Soilman's Allotment Blog

Soilman, soft southern wuss

It's dank and dark and autumnal. But the light and the damp can be rather beautiful. This dahlia never looked better, even in the sunshine.

I was going to dig out the sweetcorn today. I was up bright and early, undeterred by the rain. "It's only a drop of water," I told myself. "You don't mind getting wet. You're hard as nails."

(Note to self: Stop watching that bloody Royal Marine training programme on the TV).

So I went to the plot... for about 2 minutes. The spade never made it out of the car.

Surrey: Heart of the rainforest

Most evenings, just before sunset, my allotment and garden get a visit from some rather exotic visitors on their way to roost. I find them absolutely captivating.

Ring-necked parakeets in Surrey http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213943053http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1213897953

No sow, no reap

These are the January King cabbages I'm counting on to give us greens in late autumn. Whether they'll have time to heart is a bit iffy.

Confession: my June-Xmas self-sufficiency is in the balance. Frankly, I blew it. The weather was so vile in June and July that I didn't sow much. Didn't think it would work (Translation: I was a big girl's blouse and didn't want to get soaked).

Now I'm reaping the result. Or rather, I'm not. There's beetroot, spuds and carrots aplenty... but our only green veg is coming out of the freezer. I'm praying for frost so I can attack the parsnips.

Can you die from eating too much root veg, do you reckon?

Soilman's Stool for Business

Who'd have thought shit could be so expensive?

This stuff is good, but it's £10 for four bags. They must be making a fortune.

Mental note: Business idea - bag and sell own shit. Strengths: Money for old turds. Weaknesses: Can wife and I produce enough? Will food costs increase? Opportunities: 'Soilman' brand acquires new significance. Threats: Cholera, E Coli

I got some free horse manure from a friend a few weeks ago, but I don't have a van – so I had to hire one. It's nuts, of course: Every stable in Britain is drowning in the stuff and under a legal obligation to dispose of it safely.

But will they deliver to allotments? Will they hell.

OK, enough of that. I've ranted enough this week already. Here's my last courgette of the year, gamely growing on a very mildewed plant:

Not a drop to drink

If you've not read about the granny arrested for NOT watering her lawn, put aside a minute or two to enjoy this.

Utah is one of the driest states in the USA. It's basically a desert. Yet it's a civic misdemeanour to let your lawn go brown.

It's easy to laugh at this kind of nonsense from the 'sanity' of the UK. But we're bonkers, too. These islands rank among the lushest and wettest in the world, yet here it's an offence most summers to stop your lawn going brown. If you really believe hosepipe bans are due to lack of rainfall (rather than mismanagement and profiteering), I can only suggest a visit to a psychiatric consultant as a matter of some urgency.

Environmentalists reckon water resources will be the great casus belli of the future. Well, they're already driving us crackers. Perhaps a proper war over them would bring us to our senses.

Big is beautiful

They say you should eat beetroots when they're small.

Well, this advice certainly holds true for most vegetables. But with beetroot, I really don't think it matters. The ones I grow are as sweet and tender at this size as when they're small. So – guess what? – I let them grow pretty big.

Is this fiendishly controversial?

Corrupted by powder

You know the courgettes are well and truly over when powdery mildew appears. Mine had resisted pretty well until recently. There won't be any more fruits from this lot.

It's been a lousy year for cucurbits – for me, at any rate. Half my plants got a virus (the fruits were weirdly misshapen). The others were just never happy in the cold and rain.

Must admit to a thrill of guilty relief, though; we had so many bloody courgettes last year that I was ready to vomit at the mere sight of one. Thanks to this year's shortage, I'm actually looking forward to the 2008 crop.

The Lord truly moves in mysterious ways.

They're very, very tasty

The wages of sloth

I let some of the fennel go to seed. By mistake, obviously – we'd eaten so much we couldn't face any more. I've been racked with guilt about it (people starving in the world, here am I wasting food etc etc).

Now I'm rather glad. The tiny flowers are beautiful. And I'll save some seed for next year.

Here's one I made earlier

Today is a first: a Soilman recipe.

It's a Russian salad called, oddly, 'Vinaigrette' (Russian takes many words from French and slightly 'misuses' them).

It has three great attractions: a) it's cheap, b) it's a great way to use surplus root vegetables at this time of year, and c) it's rather tasty.

Cooked ingredients: Two large beetroots, about five big carrots and two medium potatoes (all boiled)

Raw ingredients: A small can of peas (or fresh peas if you have them), five or six pickled gherkins, one onion

Method: Simply cut all the veg into tiny cubes and mix them up with chopped dill and three tablespoons of oil. Season to taste.

The chopping is, I should admit, a pain. But the end result is healthy and nice. And it keeps in the fridge for up to a week.

Drought (Ed: Surely some mistake?)

These Musselburgh leeks have come on a bit since planting. What they really need, though, is a drop of water (never thought I'd type that sentence in 2007).

The allotment was bone dry when I did some weeding yesterday. Even a foot underground.

Just where the hell did all that water go?

My money's on another winter drought. Although at this point, I'd open a book on locusts, raining frogs or any other meteorological anomaly.

From Zero to Hero

Yes! At last I've bloody done it!

I'd given up on carrots this year. The first lot were an utter disaster. OK, so these Autumn King aren't perfect... but they're a damn sight better. And no carrot fly damage.

Plus the beetroot is unimprovable. Where's my medal?!

There goes the sun

I was looking back at my summer photos and found this. Seemed a shame not to post it, for shamelessly nostalgic reasons. Another summer chalked up to history.

I get gloomy at this time of year. As the days shorten, it feels as if I'm climbing down a deep, narrow well. The light is slowly disappearing and I'm getting claustrophobic.

Winter totally sucks.

Salad days (er, literally)

It's been fabulous, but the corn's almost over. It's sad, because the last ear of corn means the end of summer.

Not that we've had one.

Still, there's enough left for a meal or two yet. Which is good news, because I'm on a 'no-carbs' diet. Or rather, a 'fewer carbs than usual, you porky bastard' diet.

Turns out that some corn and a bit of Spanish jamon do the trick rather well. More taste, less waist. I hope.

Oh, and if you're going to tell me that this contains, like, billions of calories... don't. Ignorance is bliss.

Mucking out

I love the smell of horse shit in the morning...