Always rooting for autumn

Two whole months, whoops! I hope that you are all well and have been enjoying the sunshine. The blogging drought ends right along with the heatwave we have been basking (wilting) in - a few nights ago the clouds that had gathered tantalizingly overhead for three days broke in a rare show of thunder and lightning, our only storm of the past 12 months that I was sad had to end. We made the most of it, throwing open the windows to let in the loud rumbles and newly fresh air.

The rain has continued on and off for the past few days; the laundry has continued to pile up. The garden is loving the downpours and everything is looking newly green and perky after weeks of sparse watering. The water butt was completely empty for the first time in four years, leaving me with no excuse to not clean it out.

Perhaps it was the heat that had me in a dither, but the last few weeks I haven't felt like doing much of anything. I enjoy the heat up until a point - the point at which I really REALLY don't like it anymore. I feel the same way about high summer as I do about the depths of winter- oppressed. I find myself starting to consider a knitting project, to see if I can bring cooler days along prematurely - or at least pretend the heatwave isn't happening. I dream of pumpkin cheesecake. I want the elderberries and the rose hips to have ripened. The summer really feels like the years end to me, with late September the time of new beginnings and new projects; and I really want that freshness and newness now.

Still, the only way through the blahs is through them. We have been busy with birthdays and days out and family visits which have been lovely. Things have settled into a nice rhythm since school broke up and I am planning lots of things to fill up the days with. All of those things that are so much easier in summer - decorating, eating out of doors, trips to the beach and barbeques are all on the menu, along with lots and lots of laundry. We have weddings to attend and a summer holiday to go on. My very introverted self is going to be exhausted at the end of all of this, no matter how much I enjoy these things at the time. I look forward to the cooler days of autumn and a new knitting project on the needles as just reward.

It's going to be a long hot summer. 

Squashhenge

Spring has well and truly sprung today. This should have happened sometime in early February, but we have shared the crazy mad weather that the rest of the country has put up with this year. But today, finally - today was a fine day to spend an afternoon on the allotment. In flip flops. The highlight of my week? The moment this morning that I realised that (six weeks late) flip flop season was upon us. 

High on sunshine, we have been so bold as to plant out our squash plants. This is winter squash 'Jaspee de Vendee' from Chase Garden Organic Vegetable Seeds, started off indoors in newspaper pots as Cucurbits don't generally appreciate having their roots disturbed. If a heavy frost should kill them all in the next week, we still have time to get some more going through early May. According to the many enticing stories about this squash I have gathered on the Web, I am to expect a bumper crop of sizable, super sweet and tender squashes that are ideal for desserts. The worst that anyone has said of them so far is that they are a little ugly for a squash - probably not one for glorious autumnal photo montages then.

We didn't bring anything to mark their position and so instead utilised our plot's most abundant resource - stones. Each plant sits in a foot-wide circle(ish) of stones making them noticeable enough that we won't tread on them. This had the pleasing side effect of allowing the watering we gave them to stay put and seep into the soil around them instead of running off in all directions; and it also gives us a nice target area to heap on the compost over the season.

I love squashes and pumpkin. I think it has as much to do with my love of autumn as for their delicious creamy sweet flavour. I love the fact that you can use every part of them from the skin to the seeds. I love the fact that you can put them on a cool shelf and they will carry you through to February. Protection and watering concerns aside, building little stone monuments to honour them seems a perfectly productive use of my time (you know, just in case I am wrong and that there are in fact supernatural pumpkin spirits to placate). These plants will be mollycoddled like no other.

And,  once again - it is flip flop weather, finally. Which means summer is only a month or so away. And then, it will be autumn! Plenty of good things to do and see and eat between now and then, followed hopefully by lots of squash filled baked goods.

What is going on in your garden?

This guy is awesome

Portsmouth isn't South Central LA (thankfully - I don't like the heat!) but we have food poverty, food deserts and abandoned land just the same. I think this guy has the right idea; and he knows how to spread it:

Seed viability and floating seed.

This is Achocha 'Fat Baby' seed. It was given to me a few weeks ago by a friend who grew it in 2011. It fruited prolifically and she managed to kept quite a bit of seed. These seeds have moved house twice and probably suffered a few other stresses in their journey to me. One rudimentary test for seed viability is to place your seed in a cup of water. If they float, the theory is that air and therefore moisture has got into the seed and it is no longer viable. If they sink, they should germinate.

When I set them in water, all of them rose to the surface. A few hours later they were still floating and I was going to throw them away, but my flighty brain took me from the kitchen for a few hours and they were left to float. 12 hours later, I came down to a jar of water with plump seeds resting on the bottom. Why not give them a chance? 10 days later and we have six plants and a few more on the way.

They will be perfect to scramble along the back fence of the community garden (should we get the go ahead) and I was planning to let them ramble across the shed on the allotment. I was given a few Achocha fruits by the very same friend a few years ago and they were good. They look a little intimidating, pale lime green and covered in soft rubbery spines. Raw I wasn't too fussed about them, but sliced up in a stir fry they were good and I agree with everyone else who says they are a bit like green peppers. They are also low fuss rampant vines that fruit prolifically for very little effort. What's not to like?

I suspect that this seed floating test is a little like 'i before e except after c' - that is, a not particularly useful rule. I will be floating the next few varieties I sow to test this. I am certainly glad I didn't throw this batch out based upon that first day of floating.
 
Achocha seeds are available from The Real Seed Catalogue (near the bottom of the page).

Good busy

I’ve been busy. Actually, we have been busy.

I first saw these videos months ago. Incredible Edible Todmorden came on my radar years ago and I was inspired to do something. And like most of the things that catch my attention and inspire me to do something, my brain filed it neatly away out of sight and mind, lest I actually have to DO something. Introverted me is not a starter of things in public forums.

I saw Incredible Edible mentioned a few more times. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall visited Todmorden, as did Alys Fowler and a few news crews. Other similar projects cropped up around the country and I heard about those. And then a few weeks ago, we saw another video. And my extroverted Dearly Beloved one’s brain tripped a switch. 'We should do that here' said he; and off he toddled to B&Q to buy some currant bushes.
We bought more fruit bushes, grubbed up herbs from an allotment, bought even more bushes. And we went out under cover of darkness and planted out a public bed.

This was all just 3 weeks ago and since then things have escalated to the point of meetings with the council, talk of creating a community garden - and my living room being completely overrun with seed trays. I am delighted that Nick now chews my ear off as much as I do his regarding all things horticultural.

This is an idea whose time has come in my city. Flower beds are being turfed over as part of cost cutting exercises. The allotment waiting list is still growing from a ridiculous national high. The food bank is serving ever more people. This year there are national and international portents of crop failure and another bad year for agriculture across the world. And of course we have the small matter of the financial apocalypse that we have teetered on the edge of for half a decade now. Half a decade. Wow.

So, this post is a plug - not for Pompey’s project, though if you are local, please get involved. Rather, it is a plug for the Incredible Edible idea in general. It is a plug for your local council beds, your communities, your plates and local food culture, for bees and butterflies, for those who really want to grow healthy, tasty food - and of course, for a world that is waking up to some uncomfortable limits. You don’t have to go big, you don’t have to go it alone. You can find out more at The Incredible Edible Network. It is now an international movement, so no excuse if you are not in Blighty ;)

Also, please forgive the flurry of gardening related posts that are likely to follow this - I am a woman obsessed, which is handy, because I have a lot to learn in a quite a short amount of time. 

The seeds of thrift

This is a musing on all the things I learned the hard, expensive way over the last few years, about that most frugal garden ingredient - seed. Tubers, bulbs, roots are a whole different animal and I am not confident my pocket is tamed enough in regard to those creatures to offer any solid advice. But seeds...seeds are simple. Once you have several years of mistakes behind you, of course.

It begins long before the first sowing. Gardening catalogues are promises of luminous shiny wonder (that you can buy! Heaven!) - and the promise of purchasable shiny wonder is ruinous to the pocket. They usually arrive during the gardening lull of winter, which makes them even more potent. So, take a step back and breathe. Think about the things you actually like to eat or look at; and then narrow it down further to things you will actually be able to grow in the space, soil and climate you have available. Even better, before you buy, see what seeds you can scavenge from gardening friends. Later on, when you have seed of your own, you can participate in seed swaps in your community or even online.

Where to buy seed is an interesting question. I have had excellent germination rates from cheap value ranges  and I have had very poor rates from some of the large seed merchants. I am not convinced that branding and price indicates good viability and so I would suggest starting with a few of the cheaper ranges if you are not particularly concerned by variety.  I wonder if anyone has ever tried to cash in on money back guarantees when they have a particularly poor show? There are also ethical considerations such as organic accreditation and heirloom rescue that the are only taken into consideration by a a handful of smaller niche companies; as always there is a balance to be struck between personal resources and personal ethics.

Once you have your seeds, before you even open the packets - you need to know how to look after your seed. I really didn't realise that even mild but frequent temperature fluctuations were ruinous to seed viability. With the exception of a handful of species, seed can be kept for more than one season if properly stored. There are several handy tables online if you Google 'seed viabilty table', many of which contradict each other and will eventually be contradicted by your own personal experience. The basics of seed storage are as follows:

Cool - In the fridge (not freezer!), or cool spot of the house. Too high a heat will dry seeds out too much, requiring special coddling to get them to germinate. 

Dry - I save those little silicon sachets from parcel deliveries and keep one or two in my tin. Fridges especially encourage condensation.

Dark - The fridge once again, or a cupboard, or an opaque tin.

Organised - Securely stored and labelled with variety, production/collection and sowing dates.

Consistent - All of the above conditions need to remain constant.

Unless space is really at a premium, don't be afraid of sowing 'expired' seed, but sow them more generously than you otherwise would to increase the chances of some seedlings developing. I have Tomatillo 'Violet' seeds that expired 3 years ago and 2 out of 16 seeds I planted this year have germinated. Hopefully I will be able to save more seed if those two seedlings survive. Which they should, because this gardener's shadow is cast across them at least 10 times a day, checking in on them like an anxious new parent.

Saving seed is advanced horticultural magic. The book Back Garden Seed Saving by Sue Stickland is a very good introduction to the pleasures and problems of this topic. I am halfway through and recommend it if you want to save your own seed. Whilst for most varieties it is isn't difficult, some easily cross pollinate or need to be encouraged to set seed. We save the easy ones on a small scale - a sunflower head, a couple of lettuce plants and rainbow chard, a few tomatoes left on the vine and a handful of bean pods. This will save money in the long run and obviously has many other benefits in terms of genetic diversity and species resilience.

I know all of this sounds very simple, but these are all mistakes I made. We grew 4 different courgette varieties just because they were productive - and neither of us really like courgettes. I took the seed tin out in the rain for a few minutes and the resulting condensation turned several packets to mouldy spores. I left unlabelled, open packets in the bottom of our seed tin and came back to a mess of unidentifiable seeds. All expensive, frustrating mistakes when you add them up that I have learnt my lesson from. So, whilst I hope I have all this seed stuff down, is there something I am yet to learn?

Useful weeds

Exhibit A:

This plant is the bane of our allotment. None of our more seasoned allotment neighbours ever identified it past 'THAT BLOODY THING!'. I suspected it was some sort of mallow, but all I and anybody else care to know about it is how to fully remove the two foot long, furcated root to stop it coming back month after month. Top tip? I have taken to digging as deep as I can and cutting the root with pruning shears followed by (repeatedly) pulling out the resulting weak stemmed plant that pops up a few weeks later. I hope that the root will eventually run out of juice and wither away.

I finally identified this plant having bought a gardening weekly with a free packet of Malva sylvestris 'Merlin' seeds. I have developed the habit of running any plant I cultivate or that piques my interest through the Plants for a Future Database. This is an excellent way to assess usefulness, adaptations and most importantly to me, omnomableness. In this case the pictures allowed me to identify the 'mallow' on my allotment - I didn't realize the very pretty flower that I planned to sow was a more ornamental variety of the very same weed that has been the bane of my life for two years.

The common mallow, according to PFAF, is used to treat coughs and respiratory infections. I wish I had known that before I worsened my thick, irritating cough trying to dig this very plant out on a cold, damp day last week. It is also edible and can be used to thicken soups and stews. I did try a tea made from a handful of steeped leaves. An hour or so later, for about two hours, my cough did indeed loosen up, not unlike the effect of taking an expectorant cough medicine. Placebo or otherwise I do not mind. I can also vouch for the fact that this plant does indeed taste like young spinach leaves and I wish I had at least harvested the tops of the plants that I pulled out.

My cough remains and my experiment is cut short, unfortunately, but I have learnt something new. My interest in the medicinal properties of plants is growing again and perhaps this is something I will look into further over the coming year. I also suspect that it is a plant I will forage for as opposed to intentionally cultivate. Perhaps my pretty Malva sylvestris seeds will find their way onto an abandoned plot somewhere in the city, ready for future use. 

Hope shoots eternal

Ah, the best laid plans...

My plan to get on top of the allotment in January and February hit a little wall what with me being incapacitated for much of that time. Then it was a gradual build to regular activity levels, getting back to work, slaying the laundry pile monster. Finally, this week, we made it to the allotment. With the help of a good but (usefully) weird friend who actually likes the backbreaking work of digging over other people's allotments, we started work. At first it was a case of turning up, dropping to the weedy stony ground and weeping for a few minutes, before clearing the weeds, moving the bed edges to their new positions and trying to work out where things will go.  A flask of sweet tea helped, as did a lot of layers. And now? Now things are looking promising.

The design is also changing a little. The original plan, like the one before it, was a little too...formal. I am not a particularly orderly person and yet I insist on creating these straight edged, rigid plot designs that very rarely work for us.  I certainly don't need to waste time laying marked paths when we can just walk over the grass. here will also be lots more flowers, herbs and pretty things than previously, because life is too short not to grow dahlias. I swear my hope for this garden can never be fully extinguished, which amazes me - I am not an optimist at heart. Every year my hopes for this plot (and for my horticultural skills) spring up from the rotting stump of last year's failures and I think that this, this is the year I will get it right.

Somewhere under the surface are oca and jerusalem artichokes ready to be harvested.  The rhubarb crowns we planted last year have survived. The two gooseberries that have run riot over the last two years have been opened up a little, the thicket of oddly spurred tangled branches cut back to leaf buds that I hope will grow in the intended direction. A bulb of last year's failed garlic crop that we inadvertently left behind sprouted and the baby plants are now planted out with a fresh layer of compost. And the compost - the two hot bins that we built last year have rotted down to a quarter of their original volume - a rich, dark, earthy compost. All good things on which to build.

So then - this is most definitely the year.

In the garden

Firstly, who would have thought that Ocado could deliver gardening tools with your store cupboard essentials? We put an order in as we received a coupon (treat them mean to keep them keen - if you don't do a shop for a month or so, you get money off vouchers to tempt you back. I spin Ocado and Sainsburys against each other and do a bulk shop with one of them every few months, always with a voucher). We have restocked the pantry and saved ourselves a trip to the garden centre - which is good because we would have come back with a trowel and fork - and a rose arch, some blackberry canes and an olive tree...perhaps some pretty solar lights too?

I haven't actually done any gardening today. Instead I sat in the garden soaking up the sunshine. I am off of work and feeling a little under the weather. It was mild and sunny today and I think it has done me some good.  I have begun work on a doily with some yellow gold Lyscordet I found for twenty pence a ball in a fabulous new secondhand shop last week. I haven't crocheted lace for a longtime, it is a fairly frivolous activity and I am all about the productivity in light of The Make List (Ambitious much)? On the other hand doilies are pretty and I am unwell...

No seeds were sown today, but I did fix up the mini greenhouse a couple of days ago in readiness for February. The rhubarb is making excellent progress which is cheering:

The rest of the day I loafed. I hope you enjoyed your day.

* * * * * *

Welcome to my newest follower Dewberry. Thank you for visiting!

Today, it began

...which is why I am finding the time to post twice today, to let out some of the sheer joy that I would otherwise buckle beneath.

Something in the air changed recently. I don't have set dates for beginning these things, I just have a feeling, when it's time, it's time. Inspite of the snow, of the biting wind, the greyness of it all...my bones said it was time to begin. The sun is returning, even if it is schlepping a little, unseen, through these dull January skies. 

Modestly, with just one small seed tray in the propagator on the windowsill, we have begun to sow our seeds. There are tomatillo 'violet', aubergine 'early long purple 3' and the last 3 seeds of chilli 'pretty in purple' (all very colour coordinated I now notice). These are all indoor or patio crops, though I might try the tomatillos on the allotment and see what happens. Usually I start things too early - tens of tomato seedlings vying for window side seats and greenhouse space that doesn't exist, months before they can be planted outside. My bones may be telling me to wait, but my brain is high on the promise of spring and has me throwing nightshade seed around like rice at a wedding. This year, mindful modest effort, in this and many other things.  Enthusiasm is a double edged sword.

I had intended to start a few broad beans and leeks in the mini greenhouse, but I inadvertently created a mini pond with it by leaving it out all winter to collapse under the weight of rain and snow. I am too much of a weakling to attempt draining it in this horrible weather. Weakling me didn't even stay outside to do the messy work of sowing, but instead brought the soil to the seed inside the house, sitting at the dining table with a mug of tea to set about my work. This will of course teach me not to leave garden equipment out all winter (and to at least strap it down if I do). I will learn my lessons from here on in.

 Mindful modest effort - with a smattering of exuberant enthusiasm - always.

Organising seeds

Today I spent an hour organising the seed tin. The tin starts every year beautifully ordered and usually ends it in a state of utter disorder. This year as you can see, it isn't too bad - showing just how much time it spent resting on the shelf, untouched, last year .

I am ashamed to admit that many of the packets have been mistreated. Almost all of the flower seeds are spoilt after the tub they were in was left out in the rain. Millions of years of genetic heritage and hundreds of generations of horticultural tradition and I leave them out in the rain to sprout and decay in their packets. These were obviously the first to be culled from the collection. Of the seeds that escaped being left out in the rain many were half open, spilling their contents into a unique seed mix in the bottom of the tin.

Next to go were the out of date seeds. I've previously kept 'expired' seeds for a couple of years past their sow-by date and have had some success germinating them.  This year I have kept a single out of date packet of Purple Calabash tomatoes - a very ugly but delicious tomato that is my all time favourite. I shall try and germinate the five or six seeds that are left and save some of the seed for next year.

Thankfully, 2 packets of flower seeds survived. Firstly, sunflower seeds collected from our biggest sunflower head last year. Secondly:

The seed sachet survived intact even if the sowing and growing information is lost. I love this plant. I bought one the year we moved in, planted it in deep shade (I really had green thumbs back then) and watched it struggle valiantly on for a few months before it succumbed to mildew. I have never seen a plant for sale since and finally invested in the seed last year. The two seedlings I managed to germinate were killed in the slugpocalypse of 2012. I feel I owe it to this pack of seeds to pass on it's genetic line.

This year I have gone back to organising the seed sachets by family followed by earliest sowing date. As first sowings are made, the sachets can be moved to the back of their family until we come full circle next January, or moved forward a month or so ready for a second sowing. Each family currently has it's own tub - all of those Chinese takeaways dishes stretched to full value.

Despite repeated promises to the contrary every single year, I know that I will be buying more seeds. Browsing the catalogue that arrived last week (self sabotage in action - why did I ever open the thing? See how I could never live up to my promise?) I stumbled across a plant that promises to solve a several decade long lifestyle shortcoming (more on that when the seed arrives) - and well, it would be wrong to order just one packet of seed wouldn't it?

We are going to need a bigger tin when the new seeds arrive, but everything is now in order. And so tomorrow the very best bit begins.

Plotting

We might have neglected the allotment a little over the last few months. By which I mean we haven't even set foot on it since mid August. 

There was so much wrong in our relationship with our plot - it's too far away, we have to drive to it, we didn't have any spare cash to throw at it, we were really really busy, Gus hated it and would run off, Elsa would start grumbling within ten minutes of arriving...the list of negatives was quite long. We almost gave up the lease in December when the renewal notice came through the door.

At the very last moment, I panicked, called up and payed our dues with hours to spare. The thought of being in the city without a patch of actual earth to cultivate was a little too much. Instead, I accepted our failure over the past two years, took a deep breath and set to work rethinking the whole thing.

The original plan was ambitious and maximised the amount of growing space. Lots of bed space, narrow paths and not much else - fabulous. But it didn't work. Growing space is only so important to actual productivity it turns out.

We have a new plan.  A large part of our problem was that in an attempt to maximise growing space, we forgot the most important things - space to sit, space to throw down a blanket for a picnic, or a tent for the very sunniest and rainiest days. We forgot the people who make the garden.

We visited the plot yesterday. Elsa was happy to eat clods of earth and watch us work. I think we have a real allotment baby toddler there. Which is good, because we have much work to do...

whoops.

Good things might come to those who wait

Remember these?:

Two years on, those dozens of seeds of all different varieties are now:

Five in number, three horse chestnuts and two hazels. Not quite the lush forest of edible fruit and nut trees in the making I had hope for. During the very cold and wet winter of 2010/2011, most of the seeds rotted in their pots. When I sifted through the soil, just a handful remained and had rooted, a few of which dies in early sapling-hood. So, onwards and upwards:

Most of these are collected from native stone fruits we have consumed over the summer. There are cherries and plums, plus a few European peaches and nectarines. My mum and her sister grew a peach from a peach stone as children in their south London garden. Almost forty years later we went to visit it and it was still there, in full flower. It had been known to fruit and regardless it was a beautiful tree.

We will collect a few more seeds this year on our autumn forages, some elderberries and damsons and rose hips. This year I will take more care to prepare them and plant them out at a more opportune time, following this guide. These little saplings will be planted out next year. After that, if all goes to plan, we will not be in Portsmouth, but in Norfolk. Perhaps we will be transporting a whole tray of tree seedlings with us. Perhaps we will just have two or three. Watch this space.

Always better than nothing...

something.

I have no idea what variety they are, the plants were given to me. I almost refused them. I am so glad I brought them home and made room after all. We have had a mini harvest every day for the last few days as they ripen.  Growing different varieties in different conditions - accidental resilience for the win.

Edible City

I found this via Gavin's blog and felt it deserves to be shared far and wide. The whole film is available to watch online and is worth an hour of your time. If you are struggling to find your grow food/change the world mojo after the ridiculous weather/diamondjubilee-London2012-pimms-teaparty season/grinding recession we have had this year, this might just help a little.

Our own growing project isn't going so well. A dry spring, followed by hot damp weather brought blight to our plot. No tomatoes, no potatoes. We have a few tomato plants in the back garden that fingers (and toes) crossed will reach maturity. The strawberries were decimated by slugs and the garlic crop failed to bulb before the stalks fell. I have seriously lost my own mojo. Too little time and a plot too far away to visit daily, plus torrential rain for weeks on end that has brought out the 10,000 gastropods of the slugocalypse. Urgh.

Corn still stands and sweet potatoes are translating all the rain into lush vegetation and hopefully some tubers. And nothing, NOTHING - not drought nor gales nor torrential rain- will dissuade the jerusalem artichokes from doing their thing. So all is not lost, even when it feels as though it might well be. There will be some overwintering veg courtesy of a plug plant pack we purchased last year too late in the season to be dispatched. There are plans afoot to cover the rest of that ground in thick pond liner over the winter, ready to hit the barren ground running in spring with mulch and plug plants. Next year, once again, will be better.

How does your garden grow?

Rhubarb ketchup

So...that was a long week. Instead of periodically dropping in and promising posts, I figured I might as well actually write one and post it.

Rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb...I am having mixed results with rhubarb plants. For a hardy, easy going perennial I really have managed to balls it up. Of the two expensive fancy variety crowns that we planted on the allotment last year, one died and rotted within the month and the other did very little all year and hadn't emerged by the end of March this year (which is late around these balmy parts). I bought two more crowns, cheap common variety ones this time, and dug new holes close to the first two. In the process I discovered one budding crown deep under the surface - I say one, I had turned it into four with my fork by the time I realized what it was. The two new crowns remain on the plot and appear to be doing well and two of the four bits of root that I managed to split are now growing incredibly well in large pots in the yard, in complete shade. Who knew?

So, no personal harvest this year. However, our allotment neighbours have abandoned their plot, and the path separating us from them. They have a huge rhubarb patch that has gradually encroached across the paths and into our broad beans. So call this a contractor's fee for freeing up the overgrown paths on their behalf:

I may have a terrible track record at cultivating it, but I can pilfer it with the best of them. I love it! It's pink! And really, really tart and slightly poisonous tasting, which adds a little thrill to the eating experience. We brought back a lot of rhubarb, the back seat of the car was stuffed too. We gave some away which made barely a dent in it. The last two weeks have consequently been rhubarb appreciation fortnight in this house. Some was dipped in sugar and munched raw, but there is only so much you can eat like that before you succumb to kidney failure. To the preserving pan!


Rhubarb ketchup

Makes approximately 2 pints

6 cups rhubarb, coarsely diced
2 onions, diced,
I clove garlic
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 cups white sugar
1 cup spirit vinegar*
1 cup water
1 rounded tsp ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 bay leaves
1 rounded tsp sea salt

*I confess I used wine vinegar, as that's all I had. In my professional opinion as a first time ketchup maker, spirit vinegar would have tasted better. Use that.

Bring all of the ingredients to the boil then simmer for about one hour:

When everything has softened and the rhubarb has disintegrated to goo, remove the bay leaves. Remove the pan from the heat and use a stick blender to puree the pulp. Return the pan to the heat (if necessary) and simmer gently until the puree reaches a ketchup consistency. The bubbles and stirring will leave a trace on the surface when it reaches the right consistency. 

Bottle into hot sterilized jars (bottles if you have them...we don't).

Run out and buy chips to test as a matter of urgency...

It's good. Two pints of ketchup should get us through to autumn, when I will probably have another tomato failure with which to whip up another batch of  Ugly Tom's. I am actually kind of hoping for a failure, if I am being honest, with just half a jar left and a whole lot of summer to get through.

Other stuff was done with rhubarb in this house. Those tales of rhubarb are for another day. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying the pink stuff before its season is completely over. 

Tomato woe

I know that I should have staked them the moment I planted them in the ground, but The Boy and his dad were grumpy and whining (yes, actually whining) to go home and get food. So we left the sturdy, perfectly formed tomato plants that I had carefully nurtured for so many months to put down roots unsupported. Unfortunately, I didn't personally get back to the allotment in the ensuing fortnight of hot moist weather to continue my nurturing - but boy did they put down roots in that time. Which meant that not only were the tomato plants not staked, they were also never pinched out, resulting in lots of foliage and few flower trusses. When I did get to them I removed as much of the excess foliage as I could, but quite frankly couldn't tell which branch belonged to which plant.

Unfortunately, because the plants are sprawling along the paths and over one another, the fruit that has set are dangling close to the ground and are being eaten by slugs, or are failing to ripen for lack of sun. We will be picking green tomatoes rather early this year and that our harvest from 10 plants (that could have kept us in tomato sauce almost all winter) will be measly. Sigh.

The tomato tale is painful, because home grown tomatoes are of course the very best flavour in the whole garden - and the few handfuls that we have brought home are delicious, a teaser of what could have been. I wish I could say that the woe stopped at the tomato bed - but it did not. The 2011 allotment tale is full of failures, of could haves and should haves and would haves.

There has been, and continues to be, a lot of empty ground, that could have produced something, anything, other than dust and weeds. Sigh.

There have been, and continue to be, a whole lot of weedy patches amongst the crops we did actually get into the ground. Sigh.

Thankfully, there have also been; and hopefully will continue to be; some small victories. We never come home empty handed, in fact we usually come home with a tote bag full of edible, organic veg (even if it is usually always some combination of beans, chard, beetroot and courgette). We have even eaten a few meals made entirely from our own allotment produce. We have a salad drawer full of new potatoes and two handsome and pungent braids of garlic hanging in the kitchen. The squash are fattening up nicely and the potatoes and oca are rampant. This week we finally sowed some late root crops. We have learnt a few lessons, such as quit your whining and stake the god damn tomatoes to never put off for tomorrow what needs to be and can be done today.

This year is OK and there is nothing we can do to improve that. Next year will be better and that is where our energy now needs to go. Sigh...of relief.

Grow sunflowers

We planted out five or six sunflowers on the allotment - a couple of giants that we are just starting to flower; and some of a smaller multi headed variety that are well into their flowering stage. Sunflowers are incredibly low maintenance and you get a lot of bang for your buck. They attract beneficial insects, add a cheerful splash of colour  - and eventually bear a nutritious (and relatively expensive to buy) food crop. What could be better than that?

It took minutes to separate the seeds from the flower heads - they are ready to go when the petals have fallen and back of the head is beginning to brown.

We have recently begun adding various seeds to our breads, and the small packets you buy in the supermarkets are expensive - paying for the convenience of a shelled seed. The shelling is relaxing however, like most things that make you use your own two hands; and can be done whilst sat watching TV or nattering.

We will store these in their shells (they will keep fresher that way) until we know we will need them and shell them in small batches, enough for a couple of loaves at a time. Some of the seeds will be resown next year, perhaps we will try and develop our own variety. There may even be a tallest sunflower competition. I envision a whole bed of them...did I mention how gloriously cheerful and pretty they are?

June harvest

OK - the allotment hasn't been going as well as we planned. By which I mean we haven't been sowing and tending as much as we planned thanks to Nick starting his work placement and me being increasingly tired and ungainly. The hellish end of May didn't help either. Still, a harvest is a harvest no matter how small; and June has been the first month where anything has actually made it back from the plot to our kitchen.

The tally so far, rounded to the nearest 100g -

Broad beans (The Sutton) - 4.5kg in pod, not including the several handfuls of tender young pods that never made it home as they were so nommable straight off the plant.  We eat the beans, the guinea pigs eat the pods. Next year we will devote a whole bed to these and pull a few plants as and when we need space for later legumes, because considering how little attention the 8 plants that took have had, they have cropped prolifically.

Garlic 'Solent Wight' - 2 bulbs so far harvested wet (about 100g). The rest will come up in about a month, if I can resist the lovely sweet bulbs as they stand now.

Courgette 'Black Beauty' - 2.1kg so far excluding one I forgot to weigh. 4 good sized tender courgettes and one heading for marrow-hood. Two of the three plants suddenly rocketed into action in the last fortnight and are thick with developing fruits. I hate courgettes from the shop, but fresh off the plant and sauteed with salt and pepper they are delicious.

Potato volunteer - 800g,  not from the allotment, but from a pot in the back garden. I was going to pull it but instead let it do its thing. We got a lunch out of it (a courgette potato rosti type thing) for absolutely no effort on our part.

TOTAL - 7.5kg. 

The sugar snap peas (Norli)  were poorly supported and turned into a tangled ground hugging mass of knots, but The Boy got a few on-plot snacks out of them. They will be replaced by runner beans this weekend. The potatoes are almost ready to be lifted too and most other things seem to to be doing well. The tomatoes are sporting a few fruits. I get quite disheartened when I look at our little plot, it seems as though large swathes of bed are barren or weedy, waiting for stuff to grow and fill up the space. This year is a learning curve - next year will be better. That's my mantra and I am sticking to it.

It rained

I feel I can actually take full credit for the heavens opening up. On Friday I decided to felt the jumper and coat I had been debating the fate of for months. Apparently no offering to the rain gods  is quite as effective as putting heavy felted wool garments on the line to dry - that night it poured. I should say no offering except of course the smell of charred meat, because the barbecue I was due to attend on Saturday also ended in a washout. An hour before I was due to leave work to go to said shindig, the heavens opened and tropical amounts of rain fell. I aquaplaned in flip flops across the courtyard to the car and we crawled straight back home through standing water.

I am not complaining at all (granted, pulled pork and homemade burgers would have been a lovely end to my working day) - the lack of rain over the last few weeks has been worrisome, a sign of things to come perhaps? The rains will bring relief to those who have been battling wild fires across the country and to those farmers who have had to irrigate early. On a personal note, I have loved lying in bed listening to the thunder and waiting for the odd flash of lightning, knowing that the allotment isn't wilting without my attention. It is interesting that I grew up in one of the driest counties in the country - and am now intending to go back there - and yet a few weeks without rain now makes me distinctly uneasy.

Everything in the garden looks green and perky too. My efforts with a watering can during the dry spell just weren't good enough; and what was really needed was a sustained thorough soaking over a few days. The honeysuckle is finally budding (after three years of waiting), very happy in its new pot against the south facing wall. The salad has rocketed over the last few days and is ready to be picked. The herb bed has really taken off this year too - including the tarragon, which I had assumed had been lost to the snow and ice last winter, that finally poked its head through the soil this week. The water butt has had a chance to recoup its losses from the last few weeks, in preparation for what could be a long hot summer - or a complete washout (this is Britain after all) - but its best to be prepared.