When pregnant with Cubling, I resurrected an old hobby of mine. Knitting. It came back quite naturally when I went into Mandor's fabric store (for fabric mind you, specifically wedding dress fabric) and saw a knitted duck. It spellt the name of my then pregnant future sister in law on it. So I got the book with the duck pattern, the wool and the needles and got knitting.

Some months later, I was pregnant too, looked at the book and fancied knitting a blanket for Cubling. It took me all pregnancy, and I had to be desciplined towards the end to finish it in time. Of course, Cubling helped a bit by being 15 days late.

Once Cubling got better at sleeping, and after seeing some of the amazing pieces Jules has knitted, I got more and more into it and started a project for a baby-to-be. I didn't know if it was to be a girl or a boy, so left the knitting of the rim for button holes and buttons until after the birth, and had it ready for the first visit three weeks after R's birthday. It's the first time I gave as a present a piece which had taken me a lot of time and effort knitting, the duck was peanuts in comparison. As with Cubling's blanket, it is just very special to knit something for a not yet born baby. The piece grows as the baby grows and with luck, they meet just in time.
I decided to take a photo as a keepsake. Here it is.

It's a relatively simple pattern, the special bit is the hood which took ages but is just very cute. I made a mistake finishing the hood off, but actually like the way it turned out. Somehow it turned out to be much bigger than the 6-12 months size but nevermind, babies grow.

I think now I've reasonably warmed up and am ready for more complicated patterns.
My progress is slow because I only manage to knit occasionally, but the beauty of it is that there's no rush. I tried to get some knitting pattern books through bookmooch but no success, so the libraries were invaded. I'm particularly taken with a book by the name of Alterknits. It has such projects as using old T-shirts - cutting them into stripes and knitting a rug out of it. It stretches the idea of what yarn is, and the imagination with it.

I received my first organic box today.

While avid Cartside readers (cough cough) know that I'm a keen allotment gardener recently minus, well, an allotment, I've never actually ordered an organic box before. Now thanks to Cubling my general meanness is occasionally superseded with ethic and green conscience (which doesn't always match the contents of my purse) and to be fair, she is the best excuse to buy organic.

Not easy got sign up to a box scheme if you live in a tenement flat and work almost full time though. Our neighbours weren't exactly waiting for our deliveries either. But since our move, three months ago, there was really not a great excuse for not ordering a box.
Every Friday morning, the Bellfield Organics van passed our new home, reminding me that I still hadn't ordered an organic box. Of course I also chuckled because I was sure that the delivery in our tiny street must go to our neighbour who advertises the Scottish Green Party with a ceramic tile at her door.

My last excuse was that of the season. After all, there's only so much that can grown in winter in Scotland - and that tends to be the kind of vegetables I'm not exactly keen on. I do like my mediterranean peppers, courgettes and aubergines you see, and usually take flight at the sight of brussel sprouts, kale and, irgh, celery.

Thankfully, Bellfield Organics offer an order that excludes vegetables you don't want. How handy. Still, I felt slightly guilty to place an order minus kale, brussel sprouts and celery, surely making myself unpopular from the word go.

So today the box arrived. There are onions, sweet potato (yay, bring them on!), potatoes, leeks, apples, pears, cauliflower, cabbage. Not too bad at all, even if the quantities are nowhere enough to last us a week.
And then I discovered another vegetable. I think it's beet root. I'm not so sure because, hm, I don't like beet root, it's almost as bad as celery, so I don't see it often enough to instantly recognise it. I truly forgot about beet root, it's just not on my mind very often. So being a considerate mum, I checked in the Annabel Karmel book for beet root recipes - after all, beet root is very healthy. You wouldn't believe (actually, I would) there's not a single baby puree containing beet root. So I can't even try feeding it to Cubling pretending to do her good.

So then, my next order will exclude four vegetables. Ever heard of the vegetarian who doesn't like four vegetables? (hangs her head in shame)

After about five years, I'm giving up my allotment. It was a very hard and emotional decision, taken when Cubling was just a few weeks old. I truly enjoyed the days spent digging, weeding, planting, listening to birds, the rain and the leaves in the wind. I loved the sun on my back, the smell of the soil on my arms, and even the thorns in my fingers.   more »

The one thing I forgot about summer in Germany is Pflaumenkuchen. Plum cake. The only garden left over from the bit of town that used to be all garden when I was small still has plum trees, and they are ripe. My favourite colour, dark purple. Not my favourite fruit though. I remember a plum tree in our garden, lots of maggots in them, and I simply didn't like the taste of plums. Old ladies would make or buy plum cake for their high tea. At the baker's, plum cake was generally full of wasps, and I was sure one day it would sting me. I hated plum cake.

I was offered it today and politely ate it. It's not too bad actually. Especially with lots of cream on top, that really adds to it. If presented with a choice of cake, I still wouldn't pick plum cake. But if presented with the choice of plum cake or no cake, well, alright then.

And plum trees with ripe plums, boy they are beautiful!

To be honest, I felt it was a bit far into September to call this entry anything to do with gardening diary August. No it's mid September and autumn is knocking on the fence, and caused one piece of it to finally succumb to the way all things eventually go.

I had an interesting comment on an earlier entry, someone who also missed my writing, so here you go with a bit more on my favourite relaxation exercise. I missed the open day of Sir John Stirling Maxwell Gardens, for a good reason (although some sarcastic tongues may say that I would have done anything to avoid a renewed rope-in for an afternoon's worth of incessant dish washing, which was my luck last year, and still I got almost evicted) but I couldn't fail to notice the big sign at the plot closest to the entrance: "Not to be judged only by God" which was hilarious and sombre as well. It was actually a bit hard to make sense of because the line breaks made it read like God herself had written those lines.

Open day, you see, is also judgement day. I'm sure I had the biggest marrows of the year, but I'm not interested in competition of any kind when it comes to gardening, and I know darn well that I would never qualify for the best newcomer or anything to do with "best" for that matter. I do enjoy the jumble sale, homemade baking and jams and pickles, as well as the company of the special breed that plotholders are.

In particular, the gardener with the defiant sign is someone I really enjoy a wee chat with. He's a lovely guy, sociable, liked across the plots, and he has the most stunningly beautiful garden. Yet he is at odds with the committee. Now, I've never attended an AGM because I'm not in for the petty politics of alotments, I just want to spend my precious time digging. Still, it does strike me as odd that a gardener by heart the likes of him publicly denounces the committee, that I even get a rare comment on my blog from a fellow gardener on the eviction list.

Something is wrong here. I have every sympathy for efforts to keep the plots well maintained, and I also accept that I don't spend as much time in the garden as I would like to. In an ideal world. However, a) if there's a reason for a temporary lack of effort b) if the plot is actually planted and the weeds are only putting up an effort to get the upper hand but don't, and c) if the plots just very closely around me are actually worse ...
I must come to believe that it's personal.

I have no insight whatsoever what the problem is. This year, my plot was planted and mostly weed free, I sent a letter in advance to advise of an absence, and have by now remedied the ensuing weeds. Still, I'm worried that this isn't good enough, just as the afternoon spent stupidly washing dishes to get brownie points (time that I could have spent weeding) had no effect whatsoever.

I invite fellow Pollok Park gardeners to enlighten me about the hidden agenda of the committee and to conjointly express our concerns. At the end of the day, all I want to do is enjoy gardening. As a flat dweller, this is the only option I have to do that. I don't want to be harrassed though, not see it as a chore, but enjoy every minute of it. What's wrong with that?

I was away in July. I didn't actually do any gardening. But the weather was sunny, with plenty of rain, so the plants grew anyway. When I got back, I harvested a 3.5kg courgette (i.e. marrow) - the size and weight of a newborn baby! My gardening neighbours were all lined up to see the look on my face when I discovered it... They had left it there on purpose. And that was only the biggest one, the other three came to roughly the same weight again, 7kg of marrow to eat. Let's throw a marrow party! Any recipies?

I missed part of the strawberry harvest, which is a real shame, and the brokkoli went to flower or seed, but not to brokkoli. The wasps like it. Rocket and lettuce had gone to seed, kale only partially, and there's so much kale ready for harvest that I really really don't know what to do. I loathe it enough as it is, but those quantities!!!

Leek and raspberries aren't doing too well sadly, but herbs, apples, rhubarb and brambles do, and the tayberry bush that I almost killed off in transit last September has taken on impressive proportions. I've even got a flowering garden now, with lots of little splashes of colour.

It looks wild, but wild in a good sense. Plenty of work, but also plenty of harvesting.

Hope I don't bore you (me) with the latest sceal of my wonderful allotment. Sceal is Irish for story, and somehow that just sounded right. Sorry, that was an aside. What was I gonna say? Ah yes. Gardening.

In fact, it was backbreaking this month. You see the weather has been exceptionally good on weeds. Well, not JUST weeds, but weeds too. My kale is curly and strong, producing more disgusting food then I can consume with the best of intentions and pursuation (it is so fresh, straight from the garden, full of vitamins, iron and all that is good for me, you and everyone I know, what a bummer it tastes, like, hm, kale... only brussel sprouts beat the disgust in my face as I bravely eat it, nicely drenched in sweet chilli sauce in a futile attempt to water down the flavour).

My rocket rockets. I'm not sure if it's supposed to bloom, if it gets inedible if it blooms or what, but it's massive. Gigantic. Then there's the stuff that I bought with it in its infancy plant stage and planted. I think it's supposed to be a type of lettuce. It looks like ruby lettuce. It takes like concentrated mustard. Seriously, I prepared a lovely salad from the garden, with rocket (yummy), an oriental one (bland but nice) and this monster. The leaves are big, reddish, but the taste... it is pure poison. It is not listed in my gardening book. I never took a note of its name. It could be poison for all I know. It too has gone to bloom and I've decided that this means it's no longer edible. If it every was.

Oh, but the strawberries. They are the stars of the month. I've had over 2 kg so far, all nicely made into jam or luvly strawberry milk. So nice. There are so many of them that the slugs can't eat them all and we can share sisterly. The rhubarb is faithful as ever, and my other berries (Tay, Rasp and Black) are in their starting blocks. I hope they wait until I get back. I planted leeks as well, and I'm promised further veg for planting out this week, which will complete the planting stage or now. I'm also amazed at how well my herbs are doing - I planted the same set of herbs at home (indoors for easy access) and in the allotment. Strangely, the latter are about three times as big. As I never bother taking herbs home with me (or if I do, let them go to waste), I let the chives go to bloom this year. I love blue and lilac flowers, and really thought them much more attractive than using the chives. The bumblebees agreed.

Now, more time than I have is spent making jam. I'm running out of empty jam jars yet again, but usually my cry for help (bring empty jam jar and exchange for full one) is heeded. Last week, I finished the role of 76 jam jar labels. So 76 jars have been filled, labeled, eaten or given away as presents or fundraising tools. Is this scary or what?

The garden will have four weeks on its own devices. This is critical. I am on probation. Can anyone tell them to read this so they know how much it means to me????

This has been a hellish day. To make up for it, here's my long overdue allotment diary May (er, early June?). The idea is that thinking about my allotment, visualising it, is going to help me unwind after a 15 hour non stop day. Of course it would be better actually being in it, but at midnight that is simply not the best idea methinks.

There's nothing like forgetting the time in the garden. There is a community hall with a belltower closeby, and its tolls are the only counter for time. Sometimes, time is precious and I listen to the tolls, counting and checking once an hour. Never do I glance on a watch, mobile phone or any other time telling instrument. Other times, like yesterday, I let time slip by, forgot about it, until tiredness, thirst and lack of strength sent me home. The day was warm, sunny and sociable. My fellow gardeners opposite were there, plus a friend and her visitor, who multiplied the hands on hand by three. I now have a tidy and spiderfree greenhouse, transported the compost heap into the newly built compost bin (also courtesy of my friend's visitor, though another one at that), and tried to convince three toads who had taken on the compost heap as their abode to move alongside it to the shiny new bin. They didn't seem to convinced. I felt bad.

The weedy tree, the tree of weed, the wreed or tweed has been cut down to a stump, which now sprouts beautifully. Apple tree, strawberry plants and snow in summer are in full bloom, while sticky willy is winding its way through rosebushes and flowers. The ground elder is alive and well, irrespective of any irradication effort presented with. My vegetables have grown, and some have been eaten by slugs, who've been eaten by birds and toads.

The finishing touches after a month of spending most time weeding, the rest of the time losing young bean plants to a sudden onset of frost in May were done as well. A plant sale, organised by Our Lady of St George's Church in Cardonald (a grand name for a church that is effectively a combination of council house and nissen hut, hosting very lovely people indeed) and in aid of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and Amnesty International, didn't just almost raise £300, but also provided a timely opportunity to get lovely plants at low cost. More was added thanks to a plant sale in Maxwell Park, the posh version of the earlier sale, more expensive, and thankfully other plants.

The plant exchange among gardeners started as well, cherry tomato and courgette for me, snow in summer, strawberries and other flowers to my friends. The first rhubarb jam of the year donated to the plant sale, to contribute a tiny bit to the Cardonald fundraising efforts.

Et voila. My garden is now weedfree, full of goodness, with room for the next set of vegetables, a lovely and full compost bin, porch and toads. If they want to evict me now, I'm going to get very angry indeed. And there's two bags of rhubarb waiting to become jam or crumble. Let's bring on the BBQ season...

Our local park is full of life. You can watch foxes chasing rabbits, dogs chasing ducks, swans chasing dogs, seagulls chasing fish and humans chasing dogs. The latest addition to the house of fun are eight of the cutest cygnets there are on earth. And strangely, mummy and daddy are happy enough to let you feed them with bread crumbs. They watch over them proudly. And proud the can truly be. Couples and those wishing to be a couple stand and watch with smiles on their faces. How many of them may wish for cygnets of their own?

The world is different in the allotment.
I spoke to a housemarting and a robin. That's not so strange, I also speak to hamsters and dogs. But they don't usually talk back. The birds did. Honest. Had a big discussion to convince housmartin that nesting in the toilet is not a good thing, and that he'd be trapped most of the time, and not be a happy housemarting. Eventually, he agreed and flew out again.

Cheeky robin was very pleased with my digging efforts. It presented him with a lush dinner plate of maggots, worms, snails, slugs and spiders. As last year, my idea to knock down a weed tree (or should that be a tree weed? Well, it's a tree and it's a weed, it's massive, and grows incredibly fast and tirelessly) crumbled to bits when the robin sat down in it to watch me go about my gardening. He like the tree. I like him. I can't knock down that tree.

Red for tulips, yellow for daffodils, my favourite blue for hyacinths. And the yellow of the dreaded dandelions. My least favourite weed has to be the ground elder though. To dig it out, you have to dig out all vegetation, including the stuff you want to keep. And it still comes back. Next is a weed whose name I don't know. It's pretty, it flowers. Yellow. But it manages to grow from one end of the allotment to the other, and has roots that are indestructable. You simply can't get it out.

I planted 5 rockets, 5 red chards, 5 oriental lettuces. 15 kales, 15 broccolis, 15 cauliflowers. One marrow. One rosemary plant, as the old one has died. A box of sage, rosemary and thyme (no parsley, so sorry. don't like parsley). Lifted one big black bin bag of weeds. Admired apple tree, gooseberry (bigger than ever, still not a gooseberry in sight), raspberry plants. Was blown away by the difference a week made to my rhubarb: once a root with a few tentative splashes of green would be sticks, it was now a proper, big, rhubarb plant with enough of the good stuff for a first harvest. The first rhubarb crumble of the year. Bliss.

Must get rid of all the grass before it goes to bloom. It's not just a nuisance and counts as weed and may cost me my allotment (I'm on probation after all), but more importantly, I'm allergic to grass. badly. So if I don't pull it out, I suffer big time. I go into overproduction of snot which could water the plants in the dry season.

I have a new strategy to fight the unknown competitor for veg: netting. Put netting over all my newly plants, now let's see if anyone still eats them. Last year, all I planted disappeared without a trace within a few days. Not the hint of a stalk left. No fingerprints of slug, snail, rabbit, fox, magpie or squirrel. Judging by the number of chestnuts found when digging up the soil last week, the squirrels are definitely at home in my plot, and had conspired to grow a chestnut forrest. No way Jose!

My gardening neighbour gave me a cherry tomato plant. That's growing at home now, alongside peas, beans, herbs and courgette, for planting out later. In fact, my flat looks like a gardening centre at present. And my back feels like I've taken a bad beating. My arm even looks like it, but that's got nothing to do with gardening, but rather running and being clumsy, because stupidly jogged right into a fence that was supposed to protect me from falling into my favourite river (the Cart that is in case you were wondering - I don't just live beside it, garden beside it, but also run alongside it), toppled over in an impressive twirl and softly landed cross legged on a bed of leaves.