allotment-blog

Allotment 1/11/11

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:00:07 +0100

Who knew there was a national sausage week? I certainly didn’t but it seems that it is this week which gives me a good reason to show you my sausage, tee hee.

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and my lovely Significant Other bought me an excellent hand cranked meat mincer with, and this is the important bit, a sausage making attachment. It is a fine thing and looks quite a bit like this,

Now the first thing to decided was what I was going to make. Perhaps the finest thing thing in all the world, apart from gin obviously, is that outstanding example of the sausage makers art, Chorizo. There was no real decision to be made there really, it was always going to be thus.

Firstly I needed some casings and I had already decided on what are refereed to as “natural casings”, that’s pig intestine to you and me. You can order pig intestine from Ebay you know as I did and a couple of days later they plopped through my letterbox. Luckily they were sealed in plastic and then placed in an envelope otherwise the cats would have had a field day.

Next a recipe. Oh my god! There are many people in this world who try and make that thing they do seem much more complicated than it actually is so that they seem clever, anyone on Gardeners’ World for instance (read the label on the plant and do as it says, that will pretty much cover it. If it grows, hurrah, if it doesn’t try something else. This is the philosophy I use at the allotment and we seem to get by) or nutritionists and diet experts, just eat fewer calories than you use and you will loose weight, oh and more fruit and veg. People who make their own preserved meat fall smack into the middle of this category. I read one blog where a man (it had to be really) had built himself a machine (out of bits of an old fridge I think) that controlled temperature and humidity around the meat to get it just right. Spare me the meat geeks. Then there was endless talk of preservatives and “the correct” bacterial cultures. It is as if people haven't been making these products, safely, for hundreds of years. This annoyed me.

Finally, after much searching, a degree of swearing (which is big and clever kids) and some slight sighing from my Significant Other who was beginning to wonder what she had started, I did find this site which had a description of the sausage, some history and a recipe that consisted of 4 things, minced pork, garlic, paprika and salt. Now that’s more like it. This is the one I used. Combine the ingredients, chill in the fridge for 24-48 hours and then into the skins. OK, that last bit was a bit hard to get used to, firstly loading the casing on to the machine (now that is an odd smell) and then controlling the casing off of the machine whilst turning the handle. The casing has to leave the sausage attachment slightly slower than the meat mix comes out so that it is nicely filled.

Anyway after some mess making I think they look OK, well a bit like sausages,

The only trouble is they have to hang and mature for 2 MONTHS! They smell so good! It is going to be quite the struggle of self control but it will be worth it.

Experimental Crop update........

I have finally dug up the sweet potatoes and the yield was pretty good, 1.1kg from one plant. The important question is “did they taste nice?” to which the answer is yes, very nice indeed especially when deep fried with cinnamon sugar, not a dish we will be having very often as it may have shortened my life slightly but oh my, they where tasty.

So will I grow them next year? Well that depends on one thing, it is quite costly to buy the plants so for small crops it’s not really worth it but if I can get a tuber saved from this year to sprout then, and only then, will it become worth while.

I was having a gentle stroll the interwebs the other day trying to find out how to propagate sweet potatoes and found that I had inadvertently come across yet another example of people in the know making it all sound really fucking complicated!!!!

Only after reading 4 or 5 different website did I finally work out what they were trying to say! Grrrr. Anyway, it’s sort of similar to chitting potatoes. The hard part is getting the tuber to sprout (this I am yet to fully decode but I think you pop a saved tuber on some sand cover with a little compost water and put somewhere warm) after that it’s easy. Don’t plant the sprouting sweet potato as you would with a normal spud, you wait until the sprouty bit grow roots and then slice them off and plant them and bring them on and then plant them out. They’re called slips I believe. Now that isn’t that hard but I found one website that took 5 pages of text to explain it. I know that I can go on a bit but that is just silly. “No one else will know my secret and if they try I will attempt to kill them with boredom!!!!!! Ah hahahahahaha, victory is mine!!!!” Oh shut up you tiny penised, over complicating little freak, you are impressing no one!

Allotment 15/10/11 What's that in the Verge?

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:02:45 +0100

So a quick update on this year experimental crops. My grapes did brilliantly, see

8 bunches of loveliness. Not bad for the first year when the point was to get the plant established. The sweet potatoes remain in the ground as I type, the plant is still growing as it been more than a little warm recently, so I'll keep you informed.

So to the point of this quick posting. As you know I really like free food and again I point you in the direction of, probably, the best book on the subject, Food for Free by Richard Mabey. Today I have been for a little bike ride along a short section of the A35 (admit it, you find me telling you road numbers sexy, what do you mean no? I assumed that’s why my dad, and pretty much every other man I have every met, does it constantly, to impress the ladies. Am I wrong?) with the expressed aim of picking apples. You can see them as you drive along and it seems a waste just to leave them there.

This time of year is great for to hedgerow things like apples and blackberries, I bloody love blackberries especially if you combine them with a cooking apple or two to make bramble jelly. Anyway, back to the story.

As I was navigating a roundabout, trying not to be killed by lorry drivers, something caught my eye, an odd looking plant growing on the verge. After noticing one I saw another and then another, no, they can't be...well they might be. I decided to crack on with the task in hand and come back here to check out this find on the way back.

The apple hunt went quite well. As usual I would like to thank people who throw apple cores out of their cars, it saves me quite a bit of money. I was a little late getting to the apples this year and they are not of such a high quality as last but the ones that will store will be stored and the slightly damaged will be eaten first. I think got about 10kg of fruit which is pretty damn good (actually I have just pop my rucksack on the scales and it's 10.5kg). So back on the bike and off home but not until I have had a look at mystery plant. Have a look, what do you think this is?

Who said tomato? Congratulations you are correct but you don't win a prize. Yes, on the verge next to the roundabout where everyone stops before pulling away (and, I assume, winds down their window in order to lob out a sandwich that's got tomato in it) is covered in tomato plants which have fruited quite well this year.

All different varieties are there. There are plum and cherry. Well, they were there, they are now in a plastic lunch box in my lounge ripening up.

Despite the fact that the tomatoes on my allotment have done really well again this year I cannot bring myself to leave free food, I just can't do it. It's a compulsion, Hello my name is Martyn and I am a Free Food-a-holic.

Allotment 18/9/11

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:45:15 +0100

So Autumn is upon us. Yes, it is warm every so often but essentialist it is Autumn. I have picked apples from my little trees and blackberries from the hedgerows, it is Autumn.

So how was Summer for you? Ours was pretty rubbish plot wise. No spectacular crop failures but it's not been warm enough or sunny enough for those extra little bits. The melon vines died before the fruit was ripe due to the chilly nights and the chillies have done very little. The Sweet potato experiment is still on going, you have to wait for the vine to die back before you dig them up I'm told and it looks really rather healthy at the moment. Most of the other things have been fine(ish) though, carrots, runner beans, sweetcorn, you know the sort of things.

Today we popped down there between the showers to pick a couple of things, courgettes, Cavlo Nero, that sort of thing, and had a quick check of the other of this years experiments and oh the excitement, they are ripening! They are getting colour on their little skins! Do you want to see? Of course you do, behold the joy that is my grapes!!!

It seems that Dorset is a great place for a vineyard.

On the Autumn theme we have been making a couple of thing. 3lbs of blackberries and a couple of bramley apples have been cooked down and turned into 2 small jars of bramble jelly (one of the nicest things in the world) and, better late than never, the Christmas mincemeat has been made, it really does taste rather nice. It will be even more lovely when it has matured a little bit (as we all will be).

One of things that has grown really well this year are sloes, have you seen them? Some them are massive, I'm not sure that they will fit down the neck of the bottles I want to shove them in but I will try, oh yes. We shall have sloe gin for Christmas.

Allotment 5/7/11 I Am Now The Midnight Gardener

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:04:31 +0100

So I have finally got round to it, well, to starting doing it anyway. As with most things that involve plants, it's a work in progress.

In my last post on here, which was a while ago, I said that I was going to do some Guerilla Allotmenteering (whilst I fully understand that that is not a word it is fun to say) in some of the tree pits near my house. At the time of (one fingered) typing that post I didn't have any plants to go in it and that is why it has taken so long to make a start but make a start I have.

Sunday evening after the Wimbledon's Men's final, well done Djokovic, I took the few plants that were ready, a watering can and a small fork (of the gardening variety) for a little stroll. Many of us went out that evening, not all of us came back.

Dorchester market is poor for many things especially the clothes which seem to have been bulk purchased in the very early 90's and they have been trying to shift them ever since but the one thing it does do well is plants. So Wednesday morning we were wondering about this sartorial time capsule looking for cheap bedding plants and boy did we find it, 6 marigolds for 50p, oh yes please and I'll have 6 of those chrysanthemums as well if you don't mind. 50p you say, fair enough sir. They are not my most favouritist flower but for 50p it would have been churlish not to.

So I planted what I had ready, 2 very hardy tomato plants, 2 courgettes and a load of runner beans arranged around 2 tee-pees of bamboo canes as well as the bedding. Veg in the middle 2 tree pits and bedding in the other 2. Watered them all in and left them to it. I saw that it was good.

Monday morning and I had too go to work for the first time in a fortnight (I'd been on annual leave nothing more interesting than that) so obviously my mood could have been better but we all have to get paid, well until I win the Euromillions jackpot anyway. I thought I'd have a little check on my new charges and all looked well.
Monday afternoon and having spent all day doing my NHS Mandatory study day, a once yearly activity that strikes boredom into the hearts of all who have to suffer it i.e. 2 hours of Minimal handling taught by a passive aggressive with the certainty of a South Baptist preacher but the personality of something completely devoid of a personality, my less than a good mood had turned into a barely awake reticence and acceptance of my fate. Either I was heading though one of the many stages of grieving or I was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, it was difficult to tell. As I walked past the end of the road which was now much improved for having my plants in it I noticed something attached to one of the bean wigwams. As I approach I could see it was a nice typed note from the person who is paid to look after the tree pits and the other bits of naked earth I've planted stuff in and it looked like this.

Now I think that this person was assuming that I have planted veg there for my own gain, which I haven't, so the point is sort of fair enough but I wasn't going to remove them mostly because I didn't have anything to do with them, I didn't need them, if they wanted to remove them it that was up to them. Home I went.
Tuesday morning (this morning) I was up bright and early to go for a run (because I am smug) and attach my own note pointing out the things I mentioned above. I jogged on down there and, to my surprise and delight, I found another note attached from a local resident saying that he liked what I'd done and the plants should stay, this pleased me. Anyway I slipped my not that contained the word “dangling” into the plastic pocket the original note was in and vowed to return with my camera to take pictures of the note after my run. This I did but somebody had removed all the notes so you'll just have to believe me and I am reasonable reliable, it's not like I work for the News of the World or anything.

I still have some climbing French beans to go in and I don't know if my plants are to be removed. I hope not, they look lovely. The suspense is killing me.

Update 7/7/11

It seems that my suspense is over. My walk to work of a morning includes a check of all my plants. Yesterday afternoon when I came home from work all my veg and bedding plants were there and looking happy, this morning however they were all gone. They had been removed to return to soil to it's original nakedness. There is nothing as beautiful as bare soil with nothing growing in it, oh no wait there is.
I'm not going to complain to much because I was warned but it is still a bit of a shame. I do find the "we would rather have soil than plants" attitude a bit odd, their choice though.
The last laugh will be mine though, I covered all 4 beds in wild flower seeds. They'll probably just pull them all up.

Allotment 8/5/11

Sun, 08 May 2011 14:36:10 +0100

BBC Radio 4 is a great station and one of it's best shows is the Food Programme. This week's broadcastwas particular interesting as it was about a “climate change farm” in Devon. It's owner, Mark Diacono, grows thing that are a bit difficult to grow here in the UK but will probably get easier as we bury our heads in the sand that has suddenly appeared around our ankles as we try and ignore changing climate.

Now, whilst that bit was interesting what I liked was Mark's attitude towards growing food, he grows things that are exciting and interesting to eat.

A point he makes near the beginning of the programme is why grow things that are cheap to buy? Things like potatoes and carrots, why do it? Why not grow the expensive things like melons and asparagus? This is an attitude that I like, respect and try and emulate but what I really identified with was his attitude to annual plants, it is hard to germinate seeds in our new dry springs so perhaps we should grow more perennials (plants that come up ever year) like rhubarb, globe artichokes or fruit trees and bushes. Yes my friend, yes. This is what I have been trying to do for a while and it seems I was ahead of the curve with veg growers. I set trends.

One of the other point Mark made was that spring is the “starvation gap” ie, very little is ready to eat right now, except the perennial stuff which is coming up. I think the man has a point. He also uses strawberry plants as ground cover to keep the moisture in, the man may be a genius.

You can listen again to the programme hereon the BBC's Iplayer, it probably only there for a week so you have until the 15^th of May to listen.

Allotment 1/5/11

Sun, 01 May 2011 17:21:03 +0100

I have had an idea. Usually I don't have them so I want to show off a bit, oh and by the way I am in no way saying that it is a good idea but it is an idea and that is what is important.

So I have been doing a little Guerilla Gardening in a small area near my house as I have mentioned before and it is starting to look really very nice indeed. I have just planted some Aquilegia that will be up soon and my mother gave us one for Easter that looks a bit like this,

lovely isn't it.

There is a small dry area that gets a lot of sunshine and I think I am going to plant some Mediterranean herbs that thrive in those sorts of conditions such as thyme and oregano so that people can help themselves when the plants are stronger.

Anyway, that is not my big idea, again I am making it sound more exciting and important than it is.

Just around the corner from me there are 4 tree pits which I have decided are now mine. I have annexed them, like the Rhineland. No one else is going to play with them so I think it is only fair. The thing is they are much bigger than I thought they were. In fact they are really quite big. See,

They will take lot of plants and I don't have a lot of plants, well not a lot of flowering plants anyway. What I do have though is a lot of vegetable seeds.

People ignore the flowers on vegetable plants but some of them are very pretty indeed such, beans for example, take a look,

As you can see, pretty. So I have decided that I will plant some veg in these beds, veg that grows quickly that people can help themselves to as it becomes ripe. Pretty and practical. So I'm thinking beans, lettuce, radish, salad onions, that sort of thing and may be tomatoes but they take a lot of water.

I need ideas on other things that I can grow so if you have any do feel free to add them in the comments, I would appreciate it.

I am hoping this is a nice thing to do and won't make me seem to weird. I'd also like some help watering it but that is for another day.

Allotment 19/4/11

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:58:51 +0100

Oooooh, well that's interesting and intriguing, what is in this plastic bag held down by quite a large stone? It seems to say that I should take one and read it then visit the incredibly long website address they have provided and so I did.

It seems that there is a review going on that hasn't had quite the publicity it should have and, as it is about cutting stuff, I would imagine that it emanates from the Government. It is a local government review about “tackling burdens” on councils and then cutting them. It seems that they want our opinions on things that they should or should not cut, such things as DCLG_10 “To consult tenants before their homes are sold to a private landlord”, those sorts of burdensome things or DCLG_93 “abide by the result of the referendum” (they need to be told to do that) but the one that interested and exorcised mysterious note in a plastic bag leaving man (who is called Jim by the way) is DCLG-136. It's the one about allotments. Specifically it says “Allotment authorities (that is parish councils or, where there isn't one, district councils) must provide a sufficient number of allotments and let them to persons resident in the area (where they are of the opinion that there is a demand.)”

It is from the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908, section 23, according to the PDF at the bottom of this page (in the related downloads bit at the bottom.) Are allotments burdensome? I don't think so, my council collects rent and mows a small grass path on a large piece of land that can't really be used for anything else.

So what to do. Well perhaps you might want to have a look at this questionnaire (top right hand side of this page if that link doesn't work, click on “Statutory duties webform”) and answer a few of the questions. If it helps I can suggest a few answers,

1, DCLG_136.

2, Provides sufficient allotments for those who want them.

3, No

4, No

5, there are no reasons to cut it.

6, (reasons for..) very popular, local food, exercise, community forming etc.

and then there are a few more questions, less important but worth filling in.

Please just take 5 minutes from your day because it is important. If we don't answer the questions it is possible that allotments will be considered unimportant or, worse, burdensome and we can't have that. You have until April the 5^th, please do it and tell anyone you know who has a plot or wants one to get involved. Thank you.

Allotment 10/4/11

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:51:02 +0100

So we were sat on Poundbury Hillfort yesterday (which you can read about, as well as some other things, here) and we were wondering how they calculate when Easter is. One of the reason for this thought was potatoe related. When are you supposed to put potatoes in the ground? On Good Friday I'm lead to believe but that is different every year and is therefore, as a immoveable date in the calender, of no help. If Easter is the most important Christian festival (as most say it is) then why doesn't it have a date and how is Easter calculated anyway? Well I can answer one of those, the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox (according to Yahoo Answers anyway). The reason for waiting until late spring is so that the growing plant doesn't have to put up with frost bite but you can never guarantee what will happen to the weather.

Several of the people I meet through work, you would call them patients, have said that they have already put their seed potatoes in so as today dawned sunny and warm I thought I would do the same. 6 inches deep and 12 inches apart. It turns out that the blade of my of my trowel is 6 inches long, who knew? Well probably everyone else but me. The whole thing is 12 inches long as well, it seems someone has thought about this. It made the potatoes planting considerably easier I can tell you.

I had to water my seedling today as it hasn't rained here for over a week and they looked a little sad. Whilst I was watering my spring onion seeds I gazed over to my asparagus bed. I looked and looked again, could it be? I got down on my hands and knees for a closer look and I was greeted by this,

Oh yes, the first spears are starting to push through. This makes me very happy.

Last year I successfully grew melons out of doors so this year I am trying grapes and the first milestone has been reached, the vine that I planted last year has made it through the winter. The buds are just starting to burst,

Best I start doing a little reading to find out how to get the most out of my vine and when I say most out of I am referring to fruit. I want grapes on my vine! I keep you posted on how that goes although let keep our expectations low, there will be no Chateau Norris 2011 but we might get the odd bunch.
Oh and while we are talking about buds breaking, we have apple blossom!

One thing that has struck me as strange is the difference in how soon bulbs come up at the allotment (we have a small patch for flowers) which is just outside of town, and exactly the same bulbs that where planted at roughly the same time in my little Guerilla Gardening spots. On the plot they are barely pushing their heads up but here in town they are in full bloom. I think this calls for some pictures,

Allotment 3/4/11

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:26:21 +0100

People get very obsessive about compost and the making there of, I am not one of them. However that does not mean that I don't do it, I just don't take it that seriously. You can spend a lot of money on some rather over the top compost bins,

the Onyx Compost Tumbler for instance, reduced from $655 to $327 which is still a lot in proper money or the Aerobin Composter for £259.99,

Doesn't she look happy. I got mine from the council. I would imagine that your council probably runs a similar scheme, most do.

This sort of ridiculous spending on allotment stuff has always amused me as I thought quite a lot of the joy of growing your own was the saving some money thing. For instance I got 100 onion sets (50 white and 50 red) for the grand total of £1.30 and I'm pretty sure that the garlic I planted will, when ready, last me all year. It cost £2.50.

Despite my protestations I have made some lovely compost which has mostly be poured onto my asparagus bed in order to power the lovely little (and my personal favourite) plants. I have 2 bins, one that is rotting down (not so much during winter) and the one that is currently receiving stuff that will later rot down,

Apart from giving a bit of a forking every couple of weeks to turn it (you can waste money a special tool to do this as well you know) I don't do very much with it. That's what worms and bacteria are for aren't they? Are you aware that some people piss on their compost heaps to speed up the process? It's a nitrogen thing I'm told, harder for the ladies, although not impossible. People really do take it seriously.

I am only telling you this because we have a little bin, lined with a biodegradable composting bag (we get ours from Waitrose because we are that middle-class), in our back yard that all our veg peelings and used tea bags go in and it's contents have to be carried to our plot. We have been back from Canada for a month and there are only 2 of us, yet we managed to produce this much waste,

I say again, veg peelings and used tea bags for 2 people. It was bloody heavy I will have you know. Many people don't compost and just throw this stuff in the bin with all of their other rubbish. It's pretty much only cooked food waste that can't be composted yet all this waste ends up in land fill and costing your council, and therefore you, money. This is not only in having to collect and transport the rubbish to the landfill and costs from looking after the dump but also in Landfill Tax. You can help your Council save some money in these chastened times, compost your orange peel and any Conservative party leaflets you get in the run up to May the 5^th. Shred them and they will be fine.

Allotment 3/3/11

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:54:17 +0100

I know it is slightly sad but I don't really like going on holiday in the summer for one, and I think very good, reason. Stuff grows really fast in the summer and by stuff I really mean weeds. A weekend away is ok, even the little unplanned, grow-where-they-like bastards can't grow that quickly, but all the time I am away any longer than that all I can think of is my precious little seedlings be out competed by those awful, awful things, blocking the light and sucking up all the moisture. Oh the humanity! (do I need to see someone about this? Has this become a cry for help?)

Perhaps that is one of the reasons that, if we do go away for a really long time, we seem to go away in February, although it is most likely to be a coincidence. A few years ago we went to New Zealand and drove around the south island for 3 weeks. This year, as I'm sure you know if you read my other blog, we went to Canada for ALL OF FEBUARY! I know it's a bit smug to go on about it but we really did have a very good time.

Just quickly I would like to say thank you to Significant Other for arranging pretty much all of the holiday and our friends Kate and Marti for putting us for most of the time that we were there.

Anyway back to my point, we were away for a month at the beginning of spring, can you imagine the amount of trepidation that filled me to my finger tips as I walked past the flirting ducks on the river? Now, what I am doing here is adding some false tension completely unnecessarily, just like Masterchef does. IT'S JUST FUCKING COOKING, NO IS GOING TO COCKING WELL DIE! STOP IT! Oh and on another side issue, to those right-wing christian types who promoted March of the Penguins as some sort of hymn to monogamy as the natural state of beasts or, weirdly, as promoting the “theory” of Intelligent Design (from the New York Times “the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.") you should spend more times watching ducks. My movie “Waddle of the Ducks” would, in the opinion of these cherry pickers, promote ideas of polygamy and gang rape. Ducks are nasty in spring.

Back to my plot. It wasn't to bad, a few weeds but they were easily dealt with. Excitingly however there are some signs of spring. The buds are swelling on my blueberry bushes and my apple trees and the garlic is coming along great guns (although there are some spaces that need to be filled in with some spare cloves that I have) but the current stars are my rhubarb plants, now those are some tasty looking stalks. I plan to cut a few at the weekend and then we shall have crumble.

We are not that great at remembering what produce we have in the house, whether in the fridge, freezer or basemen and sometimes thing get forgotten. Whilst staying with our friends in that Canada we decided to steal an idea of theirs. They had a panelled door and had painted bits of it with blackboard paint and written messages on in chalk (obviously). Genius if you ask me, so here is our kitchen door,

now we can keep track of all the fruit and veg in the house and, hopefully, we won't forget about things.

A bit rambling today, sorry about that, still a bit jet-lagged and tired. It can be a bit hard to stay focused sometimes. Have fun all.