Mangetout and Fennel

I shall be interested to see if the fennel seedlings bolt again like last year. I found they did much better at the mid to end of the growing season and I was harvesting them up until Christmas. But despite that I have tried a few again at the beginning of the vegetable year. Along side them are about twenty mangetout pea seedlings all brought on in modules in the glass house until ready to plant out. I've put long canes in for them to grow up.
I have also put in Meraviglia di Venezia - a yellow butter climbing bean - good dressed with umeboshi vinegar and some french beans which did well last year - they're both in modules and will be planted out when they are strong enough to fend off the slugs.

Some parsley (flat leaf) has germinated but my celery is very poor - I'm still waiting for them.
Today I hoed onions and garlic - some I did earlier in the week have benefited hugely from the experience and seem to have double in size in a very short time. They like the air and as well as the removal of the weeds.
The rapsberry bed had a good airing too! It was terribly weedy and the new raspberry shoots (Autumn Bliss variety) were competing with nettle, thistle creeping buttercup and dandelion as well as other baddies!
I will hoe the broad beans tomorrow and give them a boost. My routine is always to fit in at least twenty minutes to half an hour of weeding every time I go up to the allotment - Otherwise it gets ridiculous and they take over. Little and often really is a good adage.
And when it rains, which we're hoping it will in the next couple of days, the water won't run off the clay pan but will be absorbed much more by the broken-up top layer of soil and penetrate more deeply.




This year will be a good year for fruit I'm told. The late frosts have held off so far and the blossom has remained unblemished and should produce good apples,tayberries, raspberries (not sure about quince! I had to water the tree today as the leaves looked as if they were droopy and lacking in vitality!).

The rhubarb is now vigorous and growing well without any need for forcing.

My strawbs are a bit sorry for themselves. Some of them have died and others have spread. I planted them through plastic to keep perennial weeds under control on ridges. But it doesn't seem to have worked. Oh Well.

In the picture you can kind of see the beautiful pink and white apple blossom on my striped biffin.
Maybe this will be the first year it fruits.

First Asparagus

Wow! My first asparagus. Planted the crowns that have the wierdest long roots that you have to settle gently on a mound in a trench last year. This is technically the second year. And you can only pick and eat a few spears so as not to deprive the plant of energy. The third year you can, I believe, pick to your heart's content! A long wait but it should be worth it.

I also planted fifty or so lettuce. Little Gem. Drunken woman - a lollo rosso type. A frisee. Winter Density. Little Gem and Salad Bowl. The last three were given to me by P, my neighbour (the 87 year old who can touch his toes).
I have sprinkled organic slug pellets round them - just a few five or six per plant. I also planted some swiss chard and Greyhound cabbage. It comes up with a pointed tight head apparently. Name indicates fast growth.
My mange tout peas (Carouby de Mausanne seeds saved from last year) are doing well and I will plant them outside next week. They have germinated very well and I am succession sowing so that they produce over a longer period. I had rather a glut last year.
My tomatoes have been transferred from my windowsill at home to the greenhouse up at the allotment. They now have their first true set of leaves. The stalks look thick and healthy and not spindly like some I've grown before.
Today I made a beancurd, sprouting white broccoli and carrot Sichuanese dish. Based on the recipe for Ma Po Tofu in Fuschia Dunlop's book. Chilli Bean paste, fermented black beans, soy sauce and a little sugar and stock. Very good and nearly blew my head off.

Great Downpour

There was a great downpour in the afternoon that was like a tropical monsoon; huge drops of rain that at times turned to hail. It was a short lived but copious amount of H2O. Good for the garden that had become a little parched. The earth this morning has turned a rich dark chocolate brown colour - a change from the slightly cracked grey clay of the day before.

I did a lot of digging yesterday. I was surprised at the good condition of the soil in one bed - hardly any pernennial weeds; so a tickle with a fork and a gentle feed of organic chicken manure is all I thought was needed. The other new bed I dug over I covered with mushroom compost and some more of the chicken manure and then I laid carpet paths to avoid walking on the bed and compacting the soil.

This isn't very good photo - it's my bed of broad beans which I must say I'm very pleased with. They have nearly all come up. The recent warm humid spring has suited them just fine.


The very helpful P on one of the neighbouring allotments (he who is 87 and can touch his toes) has given me some fine green mesh to put on my glasshouse roof to cut out some of the harsh sunlight so my seedlings don't get scorched. Difficult to believe they could in English weather - but they do. You can paint also paint the glass with special green or white paint.


I don't know if this photo does it justice but it shows the fine green
mesh I've put up with the help of my friend Di. It took us a while to work out. Di also helped me fix the roof with an old shower door a while ago when winter winds blew out one of the massive panes of glass on the roof!




This is the sorrel I planted about a month ago. I love it cooked with potato in a soup.

Forced Rhubarb

The blossom on the wild plum tree at the gates to the allotments is just beginning to fall. I think it may have escaped the frosts and we could have many mirabellum plums in the summer - they make lovely jam.

It's been another stunning spring day and I followed up on yesterday's efforts to dig over some new beds - but found I was waning fast. My back just wasn't up to it so I weeded instead.

Then I planted some corn, cucumbers and kabocha squash which is called uchiki; a Japanese variety that keeps incredibly well and are not too big.

I have quite a few seeds in trays in my glasshouse/shed.

And then just before I left to come home I gingerly lifted the large bucket I'd put over my rhubarb a couple of weeks ago and Yes! It had some fine stems of the palest pink.

So I made a rhubarb coffee cake using a recipe from an Amish Cookbook I got out of the library - it is delicious and not too sweet. It has a crunchy cinnamon topping.

New Shoots

This morning was one of those still, damp grey days that are actually quite pleasant. Sound seems to be intensified; the birdsong was crystal clear over the hum of traffic from the southern bypass which is the other side of the embankment next to the allotment.I dug over a section of ground to make a new bed - I am changing the way the beds face and digging up the compacted earth under the carpet that I used as paths to give it a breather. I spread mushroom compost over the area and then sprinkled some chicken manure on top of that.I checked my seedlings in the cold frame - they seem to be doing quite well.

But nowhere near as well as P's. He's 87 and can touch his toes! He lives near the allotments and has been coming up here for 40 odd years. He has a greenhouse and shed at home and I popped in for a chat and a cup of tea on the way back to my place. He has more than 1,500 seedlings in plugs ready to go - mostly brassicas and lettuce of various types. Amazing! We all benefit as he is very generous and gives some of them away. Anyway his are benefiting from the warm weather and high humidity in his glasshouse and have come on at a terrific rate.
P gave me some early white sprouting broccoli.

I blanched a handful, cooked it with crispy pancetta a small glug (approx 1tbsp) of red wine vinegar to deglaze the pan. And then mixed it in with spaghetti and fried breadcrumbs. I used about a desertspoon of olive oil with a little chilli oil added. It was fantastic.

Mushroom Trip

Today my friend and neighbour Darren and I went to a mushroom farm in South Norfolk at Flordon and collected 5 trays of mushroom compost. We did the same last year and the muck spread on the garden seemed to benefit the soil and the veg enormously. It took us a whole morning.

We went in his truck which is former motorway maintenance vehicle that can tip up and so we used that function once we got the compost up the allotment to make the job easier.

We barrowed it off and had some surplus to requirements so we gave some to neighbours who were up there this morning.

I made a recording on my minidisc but as yet have not set up a host site from which to feed to the blog so you'll have to wait for the little audio blog of our trip.

Tonight I made Mr Xue's Sea-Flavoured Noodles from Fuschia Dunlop's book listed on my blog.

It had belly pork, dried shrimp, bamboo shoots, dried and fresh mushrooms, stock and shaoxing wine in it.

Absolutely zilch from the allotment in it though!

Warm spring days continue

The warm spring days continue in sharp contrast to the dull, damp weather last week. The construction you can see in the foreground of the photo above is a cold frame made by my friend Jim McKinney who also helped me build my shed cum greenhouse. That's at the other end of the allotment and I will post a pic of that soon.
Anyway, in the cold frame are seedlings, sown in modules, of lettuce (Drunken Woman - an Italian variety!), swiss chard (Bright Lights - stems are various bright colours), savoy cabbage, parsley, and Galician cabbage given to me by French friends when I was staying with them in February. There is no sign of the last two but the rest look very healthy. I have also not seen any signs of peas sown in guttering under cover so have given up on them and put in some mangetout seed saved from last year (Carouby de Maussane). My neighbour who's been on these allotments for 40 years reckons they were nabbed by mice. He recommends covering pea seed with holly leaves to deter the little blighters.
Other sowings include red cabbage, fennel, self-blanching celery, radish, carrot and sorrel (sorrel and potato soup...mmmm!) which is a perennial and should self seed every year to provide lovely lemony flavoured leaves. I have had no success with my carrots and I have such a bad record with beetroot that I've given up on that too.


This is some radicchio that has overwintered. It's a chicory and has a very bitter flavour which becomes less intense and for me more delicious when cooked. I find it takes me some time to get used to certain flavours. Mostly it's just a question of finding the right recipe and then experimenting. I made a radicchio and jerusalem risotto the other day and I've also varied it substituting leek for the artichokes which also worked well. It's become a regular and I take the leftovers to work and heat them up.

Here's how I did it:
2 radicchio cut lengthways and washed very well and then dried (I spin mine in salad spinner)
2 or 3 rashers of bacon (omit if vegetarian of course) chopped
1 finely chopped medium sized onion (omit if using leek)
2 large or 6 small jerusalem artichokes or 1 leek peeled and cut into small dice about 3 or 4mm
250g arborio (risotto rice)
40g butter
1 litre HOT stock (chicken or vegetable)
Parmesan cheese grated (about 2 tablespoons or more if you want)

Fry bacon in the butter until it starts to get crisp.
Then add the onion if using and the radicchio sliced at 2 cm intervals then the diced jerusalem artichokes or leek.
Fry for a couple of minutes on a medium heat.
Then add rice and coat with the butter and vegetables for anther 2 minutes.
Add the stock a little at a time adding more as the rice absorbs the liquid.
After about 20 minutes the rice should be creamy NOT soupy and will still retain a little bite.
Stir in the cheese and serve.