NARMIN'S ALLOTMENT THERAPY (9)

Narmin Mohammadi, a traveller who occasionally works in London as a successful fashion PR, also takes time to write about her experiences in her city allotment. Here is her latest installment:

I can't believe its August already. I love this time of year. The weather has usually settled by now so you know what the rest of the Summer will be like, and Mother Nature is at her most bountiful. Everything is growing and you see that all those hours of digging and weeding have been worth it.

Not everything has gone to plan but that's the beauty of growing your own. Seeds that have produced seedlings before have not grown, newly planted seedlings have been munched by slugs despite protection, grown plants not producing any fruit (one of the courgette plants this year just produced flowers before stopping growing), and the entire tomato crop being obliterated by blight in the space of a week.

On the other hand its been fantastic to experiment with new varieties. My 'golden' beetroot has been fantastic (great to look at as well as eat) although smaller than I thought it would be, the 'magic' purple French beans never fail to impress everytime they turn green when I cook them, and my white carrot has had me looking and eating in wonderment.

As a result I've become a fierce protector of my plants. White fly almost got the better of my cabbages and kale but I have been determind not to give in. So I started spraying the plants twice a day with a weak solution of washing up liquid and water, before and after work.  There were days when I questioned why I was getting up at 6am to go and do this, but I have to say that once I got there that early in the morning it was worth it. The silence and stillness were perfect for setting me up for the day. The spraying became a kind of meditation. And its almost worked. I'm down to spraying once a day, and the little white monsters are almost gone.

And I almost look forward to pulling off slugs from my plants after rain. There is a squeamish moment before I make contact, but when I see them all fat and  bloated after a good munch I go in and pull them off. Its strangely satisfying. No pest is going to get the better of me!