Organic Allotment

Odd One Out

Here's a little question for you... Which of the vegetables in this picture is an intruder? Three of them turned out just as expected but the fourth. Well that's a total mystery...

The brilliantly vivid beans are Purple Queen which are tasty, a heavy cropper and un-fussy french bean which I've had great success with over the last couple of years. Normally two batches of plants with a month in between will see you right through to the first frost if you are diligent with your picking.

The pink spuds are Desiree. We've never had great success with potatoes round these parts as we seem unable to avoid blight but when we do manage to  grow even a few it's worth it because they taste so delicious.

The yellow carrots are Yellowstone and are the second successful batch of carrots from our greenhouse growing regime which has proved to be an excellent way of avoiding root fly - another pest which is unfortunately endemic at our allotments.

And the bright orange cucumber? Your guess is as good as mine. It's supposed to be a delicate Parisian Pickler but a couple of days away from the plot and this is what I found when I got back. Has anyone got any suggestions what might have caused a cucumber to go such a shocking shade of orange?

Pass It On

 After a slow start, the summer harvest is really in full flow now with a fantastic selection of fruit and veg to choose from every time we go down to the plot. It's that time of year when the tomatoes are just starting to come into their own and the courgettes are really starting to run out of control. It's great to have enough extra to give to friends and family but each time I give something away I'm reminded of a phrase that I heard last year on the radio: "aggressive generosity". The idea that sometimes us allotment gardeners and vegetable growers have so much of a certain crop that we want to give away that we can be rather over enthusiastic as we try to hand it on to other people. You must have had the experience when work colleagues' faces dropped as you bring in the fifth bag of runner beans in a week to share with them?

"Are beans the only thing you grow?" is usually the response that this generates in my office. Of course, people are more than happy to take fresh, organic veg off my hands but there are only so many configurations of the bean that  sane person can dream up in any given five day period.

On my plot the killer crops are the aforementioned courgettes and runner beans which we always end up with a glut of. Then there are other crops like fennel, sweetcorn or broad beans that you'd have to fight me for. So, spill the beans... What are the crops that you grow that force you to resort to aggressive generosity?