The Proceeds of Crime

There are quite a few remote barns and isolated farm buildings in the countryside around our village. Last year the police raided a few of these places and found large scale cannabis production was taking place in hidden rooms above false ceilings.

Some arrests were made and the police seized the horticultural equipment which was being used in the cultivation of cannabis plants. The Court ordered that the equipment must be either destroyed or donated to local good causes.

Our allotment association falls into the category of local good cause and so arrangements were made for the drug barons' gardening equipment to be distributed to allotmenteers this morning. I gratefully received a very large Stewart propagator with lid, a hefty container of liquid organic plant and vegetable bio-feed, and a sachet of fertilizer which, by all accounts, is plant rocket fuel which retails at about £10 a packet.

Now, what to grow? Probably best not to start with cannabis plants!

I heard this week that we have had the first theft from our allotment site. A wheelbarrow left outside on a plot overnight had gone the next day. I'd like to think that the distribution of seized gear this morning has gone some way towards balancing the scales of justice.

Propagation

Today I have started to propagate my first batch of seeds. I have sown french beans, spring onions, maincrop onions, dianthus and marigolds into a couple of propagators in the spare bedroom. Fern has also sown some strawberry seeds. I have also put a batch of onion seeds in the coldframe outside and will compare their progress with the onions in the propagator.

The dianthus and marigolds are intended to be used as "companion planting". The idea is, I think, that if I plant them in my veg beds they will repel insect pests. Either that or they will attract the pests to their flowers and in doing so keep the pests off my crops. Or are they supposed to attract the good insects? I'm not sure. If the theory doesn't work at least the flowers will add a bit of colour to the plot.