Plot to Bed Early (And Then, Naturally, It Rained)

 You wait all summer for a proper drop of rain, you moan about the hosepipe ban until Sara's sick of the sound of you, you watch the water butts sit there as dry and useless as my exercise bike in the  bedroom, and then the very week we finally throw in the towel on one of our allotments, the heavens open. Twice. In the night. And it's only Wednesday. If that's not sod's law dressed up in a pair of wellies, I genuinely don't know what is.

Let me back up a bit, because I know some of you like the full story and not just the punchline.

Sam, Iris and I have got two allotments between us, and this week we stood at the top of one of them, mugs of tea going lukewarm in our hands, and had what I can only describe as a proper little family council. The courgettes had given up entirely, flat and yellowing like they'd simply lost the will to live, and the potato haulms had gone the same way, collapsed and crispy despite everything we threw at them. Nobody said much for a minute. Then Sam, ever the practical one, said "right, that's that plot done for the year then, isn't it," and Iris just nodded, and somehow, without much of a debate at all, we'd made the decision. We were putting that plot to bed. Early. On purpose. Before the drought made the decision for us in a much less dignified fashion.

There's a funny sort of peace that comes with a decision like that, actually. No more standing there each morning willing something to survive that clearly isn't going to. Just acceptance, a cup of tea, and a plan.

When Even the Spade Gives Up

The bed where our onions and carrots had been was baked absolutely solid, and I mean solid. I had a go with a normal spade first, more out of stubbornness than sense, and it bounced off the top like I was trying to dig up the M1. Sam had a go too, put his back into it properly, and got about two inches down before giving me a look that said everything.

That's when the broad fork came out, the one Sam bought me for Father's Day, bless him, and I'll be honest, I wasn't sure it was up to soil like this. I've been proved wrong before and I was proved wrong again. In just over an hour of steady, non-back-breaking work, taking it slow, rocking it gently rather than trying to muscle it in, we'd worked over a good chunk of that bed. No aching back, no sulking about it after, and considering what my spine's like these days, that matters more to me than almost anything else on the plot.

If you're fighting drought-baked ground yourself this year, my tip is this: don't fight it dry. Give it a really good soak the night before if you possibly can, even just from a watering can if the hosepipe ban's biting where you are, then let the broad fork do the work rather than your shoulders. Little rocking movements, not great heaves. Your back will thank you at sixty, and honestly, at any age.

A Plot of Two Halves

Here's the thing that makes this week feel a bit bittersweet rather than just gloomy. While one plot has been throwing the towel in, the other one has been an absolute powerhouse. This week alone we've had beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and carrots coming off it that have honestly been marvellous, proper old-fashioned flavour, the sort that makes you understand why you bother with all this in the first place. Same drought, same watering can, completely different story, and it just goes to show how much soil, position and a bit of luck play their part alongside anything you actually do.

The sweetcorn's been the strangest one this year. The plants themselves are noticeably small, nowhere near their usual height, but the cobs they have produced are big, fat, and absolutely bursting with flavour. There's just not many of them per plant, which I reckon is the drought's way of telling the plant to put its energy into quality over quantity. Can't argue with the results on the plate, mind you. We've been eating them within the hour of picking, and there's honestly no shop-bought corn that comes close.

We've kept up daily watering on what's still growing, and we're picking as we go rather than letting anything sit and get past its best, which matters even more in weather like this. A courgette left two days too long in a drought is a different vegetable entirely, tough and disappointing, so little and often has been the rule of the week. I've also got our overwintering onion seeds in at home now, tucked up and started while the rest of the garden ticks along, ready to give us a head start come next spring.

Iris, the Camera, and Flowers That Refuse to Give In

While Sam and I were wrestling with the broad fork, Iris was, predictably, off with her phone camera doing what she does best. Even with everything else looking a bit sorry for itself, there's a corner up there that's completely refused to read the room. The marigolds and nasturtiums along the edge of the veg beds have gone absolutely mad this year, almost as if the dry heat's agreed with them more than it has with anything we actually wanted to grow, and Iris has been coming home with her phone full of the sort of photos that make you stop scrolling.

There's something rather lovely about a flower that just carries on regardless, cheerful orange and gold against all that dry, tired soil, and I do think there's a proper little lesson in there somewhere if you look for it. She's been cutting a few stems for the kitchen windowsill too, and there's nothing quite like walking in from a warm allotment to a jam jar of marigolds sat there in the sunshine on the table. Sara pretends she doesn't notice these things. She absolutely notices.

Sara, a Shed, and a Lifetime of Leaning

Away from the plots entirely, the garden at home has been coming on a treat, and we're not far off finally ordering the new shed. There's an old one in the garden that's been leaning at what I'd generously call a jaunty angle for years now, the sort of lean that makes visitors ask if it's meant to look like that. Rather than skip it off to the tip and buy everything new, which felt like an awful waste of a perfectly mendable shed, Sara and I have spent this week getting the base properly sorted, levelled and solid, ready to patch the old girl up and shift her down to the bottom of the garden for a second life as a proper potting shed and general dumping ground for my tools.

It's been rather nice, actually, the two of us out there together with the spirit level and a bag of hardcore, a job that's got nothing to do with the allotment or a blog post or anything except making something last a bit longer instead of throwing it away. That's frugal living in its purest form if you ask me, no fancy budgeting spreadsheet required, just a bit of elbow grease and the refusal to bin something that's still got life left in it.

Because I Can't Resist a Recipe (Or a Loaf)

Now, with beans, tomatoes and cucumbers coming off that second plot faster than we can eat them fresh, they've mostly been heading straight into Sara's kitchen this week, and if you want to know what she's been doing with them, chutneys, a bit of freezing, and a tomato sauce that goes into everything from Sunday dinner to a hasty Tuesday pasta, then her blog Frugal in Lincolnshire is the place to go. She's far better at explaining the preserving side of things than I'll ever be, and honestly, half of what I know about not wasting a single courgette, I've learned by watching her.

Saturday, as ever, was bread day here, the whole week's cobs done in one go while the radio's on and the kitchen smells like something out of a proper bakery . It doesn't cost much either, a bit of flour and a bit of time, and it beats anything from a shop by a mile.

So that's our week so far, one plot down, one plot marvellous, a shed getting a second chance, and enough rain in two nights to make us wonder if we jumped the gun putting that plot to rest at all. We didn't, for the record. The other beds still need every drop we can get, and that ground was never coming back from where it had got to.

I'd love to know, has this summer forced any of you to give up on a bed or a crop earlier than you'd have liked, or has your patch had a kinder time of it than ours?

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.