A very unusual parsnip

Was up at the allotment this morning - very grey and bleak up there and extremely boggy underfoot. Needless to say I was the only one there, but I had a shopping list from my family for Christmas grub. And that included leeks and parsley and sprouts - so there I was digging and picking! Whilst there I also dug up some jerusalem artichokes. They are very knobbly and hard to clean, even more impossible to peel, but they are wonderful in a mixture of various roast vegetables. You don't want too many of them on their own though! They are rather like baked beans and worse than sprouts!!
I have also been nurturing a rogue parsnip that decided to grow in the middle of the gravel and stone path across the plot - it was never going to be a prizewinner, given the "soil" it was growing in - but how about this!! Roasted, it will feed quite a few mouths!

 

I really look forward to a new growing season just around the corner now we have passed the shortest day here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Meanwhile

I wish all my readers and supporters a peaceful and joyful Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness

I’ve been so very busy over the last few weeks on the allotment – it seems I’ve totally neglected the blog!
As John Keats wrote in his ode To Autumn in 1820:

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;”

My plot has certainly been blessed with a super abundance of crops – although the grape vine back at home has sulked this year after removing the dilapidated greenhouse that was falling down around it and leaving it to the elements of the English “summer!” So no grapes and no delicious grape jelly this year to grace our roast chicken and lamb at the dinner table.

But down at the plot I have been harvesting potatoes, courgettes, butternut squash, runner beans, spinach, swiss chard, summer cabbage, spring onions, strawberries (yes really!), autumn raspberries, beetroots, and some really pathetic tiny carrots. I just cannot seem to grow carrots – they don’t grow beyond the miniature stage – but with our predilection for miniature vegetables in our supermarkets, I can at least pretend I grew them that way on purpose!!

So the plot cannot be dug over and put to bed for the winter as other plotters are doing around me. My winter cabbages are growing well now, as are the brussel sprouts, hopefully ready for Christmas, along with the spinach and swiss chard, that only deep frosts will finish off. Not to mention the parsnips which are now swelling up. Unlike the spinach they will benefit from the first frosts – it improves the flavor!

But I have given all the grass borders a good mow and edged all around to make the plot look neat and tidy, and I have carted loads of horse and cow manure over to the plot. The latest delivery of horse manure is very fresh, so I have put it onto the overflowing compost heap. There it will rot down well over the winter, hastening the rotting of all the other material there at the same time.

All I need do now is keep an eye on the plot, ensuring pigeons cannot get at the brassicas, harvest as necessary, turn over the earth as it becomes bare and keep the weeds at bay.

Manure and compost

We are very lucky on our allotments to have an unlimited supply of horse and cow manure brought to the site by local farmers. This may be either straw or wood shavings based, and may be supplied in various stages of decomposition. We have just had the latest load delivered and as I gradually clear the crops, I am busy stockpiling barrow loads onto the bare earth ready to be spread and dug or forked in over the autumn and winter. A thick layer over the soil at this stage will keep any weeds at bay, and once dug in it also really helps to break up the heavy clay soil, improving its texture and drainage, as well as supplying plenty of nitrogen for healthy crops next year.

I also compost all plant waste on the site. Here you can see my two green plastic bins, and the two wooden compost containers, that are filled in rotation. By the time the fourth container is filled to the brim the first container will have produced beautiful sweet smelling, fully rotted compost, that will be fine and friable to the touch and can be spread across the allotment.

The plastic "dalek" bins are OK, but the very best compost is being made in the two square wooden bins. I bought them from The Recycle Works, they are very easy to construct from the flat packed wood, and I am delighted with the first compost from them.

Like many other "plotters" I started with a compost bin made from old wooden pallets, tied together with string at the corners - very rough and ready! These seem to be very popular - presumably because they are cheap - but they do not make good compost; there is too much ventilation, the material dries out too readily and does not heat up sufficiently to complete the decomposition process.