Somewhere a village is missing its idiot.

Compost is Nature's miracle. Our local council encourage composting and will provide a big black compost bin for about £15. As is the way with things, when something becomes ubiquitous, some witless fool tries to trivialise or present an anthropomorphic personification of the object, usually missing the point completely. This time the claim is that compost bins look a bit like Daleks.

It's a bit of a stretch so let me clear this up before it gets out of hand like the wheelie bins.

This is a Dalek.

It is bent on the destruction of the earth and Dr Who. They've been at it since the 50s.

This is a compost bin.
It provides an environment for the accelerated breakdown of organic matter into an odourless material resembling soil. It takes about a year. It is completely ambivalent towards Christopher Ecklestone, that camp yank or the Scottish bloke.

I should add that this is the remains of our first compost heap. The majority of the good stuff has been dug into the plot now.

Where do these people get their ideas? Do they qualify for a halfwit diploma if they say something really stupid once every couple of weeks. Is Boris Johnson their leader?

I hope that bubble stays blank for all our sakes.
Who wants to bet that I'll soon find some one selling compost bins with blue balls stuck to them and a head like a tank's gun turret that rotates in the wind. Sheesh! I think I'm ranting.

Can I dig it? Yes you can!

We are double digging the top plot. I can't begin to tell you how boring this is. Still at least it was very hard work and look a really long time!

We had a massive harvest from the crops on this part of the plot (Tomatos, sweet corn and tomotillos) The ying to this particular yang is that the crops sucked the soil dry. By the end of September the soil was as hard as concrete and did not contain an ounce of organic matter.

Let me walk you through it.

Dig a trench and load the soil in front of you.
Clean out the trench and put that soil on top of the first lot.

Then break up the soil in the bottom of the trench and the add lots of organic matter in on top. Nettles, chopped up crops, old compost and newspaper it all goes in.


Then fill the hole by raking back the soil dug out ealier.

Oooh! Nice and tidy.

Repeat.

It's not as fun as it sounds. I'll confess that a trip to the Tesco fresh veg counter might be easier.

My butt it overfloweth.

It's October and the long shadows cast over the plot around 4pm. The weather is still decent but things are changing.

You know how irritating it is when, for what ever reason, you have to spend even a few hours without running water. The chairman decided unilaterally and without notice that he would turn of the water at 10am last Saturday.

"There were frosts in Scotland last night" he said.

It was 26 degrees in Paris last night. What's his flipping point?

Harry politely disagreed saying that frosts were not due in October. Chairman said "Aaah well" in a way I imagine he thought conveyed some sage Jedi like understanding of the weather patterns of Western Europe that had some how escaped the Met Office and the Weather channel and shuffled off home.

"Yeah. Said Harry rolling his eyes. "I bet his water buts are full" and carried on digging. A quick investigation proved Harry correct. I can't tell you the langauge I used when I saw the chairman's water butts capped and so brimming with water that the ground beneath them was still damp from the over flow. I did scare birds from the trees and spooked a cat from the raspberry canes.

Our butts are full these two and another one is filling up from the shed roof gutter system. But that's not the point.

I am free from the petty tyrany of the small minded thanks to a bit of hose pipe and an old squash bottle.



It's a mark of my trusting nature that I half expected to be greeted by a frost on Sunday morning. I'm here to tell you that it was a lovely night, I spent a very large part of it drinking outside in the garden with some friends. We even had the hot tub on.

Never underestimate peoples ability to remind you how important they think they are.

Oi !

Look at him. Just hanging out. Scratching.

Who Me?

Too slow tubby!

Timber!...... and tomatos

Look at the devastation I have reeked on the plot this morning. Deforestation on this scale usually elicits a visit from Sting and other media hungry, enviro-mentalists.





Still look at all the tomatos that I have to process now. Some of these are ready to eat, some of these can go on the window sill and some will be made into sauce.



I'm looking for a suitable green tomato chutney recipe at the moment and I'll post my pictures later in the week.Tthere's nearly 20lbs of green tomatoes in the bag

I've got to dig all this over now and get it covered before we weeds invade agian.

You don't know jack (Frost)

It getting chilly in the night time now and the first frosts will be here any day now. As a fisherman this means the start of the cod season in the South East. I've been scouring my fishing forums for news of cod from Essex as I know that the first frost will only be a few days behind them.

I've left the tomatoes until the last possible minute as the weather last week was excellent and I'm hoping to see some more red berries before it's time to bring down my tomato forest.


I've discovered a cracking tomato sauce recipe which I will be getting to grips with next week. Watch this space for cooking and preserving instructions.

The sweet corn jungle has been thinned and the remainder will soon be felled. I'm after a couple of sweetcorn relish recipes and I'll blanch and freeze the rest.

The sweet corn were a proper delight this year. I will miss the rustic pantry feel that they helped create in my fridge. I loved those carrot tops, beet leaves and sweetcorn all sticking out at jaunty angles. I wanted to get a glass fridge just to show them off.

pics to follow

I won't miss the dirt I have to clean out from the bottom of my fridge every week. My veg tastes far better, but blimey, Tesco's veg is much cleaner. I wonder if we can have a cleaning station at the allotment. Actually I might look into this. Now there's an insight into my stream of consciousness writing style.

No wait. Wait! I'm not finished.... D'Oh!

That's it. It's over. Time called on the last planting of the year. There are a few crops that can still be planted but nothing that you'll see this year.

It is that time of year. With one hand you are picking the fruits of your labour and with the other hand you are sweeping away the debris of a spent crop. Keates’ season of mist and mellow fruitfulness is upon us, to be quickly followed by the season of frosts and spiteful chilliness.

I left my gas burner at home today. I like to improvise.

Last weekend I spent all my time covering our bottom plot with wood chip around the fruit bushes and plastic sheeting over the main growing area.




I also shifted a lot of horse muck. I love the smell of horse manure in the morning! Actually I really don't. More later.