All in apple pie order

I had an amazing day on the allotment yesterday with my nephew Tom Woodford. He did some serious heavy lifting of wood chip mulch and manure and I pruned for Britain. Starting at the front, I cleared back the asparagus, autumn-fruiting raspberries, gooseberries, Jerusalem artichokes, blackberries and grapevine.

Tom mulched the paths with the free wood chip that the council leaves at the site gates and also helped me bring 28 bags of manure down to No 31 to feed and protect the soil.

Tom, glad its's the last bag!

Tom is a keen rugby player and used to play for his university team in Newcastle but he still found that gardening is more than a little physically challenging. Watching him, I was hit by those thoughts that all adults feel when looking at children who have grown up around them. How do they get so big? Gardening, like family, is all about lifecycle and in preparing for winter we are making way for the next generation, the life yet to come.

It was a real treat to have a bit of muscle and I made the most of it. At this time of year I really enjoy putting my allotment to bed, but it is a brutal job involving very heavy lifting. I now have an 8ft tall pile of cut vegetation that will need burning when it has dried out a little and some serious digging to do.

So, thanks to Tom, I have made a great start towards my annual pre-Christmas goal of having the whole site tidy, fed and dormant for the big freeze. I have long since modified my ambitions for winter harvesting as the slugs, wind, birds and snow usually deplete anything I have tried to grow in the past, other than horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, cavello nero and beetroot. This year I haven't even put in broad beans as the snow really knocked back last year's autumn-planted crop, which was greatly outperformed by those that went in later in the following spring. Gardening is all about learning lessons, and I have learnt mine, which is: don't fight the weather.

Yesterday was also very special because of the heat, we actually caught a little sun and for near December that is extraordinary! And as for my apples, despite taking baskets to SEL and giving bags away, we are still nowhere near working our way through them. So today I will be making an apple pie which, if it is any good I will post a picture of.

Digging up the dirt

It's time to get dirty and back out there to the allotment. Yesterday was a huge day spent digging in 26 raspberry canes and two new redcurrent bushes (seen below in Sam's patch which is now the redcurrant zone) under the watchful eyes of gangs of hungry Robins.

Every year I set out the years planting and this year is no exception. What marks a departure is 2011's cunning plan to go lowish maintenance. In the past I have always managed to stay on top of things right up to the height of the growing season which coincides with our family holiday. Habitually I can be found down the allotment until the last hour before our departure, which is inevitably delayed by disasters like black fly and blight. But despite the stirling work the kind souls who agree to look after it for me always do, with regular watering and cropping, I always come back to a shambles. By the end of August what was a neat, highly productive small, small holding turns into a set from Sleeping Beauty with bind weed being the primary produce. By the time I manage to get back on top of things, working like a farm hand on speed, that fuzzy relaxed holiday feeling is a distant memory. This year, especially given the Government's radical progamme has added hours to my working days, I need a new approach.  So I'm going to go long on fruit, and semi-permenant beds like asparagus and cut out the high maintenance things like runner beans and possibly even tomatoes. With intensive mulching and some hard graft sooner rather than later, I intend to get the crops I want when I'm around to pick them, reduce the produce that needs daily watering and continue to enjoy my little slice of heaven.

The rewards continue with this week's crop of Brussels sprouts, Cavello nero (grown from the last of the seeds I bought back from Tuscany 2 years ago), beetroot and horseradish. At this time of year the horseradish is really fiery with the frost turning up the heat. I think I might make some of Hugh's beetroot brownies today and I hope its beef again because you really can't beat my home made Horseradish sauce, it makes you cry, but unlike the cuts, in a good way.

 

Bob the scarecrow keeps an eye on my purple sprouting, as you do