gardening

Hot and Bothered

October 2, 2011
Hot and Bothered

I haven’t been down to the plot since the great leek disaster but this morning my electronic to-do list beeped to inform that it would soon be time to plant broad beans so we gathered our sun screen and headed off into the heatwave to prepare a bed. Here’s the M1 Gardener basking in the [...]

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Roasted Sweet Beetroot Relish

August 21, 2011
Roasted Sweet Beetroot Relish

The plot and the hedgerows are so productive at the moment. It seems about two months too early but the sloes are already plump and juicy. I’ve just had to polish of the last remaining drop of slow gin from last year so that I can re-use the bottles for this year’s vintage. Extraordinarily tasty [...]

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Garlic, Bugs and Curses Galore

June 19, 2011
Garlic, Bugs and Curses Galore

What’s happening with the weather gods? The rain has come too late for a bounteous crop of spuds but is perfectly timed to ruin my garlic bulbs that are desperately in need of a good sun basking. I had a tricky decision to make this weekend. The ground was sodden and with no respite promised, [...]

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Bride of Frankenstein

May 2, 2011
Bride of Frankenstein

I did my best to get in the sartorial spirit of the weekend but my enviromesh veil was hardly an Alexander McQueen. I’m all for Royal Weddings, I get to weep with a good proportion of the nation and then as a bonus I get an extra day to play around on the plot. After [...]

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The Spring Potato Glut

February 19, 2011
The Spring Potato Glut

There has been a slow and soggy start to the 2011 allotment year but the urge to plant is becoming more forceful. The urge to get out there and dig over the plot isn’t that strong yet though. Hopefully it will come soon as the potatoes are taking over the house….

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Putting Down Roots

October 17, 2010
Putting Down Roots

I must feel settled here. I spent the afternoon preparing a permanent bed, with manure, trenches and finely sieved soil, all for a crop that won’t be harvested for about 4 years. It’s an incredibly high maintenance crop, at least at the outset, and it only produces edible shoots for a couple of weeks. Hardly [...]

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The Remains of the Day

July 4, 2010
The Remains of the Day

You know it’s been a great evening when you finish off with a couple of empty bottles of fine ale and a bucket full of fresh produce. Days really don’t get much better than this. We sat in the sun and ate Ratte potatoes boiled with freshly podded peas and pondered over the mystery of [...]

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Tea on the Plot

June 25, 2010
Tea on the Plot

We took a mid-week opportunity to visit the plot to tend to the runner beans that have been causing me some anxiety. For some reason our beans are turning crinkly and growing in an ugly branched fashion. I initially thought they had been caught by a cold spell but I’ve been growing them in succession [...]

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