The Sylvanian Massacre

Not much was achieved at the lottie last week as we were busy with children's birthdays. As you can imagine, coming straight after Christmas the house was awash with all of their presents. No matter how many times I told them that the dog would get anything they left lying around, they consistently ignored me. That's what parents are for, I understand - being ignored.
I fear the little darlings got their come-uppance as on Sunday afternoon our mutley got hold of, and ate, a bus-full of little Sylvanian Family characters. We are not quite sure of the total body-count as no one seems to know how many of them were in the bus (No passenger log. Tut tut). But we do know that we are short of a head, an arm and a leg.
The girls are distraught. The dog is uncomforable. Him Indoors and I are thanking our lucky stars that we have pet insurance and hoping that the above items work their way through by natural means!

Land Grab

There is a land grab underway at the lottie.

I don't have a mower that I can take down to the allotment and I have never had time to worry about keeping the edges of the plot neat and tidy, but I have realised that I need to be a bit sharper.

There is an incredibly robust weed which spreads really quickly, and is well established along the grass paths. Surveying my plot compared to the very neat one next door I realised that the combined effect of the week and the rapidly encroaching grass down either side is costing me about a foot of planting space at the end of each row.

Thus, one of my Winter jobs has been to tidy things up and attempt to achieve something broadly resembling a neat edge, to reclaim the space which would otherwise be lost. The edge is properly marked with posts and line. I am roughly turning the soil over and I hope that some hard winter frosts will do the rest for me. With little to do over the winter in the growing department, I may even get it looking like a proper allotment!

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Just in case anyone is suffering from the Winter Blues, here is a high-summer photo. Poppies against a pale blue sky. Just to cheer you up. Why not?

I stopped on my way to work one morning in the summer to take this photo. The poppies had been taking my breath away each morning as I passed. This photo does not do justice to the vastness of the field and the huge expanse of colour. But in the depths of January it has to be good for the soul.

Just when you thought it was time for a rest

Just when you thought it was time for a rest, a Gardeners' World email pops up and reminds you that there are still jobs you can be getting on with this week. So yes, I now realise that my autumn raspberry canes do, of course, need to be chopped down to ground level. At some point during his Christmas visit my Dad will remind me that yes, the apple trees need pruning (I will have the secateurs ready to put into his hands whenever he does as I am still a bit clueless about pruning).

And apparently it is time to start sowing chilli seeds. Who would have though it?

There is also the pleasure of planning for next year to look forward to, pouring over seed choices whether in catalogues or on-line.

As well as the veg, I do want to pay a little more attention to colour in my garden at home next year.

I had a look through some of the photos I have taken this year which have inspired me. Needless to say, these were not taken in my garden but at Belton House. I have some baby lavender plants on the go, however, which I hope might help me get a bit closer to this ideal next year.

There are also some work/life balance decisions to make which might leave me with less cash to splash on garden purchases, but more time to grow, nurture, watch and enjoy during 2012. Now that sounds like a plan!

Time to hang up the gardening gloves until New Year

Visits to the allotment are becoming rarer and shorter as winter gets into full swing. I made a flying visit on Monday but only managed about half an hour before my fingers turned numb and it started raining, upon which I beat a hasty retreat.

 

However, the jobs are mainly done. The perpetual spinach has continued to grow so I took a final picking of beautiful, bright green young leaves, before a further drop in temperature turns them to slime. I say "a final picking" but am wondering just how "perpetual" it is. When I dug out the roots of last year's crop in the spring the roots were immense. Would they have re-grown if I had left them? I might just experiment this year and leave them in a bit longer (with a sowing of new plants as back-up).

 

The spinach leaves I picked are tender enough to use for salad but I only seem to want warm food at the moment. They served us well in a high-speed beef and noodle stir fry on Monday night. It had to be quick: I was at Zumba until half-past seven so Monday night suppers are speedy affairs.

 

Rick Stein had a lovely series last year which featured lots of dishes from places like Thailand and Malaysia. I watched enough of them to realise that there is a Holy Trinity of flavours (fish sauce, lime juice and sugar) which will lift dishes such as this into something fabulous. Rick Stein raved about palm sugar but I never got around to buying this, and in any case we already have about 10 different kinds of sugars, honey, syrups and so on at any one time. This time I skipped the sugar altogether and opted for a spoonful of Jolly Jon's Soon-to-be-World-Famous Chilli Jam which combines a hit of chilli with the required sweetness. Fantastic and just what was needed on a cold December night.

 

So, the spinach is picked, we have white and one red cabbage remaining in the ground which can look after themselves, and there is nothing that needs to be done to the sprouts except leave them to be improved by the frosts and then pick them for Christmas. It might just about be time to hang up the gardening gloves until New Year.

 

Thieving B***ards!

I'm sorry there is no photo to liven things up this time, but I can't take a photo of my wheelbarrow because it has been nicked!

Yes that's right, stolen from the allotment. Can only assume it is one of these scrap metal thefts I keep hearing about.

And lo! The Chancellor's Autumn Statement has today announced that the Government will invest £5 million to set up a nationwide taskforce to target metal thieves and scrap metal dealers who illegally trade in stolen metal. How about that for finger-on-the-button save-the-economy thinking!! Must vote Tory next time (not!)

But in the meantime, once I have calmed down this does open up the opportunity to buy a pretty pink plastic wheelbarrow, don't you think? I have been eyeing these for a while but couldn't really justify it. I mean, who needs two wheelbarrows? Now I am barrow-less (if you are reading, Santa) please can I have one of those?

Freezer Roulette: a Family Tradition

In the rush to get produce picked, prepped, and eaten during the summer a number of dishes found their way into the freezer unlabelled. So on Friday night we found ourselves playing roulette of the "is it a chilli or a bolognese?" variety. Cue all sorts of angst from Him Indoors about how to pick an appropriate wine to go with it.

It turned out to be neither: it was actually a dish I had made with the glut of runner beans and tomatoes, livened up with chunks of chorizo.

Such lax freezer management is a bit of a family trait. My Mum used to make fabulous pies of all varieties when I was little: fruit, meat, sweet, savoury, but rarely labelled. She claimed to be able to identify the filling by some mysterious combination of vents in the pastry lid. One for steak and kidney and two for black currant maybe...but I remember at least one occasion when the system failed and the golden pastry crust split to reveal a meat pie where pudding should have been. Delia Smith would not have been impressed.

It is clearly more sensible to label the contents of the freezer than rely on guesswork, but rarely as entertaining.