One of the plots adjacent to mine is run on a community basis and I find it fascinating to see how well it flourishes. I would expect utter chaos but it’s a very well ordered plot. I haven’t spotted a Gantt chart pinned up on the shed wall with tasks and timelines allocated to individuals and I’ve never seen them huddled round a cuppa holding secretive planning meetings.

Last weekend though, G wandered over to my plot with a half eaten tuber in her hand. She was digging over an empty bed and unearthed what she thought was a Jerusalem artichoke, after rubbing it on her trousers she popped it in her mouth and gnawed off half it. It’s at that point she discovered it wasn’t actually edible so wandered over to seek my help in its identification. Turns out she was trying to enjoy M’s Dahlia collection.

She quickly went back and reburied the tuber and patted down the evidence of the freshly turned over soil but I have an inkling that she’ll be caught out when M gets back from his holidays.

As you know my parents visited a fortnight ago, after tea on Sunday, Dad and I cycled over to the lotty to see what we could achieve in the last remaining hour of daylight. Working in the same tiny section of the plot (a 4m row), we set off almost shoulder to shoulder, planting our respective crops. Dad stuck in a load of sweetcorn seeds and I popped in 3 tomato plants and just in front of these went the 3 heritage potatoes that we’d saved from lunch (prior to cooking of course).

I marked the spuds with 3 quite impressive hillocks but yesterday while I was down there, I could find no sign of my potato mounds. Instead though, I found a scattering of swede seedlings. Under interrogation my Dad admitted to seeing the potato hillocks but assumed they were just evidence of poor cultivation. He had flattened them out and sown his seed on top!

I will forgive him this once as he also put in a row of carrots and these have actually germinated, which is great news as my most expensive carrot in the world appears to have disappeared.

While on the subject of my Dad, I have to sneak in a photo of his rather substantial cauliflower. He dug this up before he came down and it fed 4 of us for 3 days.

That is my kind of vegetable, so I’ve been quick to gets some seeds in.

My parents arrived today, searching for grandkids as predicted.

Finding the flat childless, they were persuaded to walk along to the allotment in search of productivity. There I handed them a fork each and set them off at either end of the row of manky cabbages in a horticultural dig out. Mum won of course, by virtue of both reaching the middle first and rooting out the biggest pile of couch grass and bindweed.

By means of a reward I brewed them a cuppa char each, after all they had just driven all the way from Yorkshire and ought to be able to multi-task while watering the spuds.

The title applies to me and not the plot which continues to be satisfyingly productive as todays steamer contents will confirm.

I had a phone call today from my parents who were happy yet a little puzzled to find my blog mentioned in the Saturday edition of the Telegraph under the section: Best Allotment Blogs. The puzzlement was not so much due to the broadsheet recognition but rather the manner in which I was described - “Earthwoman is a working mother who posts beautiful pics and regular updates on her plot.”

Now I would like to reassure my folks that I have not been hiding any grandkids from them and as a note to any new readers I have to say I am resolutely childless, but I do post quite nice pics.

For Christmas this year I got a couple of packs of mushroom “seed” or more accurately, packs of wooden dowells impregnated with mushroom mycelium.

I went up to Yorkshire for a few days so I split them with my Dad and we had some fun trying to bash the little plugs into some freshly cut logs. We’ve got two varieties, oyster and shitake, can’t say I’m that fond of shitake but I’m hoping to acquire a dessicator before they crop, they should be pretty useful in soups after I’ve dried them out.

Back home I sunk them in the ground just in front of the shed, where I hope they’ll get sufficient shade to be happy. They apparently crop best in October but I can’t imagine they’ll take that long to issue some fruit.

I can’t remember which is which now.

While I was visiting my parents, I also raided their established pond and nicked some weed, pond water and a water lily. I think the allotment frog population should be jolly happy with the new residence.

The Great North Run travel arrangements put paid to all plans for allotment labouring this weekend but I was able to do a reccy of some East Yorkshire plots and pick up more veg growing tips.

I think my dad was having payback thoughts after all the hard work he did on my allotment but “unfortunately” it was raining and we all know its not a good thing to dig on wet soil! Shame. Doesn’t stop you from admiring the handiwork of others though. They have some pretty productive plots in Bridlington but they seem excessively keen on brassicas, who needs 50 spring cabbages and 20 plants of purple sprouting? I am only jealous of course, I love purple sprouting and was just a bit too late with the plot to source any plants.

I met a couple of allotment holders who were happy to demonstrate the art of seed collection and monster onion growing. I am now going to scrub all the dahlia seeds from my order form and go out on the scrounge for dead heads. I hope to have a patch of prize specimens this time next year. As for onions, I’ve been alerted to the labour required to grow a monster, no wonder I only end up with pickling onions. The trick seems to be to grow them from seed, then keep em watered, manured and fertilised. Can’t go wrong.

I acquired a little pack of spicy salad leaves this weekend so on my return to London I made a quick trip to the lotty to sow them. I was going to sow over my row of rocket as I’d given up hope of the 6 year old packet producing anything but when I arrived I was greeted by a flush of green seedlings. How satisfying! Now I have two rows of salad stuff for the autumn.

The weeds are up in my newly dug bed as well. I must have missed some of the couch grass roots and its too late to dig it over again now. I’ll have to hope I can exhaust them with repeated hoeing.

I’ve been trying out a new website called myfolia, I think it is still in the beta testing stage but it is worth keeping an eye on. You can set up unlimited gardens such as home and allotment and then record all your planting details and journal entries. I think its going to be a really useful tool for monitoring successes and failures. If you use flickr for your photos it will automatically link into these as well, very pretty.

My parents are heading back to Yorkshire today but we were up early enough to cram in a quick trip to the lotty. We needed to see if the shed contraption was still in existence and construct a brassica protecting cloche. Talking to a few locals on the site yesterday indicated that my biggest threat was going to come from pigeons, so huge netting contraptions are required.

My mum can’t resist the urge to dig when she’s spots a weedy patch so the trip was extended as she attacked the last remaining heap. Over the last few days we’ve only managed to escape from the allotment by whining insistently until my mum finally gives in and hands over the fork. Anyone with digging requirements would do well to try and attract my mum to their plot!

Me and dad filled the time by creating another architectural wonder and planting a few rows of onion sets. I’ve also snuck a row of rocket under the enviromesh - I had a small bag left over from my last allotment days, not sure I can hold out too much hope for a massive of crop from year 2001 seeds though.

All in all, I think it’s been an incredibly successful first week. My folks have been relentless labourers and shown that weedy patch absolutely no mercy. I couldn’t have hoped to have any crops planted this year if it wasn’t for their help.

We were up bright early to make the most of the late summer sunshine and to raid the allotment association shop of all its goodies.

After directing mum to the worst heap of weeds seen outside of the amazonian rainforest, dad and I headed off in search of cheap sheds. We arrived back a couple of hours later, with a fake shed box type thing, and found a somewhat exhausted and sunburned mother.

Here they are, modeling in front of the shedbox - very Richmond Gothic.

This was a really hard working day, we dug over most of this half of the plot, dad poisoned the other half and I planted myself a crop of plastic bottles.

Yay! My parents are here and what better way of recovering from a 51/2 hour car journey than spending an afternoon, grafting on your daughters allotment?

Check out the size of those monster cabbages!