It was a dark and stormy night

After last night’s weather, this is how our site looks this morning.

There are only a couple of fences that have been battered by the wind, but quite a lot of trellising and other support structures that people were using for their summer vegetables has succumbed to the gale.

Why?

Well of course because it was a mighty wind! But there are other reasons:

1 – the plants that were growing up the trellises, like runner or broad beans, sweet peas etc, have all stopped growing – they are either totally dead or heading for dormancy, so the feeder capillaries that extend from the roots have atrophied (died off, in ordinary speak) and the roots themselves are no longer conveying nourishment and moisture to the plant – this means the roots shrink and so there is a gap around each root. When the wind blows, the roots move around in this small gap and become even less well anchored, until eventually they give up their grip on the ground all together.

2 – the plant surfaces: stems, leaves etc, are all drying up. Because they no longer have sap rising through them to feed their growth, they become dryer and lighter. This is just like hanging out a thousand tiny sails – once they catch the wind, they have no resistance to it and don’t bounce back into place as they would in the height of summer because there is no moisture in the plant cells to keep them supple – so the tend to remain in the most extreme position that the wind blows them to, and once enough of them are full face to the wind, they act like a solid sheet, catching the wind and moving with it, and the support they were growing up is suddenly not a support any more, but a mast, with a huge sail and over it goes!

The moral of this story?

Take down your summer climbers before the November gales.

Labels: autumn-allotment, bad weather, gales, summer climbers, trellis

Squash recipe

I've already mentioned that people are either marrow lovers, or they are marrow haters, you don't get people who can take marrow or leave it, just as you don't get people who are happy either way about rhubarb. Some foods inspire strong emotions. Squashes though, don't. Most people are relaxed about their pumpkins, acorn squash or butternut squash, they don't enthuse madly, nor do they run away in panic at the sight. So, given that this is the time when squashes are at their peak, here's a favourite recipe in our house.


Hot Autumn pasta salad

200g pasta
1 butternut squash, skin removed, de-seeded and cut into roughly one inch dice
1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped, or dried chilli to taste
1 garlic clove, minced
1 courgette, halved, de-seeded and cut into one inch slices or chunks
40 g pinenuts or sunflower seeds
juice of half a lemon
olive oil
parmesan
fresh basil

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius and oil a roasting pan, spread the butternut squash out in it and sprinkle it with the chilli and garlic. Season and drizzle with more olive oil. Now cover with tin foil and cook for thirty minutes or until the squash is soft when you squeeze it

Cook the pasta as per the packet (we used spiralli, but any short pasta works for this recipe)

Toast the pinenuts or sunflower seeds in a frying pan over a medium heat. Set them aside and use the same pan with some olive oil to fry the courgettes for a few minutes so they remain slightly firm.

When everything is ready, add the pasta, all the ingredients from the oven tray, the courgette and the pinenuts to the serving bowl. Squeeze the lemon over the salad followed by a good drizzle of olive oil and roughly torn basil leaves and give it a good stir. Slice some parmesan over the dish, followed by freshly ground black pepper and serve.

Labels: allotment-recipes, autumn-allotment, butternut-squash

What does harvest festival mean to you?

Three people intimately involved in the world of allotments share their views:

First, Crispin Kirkpatrick – allotment officer.

What does Harvest Festival mean to you (in terms of being an allotment holder)?

I'm not an allotment holder..... although I hold a lot of allotments (about 2500).

What's your favourite autumn/winter crop?

Fave winter/autumn crop gotta be apples, sweet chestnuts (my countryside roots coming out) and maybe curly kale. Thinking about it, one could probably live solely off the above for ages. It’s been an odd year for plot holders- never going to get one that's good for everything. There are great plans afoot for allotments … watch this space- can't give any more clues, but could be exciting!

Second, poet and allotment holder Ellen de Vries who says she has a love-hate relationship with her allotment. She's written several poems set there, on the valley side at the edge of Brighton. The poems 'Longitude, Latitude' and 'The problem with imagination' can be found in her recently published collection 'Girl in the air' (Pighog Press) illustrated by Patrice LeGarrec. Visit her website at www.ellendevries.org or get the collection from Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/3dlqbn).

What does Harvest Festival mean to you (in terms of being an allotment holder)?

I'm not especially religious. I don't hang out with religious people, but I don't like to think of myself as aethiest either. Last year I went to church with a friend who wanted to restore his faith in God and it happened to be the harvest festival. My allotment harvest hadn't been too bad, for a first year. A few knobbly turnips, some tiny, partially munched spinach leaves, quite a few stumpy carrots. I was glowing with pride. I did realise however, that our soil probably needed more 'feeding' as everything we harvested was like a miniature version of the vegetable it should have been.

So there we were, in church, and along came the parade, all God's sons and daughters bearing the fruits of the harvest: Tesco baked beans, Pasta from ASDA, Sainsbury's value flour. Upon arrival at the pulpit the priest asked the kids '...and what do we make bread with?' and the kids were stumped.

So it seemed that I'd missed the point. I was wanting to celebrate the joy of germination. In a basic way, I kind of hoped God, or mother nature, or whatever, might see reason to give us another year based on my devout praise and thankfulness for the beauty of growth, and the joy of plucking my little miracles from the soil.

I felt like I'd come to the wrong party. Though I guess we were all still being thankful for abundance, despite it being non-organic highly corporate supermarket produce.

How was your harvest this year?

I don't know if it’s because the communication lines with 'God' have gone down, but this year has been a dreadful year for crops. In April the soil was parched, in June and July the Size 12 slugs (shoe size) munched their way through the lot, and then there was the Blight. I did everything I could, I fed the soil with everything I could think of. Dung, old fruit, toenail clippings, leaf-mould, anything... At harvest time I only got a few semi rotten potatoes, some partially munched strawberries and four blighted tomatoes.

Perhaps allotments aren't high on God's agenda anymore now that church services concentrate on big-chain supermarket farmed produce.

Not sure what to do about the allotment now. Time to start again and hope for the best next year. I'd like to post a quiet little non-ceremonial 'thanks for the bits, God' in his comments box for when he gets round to it. Just in case it could influence the weather next year.


Finally, Andrew Faulkner, Chair of the Allotment Association:

What does Harvest Festival mean to you (in terms of being an allotment holder)?

The Catholic Church doesn’t have a Harvest Festival service but it means the fruits of the season to me. I see myself as working in partnership with God in the garden.

How was your harvest this year?

Excellent – the fruits, especially apples and soft fruits, were fantastic and I’ve had a bumper crop of potatoes.

What is your favourite autumn/winter crop?

The apples from my Bramley and Cox trees. My friend Flo makes me apple pies through the winter, from apples she stores in cool, north-facing room and that’s one the things harvest suggests to me!



Harvest festival photograph from Bert Hay's allotment!

Labels: allotment-holder-interview, allotment-personality, autumn-allotment, harvest festival

September plots – what’s going on?

Well, if you had the kind of night we had last night, frost is going on! Autumn has come in with a vengeance, hasn’t it?

Assuming you’ve got your winter greens into the ground already (we’ve got ruby chard coming up nicely, although it had to be covered with bubble wrap last night) then you can still be thinking about sowing winter lettuces such as Arctic King and winter hardy spring onions (also called winter hardy salad onions) and, of course, thinking about broadcasting a green manure to enrich your soil and prevent weed growth over the winter. Come early spring, you simply dig in your green manure and let it rot into the ground for a couple of weeks before spring vegetable sowing.

Some people are setting out spring cabbage plants now and even garlic in suitably sheltered areas.

It’s hardly worth feeding most of the veg now, as everything will be heading for dormancy, although liquid feeds are still important for tomatoes, peppers, chilis and cucumbers. Squashes and pumpkins will be slowing their growth now – they respond to frost (even if it doesn’t touch them) by becoming dormant, so watch the stems and as they start to slim down (meaning the plant is no longer feeding the fruit) cut through and move your squashes and pumpkins to a cool airy and above all dry place to store.

Compost bins can be emptied out now, spreading the stuff that’s ready onto your plot and piling the partially rotted stuff back into the bin.

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-tasks, autumn-allotment