Well, to be precise, the barley landed last Wednesday, but the hot spell we’ve been having, in spite of being perfect weather for sowing barley, isn’t conducive to actually doing any work. Add to that the long Easter weekend barbequing and generally not being in the house, I only managed to get the barley in on Easter Monday, but, thanks be, in perfect weather and in plenty of time. However, the irony of not getting any barley sown because of boozing in the sun didn’t escape me.
So one of the allotments in the town plots has been given over to barley. My absence from the allotments had been noted, but I really did need the good weather… though I’ll be known as the fair-weather gardener now. I’ll have to put in some rainy hours to put paid to that. Having said that, while every other gardener is labouring over the lettuce, or caring for the courgettes, I’ve two months till I need to do anything with mine. Maybe I’ll take a chair down there… watch the world struggle by.
My wonderful barley, coated and treated with something nasty, means I should have a trouble free germination, with barley resistant to almost every disease known to a farmer. It’s guaranteed not to catch TB, scabies, the lot. However, this blessing took an interesting turn the morning after I’d sown, when I woke up in a cold sweat, worried I’d poisoned the avian population of Moville. Apocalyptic images of bird carcasses littering the streets, newspaper headlines scaremongering the public, top military scientists get involved, and upon discovering the source of the problem, point their combined, accusative finger at me; well it got me out of bed early enough to get back to the allotment to add some bird deterrents before my nightmare vision came to pass.
As usual, either no picture, or one doctored from the internet. Never mind, soon I'll be posting pictures of the 'Adventure in Barley' up in the Challenge page. But for now, please close your eyes and imagine some dirt with nothing growing in it, and you'll be on the same page as me.
Anyway, after that week, I think I deserve a pint. And I'll get one precicely 5 months from now.
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