Spotting wildlife royalty down at the allotment!

Playing dead, our star the Gold Crested Newt

There was great excitement down at the allotment today as I found a Gold Crested Newt, one of Britain's rarest newts hiding in my old netting, take a look. I found this little beauty when clearing out the pond, a filthy job and tough to do in the cold but important to tackle now before the frogs spawn.

I identified it as an adolescent Gold or Great Crested Newt through my own WBR, distinctive by the orange spotty tum, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

It was a tough but rewarding day of clearing up, I lit my bonfire, and dug over the Scruffy Memorial Garden, so named after Joe's hamster Scruffy, who is buried there. Actually Bubbles and Nibbles the rabbits, Squeak the guinea pig and Stella Joe's other hamster are also in the little garden which is a section of the allotment at the back given over to flowers, shrubs and herbs.

Four hours of digging later and doused by the lovely smoky smell I headed home chuffed to have such a rare and wonderful visitor to my own little bit of heaven.

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?

Down at the allotment its all Fartichokes!

Its all excitement down on the allotment as today is our first bonfire of the year! Perfect weather conditions and a mountain of weeds and cleared vegetation dried out over the winter mean today’s the day. I’ve put 12 year old Sam and his mate Freddie in charge, foolish you may think, but my view with children and danger is you need to teach them to manage it rather than avoid it. Fingers crossed. Sam has done a great job in getting things going and keeping it stoked and I have really enjoyed the ‘man talk’. High points have been comparing themselves with their forks to the soldiers of Troy and a row over who made the Bayeux tapestry, monks or women!?

Meanwhile 10 year old Katie cleared out the pond, it all looks quite healthy but sad to say no frogspawn, despite having frogs last year.

I got on with the satisfying task of putting my onions in. The couple of hundred sets I bought cost me just over a pound from our co-operatively run allotment trading shed, which is good value which ever way you look at it. I love the neat rows you can make with them, and was pleased with my soil in the onion bed, not quite Christmas pudding consistency as they often report from the Gardeners’ World garden, but pretty close.

I’m not sure if the hard frost we had this week has effected the parsnip and salad seeds I put in last week. I’ll know soon if they are a no show.

I’ve removed the plastic housing over my rhubarb as forcing it this year seems to have really slowed down its growth, and with rhubarb at a £1 a stem in Waitrose I need quantity. We really loved my rhubarb and ginger jam last year and to celebrate my first stalks, I am making a rhubarb tart for Sunday lunch. See above, its a Waitrose recipe. 



I dug up a quantity of Jerusalem Artichokes and have made some delicious soup.  I used the Abel and Cole recipe, although I par boiled them first, a top tip from the vegetable Queen Jane Grigson, to mitigate their powers of wind inducement, hence the epithet, Fartichokes! Their unique nutty flavor are certainly worth the risk, perfect with a little crème fraiche. 

A quick postscript to apologise for any confusion over the changes I am making to my blog. I am trying to sort things out but some of the gadgets might take time to become dynamic as I am learning on the job, please bare with me.