Plodding on

Seven months since I last posted here, so Blogger kindly informs me, as it keeps track of my absence from its clutches. I've lost track of how many about-turns we've done as to whether we keep the allotment or give it up.  For the moment we've decided to stop being so...introspective about it and just get on and grow what we can in the limited time we have available.  Here's a quick tour of the plot in its post-winter state.

First, the brassica cage.  Actually the cage may be our best growing item!  It's stood up to some ferocious gales this winter.  We haven't had any real snow, however, and that's the weak point of any netting-covered structure.  I saw recently in the Harrod catalogue (that's Harrod Horticultural, not Harrods of London) that they've improved on the 'build-a-ball' construction of our cage and now sell a locking system that keeps the poles lodged more securely in the joining units.  Given how much it cost in the first place we're not about to abandon ours for a newer model, but I do have my eye on it for the future. 

Inside the cage from left to right we have kale, which has been a great success and kept us supplied with greens throughout the winter, although some of us more happily than others.  Let's just say that my husband doesn't share the love I have for kale.  Next is a row of what I was convinced was sprouting broccoli but which grew painfully slowly, failed to sprout, and is now flowering.  Then there's a row of something I will reveal in my next post, followed at the right by the leafy stuff which I thought was spring greens.  Really, I must label what I plant rather than thinking I'll remember.
 

Beyond the cage is the leek bed, variety Musselburgh.  They look like all of us at the end of the Scottish winter - a bit tattered, blinking in the stronger light of spring and realising we need to smarten up a bit because people can now see what we look like.
 

Then come two and a bit rows of overwintering onions, variety Senshyu.  They seem to be suffering from that other Scottish affliction, lack of sunlight and warmth.  Can you tell that it's still very cold here, and I'm grumpy about it?  Did you know that in this month's 'Living France' magazine you could buy a 'charming stone property with pigeonnier and pool, private but not isolated, near all amenities' in the Lot for 248,000 Euros?  To the right of the onions is this year's nameless garlic, probably feeling even more grumpy than I am.
 

Back to reality, and some rather late planted onion and shallot sets.  
They've since started to put out green shoots, so fingers crossed that they'll pull away.
 

A little bit of help from a labourer never goes amiss.  Our daughter was home recently from university for a few days and kindly set about weeding the strawberry bed.  This is probably the last year for this bed.  I'm undecided as to whether to take runners from the plants this year or start afresh with another variety.  The fruit hasn't been great, and I'd also like to extend the season with fewer plants of several varieties.  Of course I can't remember the variety I have at the moment, but I'm  sure I will when I start to look at catalogues. 
 

This was our surprise harvest last weekend.  Surprising because I have got into a mind-set of thinking that we are just doing maintenance rather than anything productive.  But we are actually eating what we're growing.  
 

From top of the 'display plank': what was meant to be spring greens turned out to be cauliflower.  Well, it would have been if I'd left it to grow.  There was a miniscule cauliflower head nestled deep inside, about the size of my thumb nail.  The leave were quite tasty steamed however, and made me realise how much waste there is in supermarket cauliflower presentation.

The rhubarb has suddenly forged ahead, and it's delicious.  The leeks are getting to the end of their run, so I'm going to dig up the rest next weekend and freeze them.  And finally the rainbow chard has made it through the winter and is fresh and exuberant, and very tasty steamed and sprinkled with chilli flakes. 

Throughout the winter I haven't felt that I needed to blog about our forays to the plot, but now that I've returned it's interesting how the act of writing seems to solidify and give substance to the scattered bits of activity that have been going on.  Now we just need a bit of warmth so that I can get that other allotment essential out of the shed - the deckchair.  Otherwise I'm going to be seriously tempted by the 'charming stone property', if a bit uncertain about the pigeonnier.  

First deckchairs of the year

Until now it's been a case of keeping moving to keep warm, but yesterday at the plot it was warm enough to take a break from digging and soak up the sun.  All of 10 degrees, but it felt blissful after a winter that has seemed never-ending.

Not much blogging has been done, but a fair amount of digging.  The blessing of this cold Spring has been that the weeds haven't got going, so digging the ground over hasn't been as hard as it might have been.  Hard enough, tho, and the ground has been hard through lack of rain. 

Below, the strawberry bed in mid-clean.  It's finished now, and plants dressed with sulphate of potash.  Couch grass seems to love strawberry plants, twining itself around their roots and popping up in mid plant.  I don't doubt that it will return to the fray.
 

The bare ground below holds the newly-planted potatoes.  Two rows of Red Duke of York, two of Mayan Gold (hoping that they will live up to Monty Don's praise of them), and one of Ratte, a salad potato.  The tubers had been chitting for so long that I'm concerned that they will be over-chitted - they had started to wrinkle up - so I hope they will get going and grow.

We have had a paltry harvest of brassicas.  The purple and white sprouting broccoli has still to sprout, and frost has killed most of the calabrese.  However some new shoots of calabrese have survived, as has the purple kale and savoy cabbages.  I'm in two minds about the purple kale.  It does look lovely as a plant, and steamed with a plateful of green lentils, but it made a bizarre addition to my traditional Scotch broth, turning the whole thing a pale lilac.

As for the leeks, they have sulked all winter.  I'm making the best of it by thinking of them as gourmet baby leeks.

There has been curiously little sign of life at the allotment site over the past few weeks.  The weather has been fair, if bitterly cold, and it seems as if people are reluctant to emerge from hibernation.  Everything feels suspended, and it's been difficult to think ahead to a time when winter will end.  When the temperature rose during the night yesterday, with rain and wind, I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder in 'The Long Winter', when the chinook started to blow.

Decision time

How can it have been more difficult to get to the allotment in a summer where one 'child' has spent 2 months in Nepal, and the other has divided her time between France, Greece and working?  And now that they're both away at university (although only very recently), we still don't seem to have found the time.  Work, visitors, time spent as a family and time spent preparing for departures - all have taken priority over working at the plot.

We've made some small gains, despite our hectic summer.  Onions and shallots have been harvested, such as they were.  The hay (our pseudo straw) has been cleared from the strawberry bed and the old growth cut off.  Leeks have been planted, and are coming along oh so slowly.  The blackcurrant crop has been appreciated by the birds, and the fallen berries are creating a rich mulch beneath the bushes.

For the moment, the kale, broccoli and spring cabbage are holding their own beneath the bird netting.  Some signs of snail attack, and a healthy underplanting of grass which I'm gradually and painstakingly clearing by hand.  The soil has been too wet to use the hoe, so hand-weeding is the only option.
 

The old strawberry bed has become completely overgrown with grass, so to give ourselves an easier time we've covered some of it in light-stop membrane which I unearthed from the shed - ordered in 2004 and never used.

At our last visit a couple of weeks ago we came to a decision:  we're going to give the plot two more years, during which time we'll aim to have it productive and in order.  If at the end of that time we're still struggling for time, we'll give it up.  Longer term plans are beginning to take shape now that the children have finished school, and we want to have time to work towards these. 

Kale

For some time now I've been meaning to post about kale. It's the current (only) star of our plot. I am a great fan of kale. Husband and children less so. I'm inspired to write this post by the epic three-part ode to kale at A Corner Garden.

This year I've deviated from the traditional Scottish varieties such as Pentland Brig or Westland Winter and have gone European with Cavolo Nero. The photo above shows it looking less nero than it actually is, because of the combination of sunny day and a hurried point and shoot with earthy hands. I don't know whether it's the refined Italian nature of Cavolo Nero, or because I didn't warn the family of its presence, but I sneaked it into a stir fry at the weekend and none of the usual grumbles were raised.

Kale and I have a long history together. It's part of one of my earliest memories: holding my grandmother's hand while walking along the pavement - oh so far - to a neighbour's house to get some kale to put in the scotch broth. My maternal grandparents lived in the fisher town of a village on the Moray Firth coast. It's now a trendy conservation area, but then it was just where the trawler fishermen lived, in rows of houses gable end on to the sea to take the brunt of the winter storms. There was very little room for gardens, but my grandmother's friend Bessie had a small sheltered plot in which she grew kale. I think that was it - just kale.

The broth making was a long process. First the barley and dried peas were soaked overnight. In the morning the vegetables were diced small - carrots, leeks and onions only. They were put to steep in a bowl of water while the beef was brought to the boil and skimmed. I remember thinking that the bowl of cut-up vegetables looked like little jewels.

The beef used in broth was a particular horror of my childhood known as boiling beef. Properly known as 'rolled brisket', it provided the stock for the broth, and made it into a meal. I hated it. Fatty, grey, hideous. I think it was probably rather tasty, but I never got that far. Shudder.

Anyway, the barley etc was added to the pan with the beef, and a long boiling ensued. Towards the end, but much sooner than I would do it now, the vegetables were added. Last of all, shreds of the precious kale were put in. The broth was served as the first course, followed by the ghastly boiling beef, along with potatoes. The broth was made in such huge quantities that there was enough for several days. After the first couple of days the beef ran out, and at this point the potato was added to each soup plate at the point of serving. Then I was in veggie heaven. Broth does improve each day, and 'second day's broth' (but without the beef) is a true delight.

So when I make broth, in goes the kale. I also use that staple of the Scottish kitchen, broth mix. I don't know if this can be bought anywhere else in the UK - perhaps just over the border in the North of England, or in trendy food stores in London. Here's a very hurried photo I took today. In fact a dreadful photo, but on a hectic working day it's the best I could do.