Finally, I get down to the allotment to find the horrors that await

Thirty Streamline runner beans waiting for more rain

It has been a long time since I last went to the allotment, which is disappointing as one of the main reasons we bought our new house was to be close to it.

I bumped the RSA's Chief Executive Matthew Taylor on Wednesday as I attended a roundtable discussion on their 202 Public Service Hub's recent publication, the fascinating Business, society and public services: A social productivity framework, and he asked me how my allotment was; he was no doubt confused by the look of horror on my face. Because instead of contemplating luscious crops, my mind turned to guilt and scenes of neglect. The problem has been the time taken by our move followed by my pneumonia, so it has been weeks since I went, unprecedented in 15 years of keeping an allotment. It was therefore with heavy anticipation that I headed down yesterday, still feeling uncharacteristically weary but looking forward to a good day tending my little patch of heaven.
I picked lovely weather, the sun was shining and many of my fellow allotmenters had their families in tow enjoying the warmth and helping out.

Comedy parsnips

The first thing that hit me was the grass – with the rain that has fallen recently, it had got to over a foot tall on my paths and needed immediate attention. Then there were the pests. Much of what I have in the ground, like my asparagus, had been got at either by the asparagus beetle or slugs and on closer inspection I found hundreds of slugs and snails curled up around the weeds and vegetables like the cavalo nero. I destroy snails and slugs by standing on them. Fellow gardeners have more genteel ways of dealing with the gardener's nemesis, like plopping them in a bucket of water but as they can climb out of water I find the quickest way is to stamp on them or if they are smaller squish them between thumb and forefinger as I go about my business. I took out the cavolo nero saving the best for our rabbits at home and also dug up the last of the parsnips, which were rather large and probably past their best, though I will try to make them into soup today with chicken stock from last night's roast.

Serpentine asparagus

My asparagus shoots are coming out of the ground bent because as they grow incredibly quickly, they are contorting around the damaged side of the spears. They look like mythological serpents rising out of the sea but, I have to report, still taste delicious.



I make it a rule to try to add something when I go so I had the fun job of putting in my runners. This year I have gone for Streamline which is a new variety for me but grows very straight, hence the name, and as I have invested in a 'new' vintage bean cutter, thanks to good old Ebay, I am keen to get slicing with straighter beans and so reducing waste.

Who dun it?

I then weeded and re-netted my broad beans that have once again been well and truly got at by pests. It could be pea weevil but given some of them had been knocked over, more likely to be slug damage. It's time to order the nematodes!

I gave my apple trees a spray as signs of apple aphid and scab are already there and made a mental note to get some codling moth lures and arm my traps.

Finally I earthed up my potatoes, Pink Fir Apple, which are our favourite and still hard to buy unless you shop on the fifth floor of Harvey Nichols.
With things looking a little tidier, though by no means up to scratch, I said goodbye to our scarecrow, Bob, and wandered home in the evening sun to sort my screaming back out with an ibuprofen, washed down with a clinking gin and tonic. I find that most English of sundowners and a hot bath to be the cure for most things that ail a body.


I have a busy week ahead, but like Arnie, I will be back and armed for war. Don't be fooled by gentle breezes and sweet fragrance, gardening is a constant battle and not for the feint hearted.

PS Please sponsor my Sammie who did a 60-mile training cycle yesterday in preparation for his ride to Paris for Street Child Sierra Leone on 2 June. He's only 14 and is constantly monitoring his Just Giving site so go on give him something to cheer at!
Sam Ogden-Newton/Just Giving

Shed love

Isn't it wonderful?

This weekend I have mostly been admiring my new shed. Over the years I have reused all sorts of containers to store my tools, everything from a discarded Westminster City grit bin to a lean-to we made from scrap timber to a hand-me down, very shed-like shed, donated by a relative. These strategies were necessary because about a week after I got my site, way back in 1996, the old shed that sat on its neat, municipal concrete footing blew down. I then muddled through believing that the true spirit of allotmenting is to make do and mend.

But, no more. Today I present to you, drum roll please... shed supreme. I am not ashamed to say that once it was up I actually sat, with my kids inside it, closed the door and contemplated my good fortune. This, I concluded, was living! Shelves will be next with especially placed long screws to hold up my tools which are very precious to me and include my grandmother's rake and father's spade. Legacies from great and gone gardeners.

Once I could tear my eyes away from my own Sydney Opera House, I tended some of the crops I have going strong, including the cavolo nero. I then broke a real sweat turning one of my compost bins over, removing the bottom layer, which had produced some fantastic organic fibre for the herb bed. All  very satisfying.

To make my joy complete, I celebrated by lighting the massive pyre of this autumn's cuttings and past-their-sell-by date plants that I had been building up over the last couple of months.

Normally burning the amount of  green waste I produce from pruning the summer growth takes a few hours to get through. But to my surprise, and I have to say momentary horror, the whole lot went up in a couple of minutes! This was probably due to the winds that do dry out cuttings very quickly if they are left where the wind can literally blow through them. My tribute to the God of sheds was a spectacular sight, making us all smell of autumn, smoky and clean.

The metamorphic heat created wonderful ash that will feed the bed I used for the bonfire and my soft fruits, that, ooo, love a bit of ash.

As I left tonight I dug in the lingering embers, felt their very welcome heat on my face and thought about the big question: What is life if it isn't an eternal cycle of life, death and transformation punctuated by moments of pure pleasure, like a new, sturdy shed? Beetroot brownie anyone?

If you find quantitative easing hard to swallow, try eating fennel

Autumn sweet fennel at its best

According to the Press Association, the Bank of England gave its clearest signal yet this weekend that we are on the verge of a double-dip recession and to stave off further decline, it is going to release £275 billion pounds (£75 billion more than previously thought) of 'new money' into the economy via the banks. Speaking on Sky's Dermot Murnaghan Sunday programme, Dr Matin Weale, a senior member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, said that, "There is quite a lot of scope for further quantitative easing. Before the purchases we announced last week, the amount of Government debt in the system was actually higher than it had been before the earlier bout of quantitative easing."

Stripped of my strimmer, I ask, why bother?

Partially fanged but still fabulous, my first
 parsnips this year

Someone said to me recently that they went to my blog because I write about social enterprise and yet many of my contributions seemed to be about an allotment.

She said, "How can anyone write so much about gardening?" Clearly, she was not impressed. I do wonder what folk make of my rather eclectic mix of social commentary, horticulture and family life, but in writing about my passions, there does appear to be three themes. I hope they don't jar too much and the almost weekly gardening slot at the moment isn't too dull. My hope is based on the fact that I get as many comments about the gardening as other posts, so I know at least a few of you share my interest in the sod.

The seed bed in full production

Having dinner last night with a dear friend, she asked why I blog. I couldn't really answer except to say that when writing about what fascinates me, I do it to organise my thoughts, which I really enjoy, as much as a desire to inform the reader. Clearly, you may say, and I have had comments posted to the effect that my pieces sometimes miss the desired mark. But 28,000 unique visits to the blog this year proves something I suppose.

All of this is by way of introducing another gardening post. I must report that there have been a spate of thefts at the allotment and I have been relieved of my strimmer. It was a trusty friend, which, like its owner, needed careful handling. Good luck getting it started thief: without the usual three nods to the east and prayer to the gardening god, you haven't got a hope. Fellow tweeters have shared their allotment losses with me and theft on allotment sites does appear to be widespread.

The problem for me is not just the lost strimmer or the empty beer bottles left in our picnic area, it is of course, the violation. The allotment is my haven, where I go to feel good and at one with the world. For therapy, spiritual rejuvenation and veg. My children often go there alone either to fish or pick produce for supper, and I cannot bear the idea that on the same land, in the same space, greed and contempt sometimes stalk. So even though I had a great haul again yesterday and put another 3 kilos of raspberries and blackberries in the freezer, I worked on the site imagining someone looking at the fruits of my labour and finding it twee, smug and irritating. Or maybe I'm just over-reacting. It is after all only a bloody strimmer.

So a couple of things to tell you. The first is that I observed the Cavolo Nero I have under netting to protect it from the birds is being eaten by something, in dramatic contrast to the rest of the Cavolo Nero that has not been netted, see above, which is looking marvellous and well on course to provide us with some winter greens. I love this Italian brassica, which is as versatile as any cabbage but a stunning blue/black/green colour with a strong, distinctive flavour. Like all brassicas, it is hardy and one of the few things I managed to crop right the way through last winter.

I also pulled my first parsnips of the year, some of which are 'fanged' – a technical term for shapes like fat legs doing one half of a star jump, but still they looked glorious to me. Also, I started picking my pears, which we had with stilton last night and, like my apples, they are absolutely delicious.

So all in all a productive day and one that demands I move on. I would buy a new strimmer today, but that would break my, never-shop-on-a-Sunday rule, which has remained unbroken for 15 years. So the grass will have to wait until next weekend. That and today is really the day to remember 9/11 and a fellow allotmenter who unimaginably lost her daughter that day. All thoughts must go to her and her family, and therefore I shall worry less about unwanted two-legged visitors on plot 31.