It's rhubarb time!

I'm still not entirely sure that I like rhubarb all that much. But you have to admire its almost fluorescent pinkness. And I'm trying some new things this year. It's out with the crumbles, and in with the compotes, jams and syrups. But in the meantime, when we have our very first shoots of forced rhubarb, I guess you can't beat just dipping the end in sugar like a rustic dib-dab.

Anyway, more on rhubarb later.

Things are growing! Yey! Shallots, onions, spinach, chard, broad beans, peas, and the potatoes are chitting away nicely. No carrots yet though.

The parsnips are sulking, I think, even though I've covered them with another sheet of kitchen towel and am keeping them damp. I think I'm going to have to set up a second lot in the airing cupboard in the dark and see if a two-pronged attack may result in some success. And if nothing sprouts on kitchen towel then I'll 'throw them away' in a trough of soil and see if total neglect has any better results.

What else is going on... Adam dug over another bed on the plot ready for something to go in. I say 'something' as we don't have much of a plan yet. Probably potatoes... I weeded the onion beds and picked off the dead leaves from around the chard. And after all the hard work, it was time for some sustenance, so I made cheese scones, beef stroganoff (with the almost-last of our onions and shallots from 2008) and... wait for it!... rhubarb and orange schnapps. Wahey! (there's the bottle, look, at the back among the kitchen chaos). I think the general consensus among my friends is that if you have some slightly suspicious fruit or veg which not everyone likes, it can be greatly improved by steeping it in alcohol of some sort for a number of weeks, then removing the fruit/veg, and quaffing the results. Sian's rhubarb rum (or should that be 'rhum', Sian?) was proof of that.

I'm hoping the sweetness of the sugar and the flavour of the orange will counteract that tangy 'bleurgh' of the rhubarb which usually makes my teeth go funny. And I'm looking forward to some rhubarb and orange cocktails in the summer.

Mud, mud, glorious mud

We popped to the allotment last weekend, only for it to start raining and the ground slowly turn to mud under our boots. I guess everything was still waterlogged from the rain, sleet and snow the previous week. We picked some brussels sprouts and Adam put some manure on a few more of the beds, but really it wasn't the weather to be outside. There's nothing worse than tramping around a muddy allotment, your feet twice their usual size because of the clogging, oozing, sticky, gloopy, murky, mucky mud, and three times as heavy, and the rain somehow seeping down the back of your trousers when you bend over to dig. Yuck! So we went home.



But today we've spent a couple of hours catching up. Adam carried the compost bin from home to be added to the big heap - all that chicken poo (chickens poo a lot!) is going to do some good - and I carried the last of three big ex-olive-importing drums to use as a water butts. After getting the cricks out of our backs we sowed the first double row of broad beans, and also planted about 100 Centurion onions and sixty-something shallots too. In the picture above, the first three beds on the right are now full of onions, shallots and garlic... plus a patch of chard which went in before the winter.

The rhubarb is starting to make an appearance, breaking through the earth like some kind of weird creature. We'll have to find a big bucket and force it again as it was really tasty last year.

It's a good feeling to have got some things in the ground, especially as it's Six Nations season now, so we keep getting distracted at the weekends. Ah well, as long as we get the parsnips sown in time, I'm sure everything else can manage without us for a little bit.

Oh my god - it's nearly November

No, we haven't died. Or been cruelly neglecting the allotment. Our computer broke and I can't access the blog at work so that's the reason for the long silence.

And then, when we finally got a computer up and running, blogger was unavailable. Typical. So sorry for the long absence.

But I'm back. For now anyway. And I'll try not to ramble on for too long about what we've been up to for the last few weeks.

The first weekend of October we went to London for a spot of sightseeing and a stay in the Waldorf Hotel (as you do... One of the benefits of working for a big travel company is being able to use your concession on a nice hotel!) So, that was great fun, but no allotmenteering!

Since then we've harvested all the sweetcorn (mmm, yum, delicious - sorry to those of you who we promised to give some - it was too nice and there just wasn't enough to spread the wealth... so maybe next year...) The final courgettes, cucumbers and squash have also been eaten, and we've composted the remains of all the plants. Adam dug over the now-empty beds at the far end of the site, and we've now got lots of space ready for us to plan what's going in next year. Hee! Look at all that nice fertile earth! Now I'm just waiting for the seed catalogues to drop through the door so we can start dreaming of the veggies to come in 2009!

While Adam was wrestling with the cucurbit plants I dismantled the runner bean poles which was an epic task to say the least, as the beans stubbornly refused to let go of their sticks. Then I dug over the bed which had also had the pathetically tiny dwarf French beans in.

The red onions which Sian planted at the end of September are poking their heads above the surface. They're an overwintering variety but I need to find out whether they still need a bit of protection for really cold weather or not. A week after the red onions went in I planted some regular white overwintering onions too, so we should get a decent amount next spring.

We've got some more spinach growing and the chard is going great guns. I've also been pulling beetroot now and again (that reminds me, there's a couple boiling on the hob as I type) and it's great just sliced in sandwiches.

I also dug a little bed next to the shed where I might put some sort of climber to ramble up and over. I mentioned before about getting some honeysuckle in, but I need to find out what sort of conditions it likes first - the soil next to the shed is quite shallow and rubble-y and doesn't get much moisture or sun...

Erica, a friend from work, came to stay last weekend and we took a quick trip to the plot to get some veggies to roast for dinner. Erica pulled some carrots and seemed sufficiently chuffed. We also sacrificed the first leek (it was a bit small, to be honest, but we just HAD to try one!) and had a swede. The first swede! Excitement indeed!

Adam did some more weeding (good man) while I made tea, and then we all had a traditional Bedfordshire Clanger for lunch. (For anyone who doesn't know what a Bedfordshire Clanger is, think of a rectangular Cornish pasty, made with suet pastry, with a hammy-meat-and-veg filling at one end and a stewed-appley filling at t'other. Main and pud all in one!)

We've got some tiny cauliflowers growing, nestling down at the base of the leaves, hiding from the chill it seems. But, see - they look great! I do have to keep picking off caterpillars though and I'm too squeamish to squish them so I fling them into the undergrowth on the deserted plot next door, hoping they'll perish before they find their way back, or get eaten by a hungry sparrow.

And we've been eating the kohl rabi. After neglecting it for the best part of 6 months it's not half bad roasted!

Finally - a random pic. Here's the remains of the cucumber plant on its way to the compost bin. Anyone else think it looks like something out of a Tim Burton film?

The old methods are best

If at first you don't succeed... delete the post completely, and try again.

I've had problems with line spacing, words jumping about into Places They Shouldn't Be, and then the issue with the whole blog getting smaller and smaller down the page.

Anyway, I deleted the problematic posting - no dealing with coding and HTML for me, oh no - and re-wrote it. And now it seems fine.

So, back to the important allotment stuff. I'm on the Queens Park Allotment Association Committee, and we had a meeting last Monday evening to sort out, amongst other things, the best way to distribute The Rules (which some people had never seen, despite having a plot for 5 years... we'd certainly never seen them either), when to have a skip on site for a general clear-up, and how best to organise the Annual Show, which is in a couple of weeks. Some of the cups awarded in the past have gone missing, or at least haven' t been returned, so I'm going to use my Word skills to make some certificates for the winners in case we don't get them back.

We're off to the plot today to do some tidying up - the grass around the edges is getting a bit long but we need Mike to have a tinker with our petrol strimmer to get it going. Then we also need to hack back at the brambles from the nest plot - which are trying to take over. We're also planning to build a bench seat (an allotment essential I think you'll all agree) so I manager to pick up a few small pallets. (Also, it gives Adam something to hammer and nail at, which keeps him quiet for a while...!)

Also - panic panic! - we were reliably informed that you don't need to worry about shallots and onions flowering, that you can just leave them to do their thing until they're ready to be harvested. BUT now I find that other bloggers and websites recommend chopping off the buds as soon as they appear! Aagh! What do other people do? Any advice? Here's a pic looking along our rows of young leeks (leeklets...?!) You can see all the shallot flowers in the background!

Spring-like sunshine

Wow, busy weekend. Kate and Tim came to stay on Saturday and (yet again) watching the rugby in a nice pub with beer and tasty treats took priority. We managed to squeeze in a visit to the plot on Sunday, but spent the best part of an hour just enjoying the glorious sunshine with a cup of shed-brewed tea and reminding ourselves that it's actually February.

(This tulip was in a vase, by the way, I don't have obscenely early tulips in the garden or anything.)

I'm having to control myself, and not forget that IT'S NOT SPRING YET. Even though it's been nice and warm during the day there's been frost the last couple of mornings which new tender little seedlings really won't like. So I mustn't get carried away and plant anything yet, give it another month at least. It could yet snow...

No sign yet of any growth on the onions, shallots or broad beans. But the garlic is going great guns (strange phrase)... Our local market has a stall, which sells everything from chilli sauce to chutneys, and they did a fantastic sweet garlic chutney which was just gorgeous when swirled through mashed potato. But they don't do it any more, which makes me sad. So I'm going to attempt to make my own in the autumn.

I made lamb meatballs today, and, as an aside, will share my made-up recipe with you, loyal blog readers...

Minty-lamb meatballs with parsley and coriander

• 500g fresh lamb mince
• 2 onions, very finely chopped
• 2 slices brown bread (stale-ish) made into breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs
• handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 tablespoons mint sauce
• Generous sprinkling of salt and pepper

(this will serve 4 people, about 6 meatballs each). Simply bung everything in a bowl and mix it together (use your hands, don't be squeamish). Then shape the mix into balls, golf-ball sized or smaller. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour to chill and firm up. Roll in flour and fry in a little oil 'til brown and crispy on the outside. Serve in a tomato sauce. Yum.