strike out another day to the great god of unplanned quick halfs that get right out of hand

Every good allotmenteer should by now have now have made their to do list.

Got One? Me too.

It's just a reliable way of documenting the outstanding jobs that have been creeping around in the periphery of the plot during the summer.

Whether it's general maintenance like paths, roofs and steps or more seasonal jobs like disinfecting the greenhouse or tidying the shed the irresistible march of time and the continual exposure to the constantly changing weather means that these jobs become due ready or not.

Winter is the time to get some of these jobs done.

Why?

Well lets face it, with everything else that is going on, who has time for all this during the summer?

And that's how it starts.

The to do list summons into being all of allotment life's little irritants, together with the big jobs that have been skulking like black dogs on a dark foot path.

There is always the vain hope that in recognising the extent of your exposure you will some how steel yourself to achieve more. Nope! The to do list serves only to highlight the level of our own poor time organisation and makes us realise that the spell of the dark fairy of indolence is a strong one.

R: Dark fairy help me out!

DF: Well.... You've got all winter.

R: Yes! Yes I have. Thank you dark fairy. I've got all winter.




No I don't.

Between now and March 13th (that's about spring time right?) it will raining, hailing, snowing and sleeting. Heck, it we might even have some frozen soil this year. Doubtful when you live as close to London as I do, but you never know.

Celebrating Christmas this year? Me too. That's another two weekends gone. You won't see those again. Let's not forget the Christmas shopping time too. Let's Just write off the last two weeks of December and the first week of January for starters.

I have several birthdays during that time including a Father, Mother, Grandmother and a couple of very close friends which will each wipe out a Saturday or a Sunday or two.
Despite the wintery conditions there are still plants that need to be sown and all of my soil is in desperate need of compost and manure so that's another two weekends when the general maintenance jobs won't get done.

Allow another weekend for unexpected illness and another one for last minute visitors and strike out another day to the great god of unplanned quick halfs that get right out of hand, and your staring down the barrel of a long weekend and a planned day off work to catch up on the allotment before you need to start planting again.

R: I hate the dark fairy.

DF: Oh Really Rad? How about a quick game of Pro Evolution Soccer? It’s the 2010 version. You can be Spurs I’ll be the Arsenal. Best of 5?

Bean there done that

The last of the seasons tomatoes. Too soft to eat will be fridged and made into sauce.

Yes I have a "Mist" setting on my hose. Oh come on, allow me some artistic licence.

Too fussy I know.

Aumunm Bliss

These are the first real harvest of the raspberrys that I've had. My Nephews graze on these plants every time they visit and Coryn & Harry have a freezer full of them. I can't begin to tell you how great these taste fresh off the bush. This variety is actually called Autumn Bliss. They have a very complex aroma like dried tea leafs and roses, they are soft and juicy and melt in the mouth. Add Raspberrys and a couple of scoops of Green & Black's vanilla ice cream to a bowl and eat with a small spoon.

Borlotti Beans.

If you are making a stew in the coming winter months you can do a lot worse than adding a can of these to proceedings. Canned are best for stews in my opinion. They are rich and starchy and they add real depth to the sauce.

These need a good week maybe two to dry out properly. This is best done on the vine so we take them down now and stick them in the green house to dry. This lot will probably only produce about a pound of beans but it is worth it in my opinion. Don't start a Minestrone with out them!

Here's a tip to give your soups and stews a velvety texture.

Just before your soup is ready to serve take a ladle or two out of the stew or soup and put it in your liquidizer. Make sure you have a little bit of everything in the ladle and not too much liquid. Buzz it until it is very, very smooth. You may need to skim off and bubbles, random debris or unrendered fats that come to the surface ( you'll see them if they are there) and add it back to the stew and stir in well. Now you're cooking. Be careful when using liquidizers and hot liquids.

Shoot the runner

Ha! The end of the runner beans. Cower brief mortal! You are going to die alone in a big black composter and no one will mourn your passing. I hate runner beans!



You're goin' 'ome in a big black composter!
(This is funny to about six people, none of whom read this blog)
How can something that I cherish and revere be so close to something I loath and despise? Oooh! it just like Spurs and Arsenal.

Throw away your television. Chili stuff

Yes it's time for more Red Hot Chilli Pepper malarkey as I attempt to save my chilli plants so they don't have to be grown from seed again next spring. I took a shot at this last year but due to my poor communication we threw away our spent chilli plants last year.

Moving on.

So. Here are what I am tentatively calling my test plants.

Jalapeño mild to medium heat. The reliable work horse of the chilli world. Will produce a pleasant flop sweat on your brow and a warm sensation on your cheeks. More heat than this you are in dare territory!

Anaheim or Stak variety very mild. Just about a pointy sweet pepper really but a prolific cropper.

These are common or garden variety chillis that are uncomplicated to cultivate in a greenhouse. I have found these two plants in particular to have high quality fruits with the jalapeño giving a nice medium heat in cooking.

Sliding scales

For the heat lovers among you there is a chilli heat scale called the Scoville scale.

Here is how it shapes up. The Bell Pepper registers a Zero on the Scoville Scale. No heat.

Conversely the Habenero is a chilli for the serious heat lover. It registers around 300,000 "watts" towards the top end of the Scoville Scale. It has closely related family in the infamous Scotch Bonet and Naga chilli variety used in Jamaican and Bangladeshi cuisine receptively. If there is food in front of you which has been prepared using these, and you are not Bangladeshi or Jamaican or Mexican, then run. You are out of your depth.



HOT, HOTTER, PERFORATED ULCER

There are hotter chillis than the mighty Habenero and it's kissing cousins. A rather unnerving example is that Police grade pepper spray comes in at 5.5 million "watts" on the Scoville Scale.



There are chillies available in this country that are twice as hot at that.


Recent "progress" in crop breeding has produced turbo nutter chillis with names like Mad dog, Mega Death, "Devil's any number of things" and the beautifully poetic "Possible Side Effects".

If this is an avenue you wish to explore than you can do a lot worse than visiting the magnificent Michael Michaud. He's certified organic and probaly has a similar accreditation for his sanity. He is not some loon cross breeding this things in his back garden. He's got a poly tunnel.

Here's the crazy.

http://www.dorsetnaga.com/

Son. You're on your own.








I've grown the Habenaros before and I don't recommend it. They numb your tongue and throat and give you horrendous heartburn. You then get a hot sensation on top of the head and a tingling sensation at the back of the neck. Finally you are drenched in sweat for two hours. Heaven knows what a second bite would do! ( Thank you Peter Mahler)





Example. A teaspoonful of oil from a four year old jar of roasted habeneros will be sufficient to "heat" about 2lbs of chile con carne or a fiery curry to a level where you cannot feel your tongue. Handle only with rubber gloves. Burn the gloves after you have use them. Burn everything else the gloves touched. Lunacy!



Here's your 4 year old jar of roasted Habenaros. Oh yeah. I did! SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO!




Back to the sanity

The Jalapeño registers around 5,000. You know these little guys. These are the chillies that Old El Passo Corp put in the pickle jars and sell to you at £1.75 for 100gs





The Anaheim registers around 250 and is suitable for salsas and adding a zing to a salads or as Homer Simpson would say "suitable for some one recovering from surgery!"

It's basically a pointy sweet pepper.

Once Autumn has passed and the crops have stopped growing we'll look at how to preserve the plants from the tricksy English Winter.

History repaets itself, first as tragedy then as farce.

Oh look at these terrible things. Leek Worm (Who knew?) and paper leaf invasion have put paid to all my vast leek bed this year.

It's a disaster zone. I really should air lift this lot out of here. This happened last year too. We ended up drafting in shop bought baby leeks to cover the gaps. Too late for that this year. We grew all our leeks in a raised bed on the plot. You can just see them peeping over the top of the far blue barrel.

We had hundreds. Really. We planted about 120 gave away most of the rest to our plot neighbours. Most of our plot neighbours have the same problem too. Err. from the leeks we gave them. Ouch!

C'est la vie is becoming a bit of a theme this year.

Maybe it's a Karma thing. Perhaps giving away most of our leeks wasn't enough to square me with Krishna this year. On reflection...........Krishna is probably right.

I'll perceiver for a while yet. All but three leeks have been cut back to a couple of inches from the ground. I have thoroughly fed and watered the remaining leeks and removed dead leeks from the bed. Hopefully in this non hostile atmosphere they can thrive and become the Leek-opolis I had dreamed of for this winter.

Mmmm. The gaps are very conspicuous.

It's bad enough I lost all my corn this year. I'm hope I'm not going to loose my leeks too.

A close up of the kill or cure technique. Brutal.

Hari Hari!

Mellow sunday afternoon

Being at the plot yesterday just reminded me of the good bits of this time of the year. It felt like one of those lovely lazy Sunday afternoons.

The things that need doing you can linger over. You can relish the job for the gentle art involved, and the reward is the job itself. There is an imperative with no deadline.


See. Notice no spade. Tea, milk, kettle, burner, Ipod, camera, phone,Carol Klein book, hang over cookies and of course a marrow. I have no idea what that is doing there. Honestly, this picture was not set up. The kettle is of course on.

Sundays man. Watching Marx Bros films on TCM, hot (Duck?) soup and crusty bread rolls or tidying the herb patch and pottering in the greenhouse. Golden days.

It's a special time of year. Foot off the gas baby. We'll coast this bit.

Some of you may have caught the original verion of this post. I was asked to revise the post. Only a reference to the Marx Bros and duck soup remain.

Happy little squashes

Last year we had a bit of a rough time with out butter nut squash. It was OK but there were not that many of them and we lost loads to disease. Without really realising it we've had a cracking season this year. I think that is just the way things happen sometimes.


The plants went out in late June after any fear of late frosts had passed and the squash have trailed along happily doing little butter nut squashes as they go.

We've helped a little. A bag of bark chippings to keep the fruit off the dirt has helped. Bark chippings also help air circulate under the fruit, giving you fewer flat spots and less disease. Bark chips keeps weeds to a minimum and keep in moisture in our free draining soil.



Finally we planted a bit of Borrage near the plants for the bees to pollinate the flowers. Borrage is very easy to grow. It's a hairy and largely unlovely plant that grows about two foot six high and about the same wide. it has beautiful blue star shaped flowers and most importantly Borrage is like crack for bees. Bees go mad for the flowers and will happily pollinate any other plants around while they are at it.

Cobs wallop

The Sweetcorn was a disaster this year. This was due to the variety more than anything else. I was so exited about it. Fresh corn is the best thing about August & September. Not this year. I tried to put it to the back of my mind.

Last year we had great hulking sweetcorn plants, seven feet high (really) bristling with four or more cobs per plant.

These piddly things boasted a creditable two, creditable only because of the size of the plant. However the quality was very poor.

I had two cobs from a crop of 18 plants. They tasted very earthy and not at all sweet. Most of the cobs were thrown away. Those we did harvest were tasteless or not fully formed or had rotted on the stem before reaching maturity.

C'est la vie. I'm over it.