watering at once, the pressure drops to something resembling a sad little dribble, and you stand there with a watering can in your hand watching a single bed take twenty minutes to get what should take five.

Now, I'm not an unreasonable man. I understand water doesn't grow on trees, much as that would solve a lot of my problems. But here's the bit that really gets me — we pay our water rates a whole year up front, in good faith, same as everybody else on that site. We're not asking for anything we haven't already paid for. In the middle of an actual heatwave, with seedlings wilting and beds drying out within hours, is exactly the moment people need decent water pressure, not the moment to start rationing it like it's the 1970s again. I've said as much at the last committee meeting, and I will keep saying it, because half-watered veg in July helps nobody come harvest time, least of all the committee when everyone's turning up to complain their leeks have gone woody.

A loaf in the making

On a happier note, something arrived last week that's got me rather excited — a sack of high-protein milling grain from Priors Flour. I'm going to have a go at milling it myself this weekend and see what kind of loaf comes out the other end. I've heard nothing but good things about milling your own — fresher flour, better flavour, and you keep all the goodness in that gets stripped out of a lot of shop-bought bags. The theory is that a higher protein content gives you better gluten development, which should mean a stronger dough and a lovelier rise, though I'll admit the only way I'll really know is by getting my hands in it. I'll report back properly once I've had a crack at it — good loaf or door-stop disaster, you'll hear about it either way, because that's the deal round here.

So that's where we are. Flowers showing off, a grain sack waiting on the workshop bench, and a water pressure battle that isn't going away any time soon. Tell me though — has anyone else's committee or allotment site started rationing water this summer, and if so, how on earth are you all coping with it