Digging & Dreaming

Florence Fennel - a Tricky Customer

Florence Fennel is a tricky crop to grow. Although it looks beautiful on any plot and tastes equally special, it isn't ideally suited to growing in the UK and as a consequence will bolt at the drop of a hat as soon as conditions turn against it.

The first thing to consider is that Fennel is very sensitive to shortening days so I tend to plant mine after midsummer to aim for an autumn crop. I start them off two seeds to a pot in the green house sometime around mid / end of June. Once the seedlings come up I let them grow on for a week or two until they are big enough to identify the strongest and thin accordingly. As far as planting out is concerned, slugs love the rich, young seedlings so I wait until they get to a decent size before moving them outside. If they are maybe 8 - 10cm in height they will have the best chance possible of outgrowing the jaws of our slimy friends.

Fennel likes to be planted in well drained, rich soil and they also need to be watered thoroughly as they grow. This is not a crop that can miss a day's watering in hot weather! Mulching around the plants can also help to preserve moisture and is well worth the extra effort. When it gets to about September some people earth up the developing bulb but I normally forget to do this and have never had any problems as a result. By early October you should have a bed full of juicy bulbs ready to be picked. Unless it's an exceptionally hot year we will never get big fat bulbs like the ones grown in hotter climes but you can get a perfectly satisfactory crop that looks and tastes gorgeous.

The plants will not tolerate any frost so all need to be picked before the weather gets too cold. They also don't store brilliantly so are definitely best eaten fresh. And if they do go to seed don't despair - the flowers can be a dramatic and beautiful addition to your plot.

Chard - A Great Allrounder

I love chard. It's easy to grow, looks beautiful on your plot or in your garden and really starts to come into its own at this time of year as other summer crops are starting to come to the end of their season.

It's mainly sown in the spring for picking over the summer, although by protecting the crop with a cloche, leaves can be harvested during autumn and winter. It's also a pretty unfussy crop - so long as it is planted in a relatively rich, moisture retentive soil in a sunny or slightly shaded spot it'll do just fine. It's also a great cut and come again crop so if you just take the leaves that you want to use it'll continue being productive right the way through the season.

My love for chard was reinforced further when I tried this delicious recipe for Chard and New Potato Curry which is from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingtall's latest book- Veg Every Day. Hugh's version of this curry is great but here's my own, slightly modified version which I think works even better!

Ingredients

• About 500g Swiss chard
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 1 onion, halved and finely sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 3cm piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
• 3 cardamom pods, bashed
• 350g new potatoes, quartered
• 200ml smooth passata
• A small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped
• Sea salt and freshly ground
• black pepper

Separate the chard leaves from the stalks. Cut the stalks into 2–3cm pieces and roughly chop the leaves.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the onion and fry until just golden. Meanwhile, pound the garlic, chilli and ginger together with a pinch of salt to a paste. Add to the onion and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Tip in the rest of the spices and stir for a minute or two.

Add the potatoes and chopped chard stalks and fry, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, so that they are well coated with the spice mixture. Pour in about 200ml water and 200ml of passata – enough to just cover the veg. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 10–12 minutes until the potatoes are just tender. Add the chard leaves, stir and cook until just wilted.

Remove the curry from the heat and stir in most of the coriander.

Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Scatter remaining coriander, then serve with rice and naan or chapattis.

For The Love of Pesto

Few things reflect the generous abundance of summer as well as homemade pesto. A matter of weeks ago fresh basil was a rarity on our plot - something to be used in moderation, that needed cosseting to keep it going and growing. Now the sun's shining, the basil plants are putting on inches by the day and it's possible to sacrifice a whole plant, even two, to make a delicious bowl of pesto. Here's to plenty more sunny days and many more mounds of deliciously basily pasta before the summer's out.

Winter's Nearly Here

 

Today I worked on the plot until three o'clock and the light was already to starting to fade by the time I was packing up and heading home. I hate it when the days start to get really dark and gloomy but at this time of year I can cope with it because the plot has still got so much produce to offer.

The picture above shows the fine harvest that I took home today to put into storage in the shed. The last three summer cabbages will have to be eaten fairly soon but they're the exception to the rule because everything else in the barrow will last all the way through the winter months if looked after properly. They'll join the bags of onions that we already have stored safely for winter and that I am confident should take us right through to Spring. Judging by how full the shed is we should have lots of good cooking to come over the next couple of months, and there's nothing much better than eating a hearty meal in the depths of winter and knowing that you grew it all yourself!

On top of all the veg that we've got in the shed at home, there are also quite a few things still in the ground on the plot. The winter cabbages are doing beautifully and should be ready to start eating soon. We've also got a great selection of kale, fresh crisp chard, tasty leeks and some delicious brussel sprouts (that will be picked just in time for Christmas). And to top it all off, the parsnip and swede crops are looking good so fingers crossed for bumper harvests of both of those this year. In fact, it's been a pretty good harvest all round so here's hoping for a nice, cold winter that gives us plenty of time to get the plot perfectly spick and span in anticipation of plenty of great growing to come!

The Sweetest Pleasure

Few crops are as eagerly anticipated on our plot as sweetcorn. The deliciously sweet flavour seems to encapsulate the warmth of the summer sun just at the time of year when the nights are really starting to set in and the weather is starting to feel decidely wintery. Sweetcorn can be a tricky crop to get right though, so here are my tips for a successful harvest:

• Get the plants started as early as you can in April or May in a greenhouse or on a warm windowsill. They won't tolerate being in the cold at all but do need a good growing season so it's best to give them as much of a head start as you can and then get them outside as soon as the risk of frost has passed at the end of May or beginning of June.
• Sweetcorn is a greedy crop so make sure that the bed they are being planted in has been given plenty of well rotted manure or garden compost the autumn before.
• The plants need to be planted in blocks and not lines to allow for wind pollination. This also means that the more plants you have room to grow the better as this gives them the best chance of being pollinated.
• Protect your plants against squirrels who will eat your whole crop if they get the chance. And you can guarantee they'll get there just before you're about to pick the corn because they seem to have a nose for spotting when it's perfectly ripe!
• The best way to decide when your corn is ready to pick is to wait until the threads that come out of the top of the cob dry out and turn to a light, autumnal brown colour. When this happens pick one cob to see if it is ready - you can do this by pressing a single kernel of corn with you finger nail. If the juicy little gem pops easily it means it's ready. If it's still hard you're best to wait a couple of days before trying again.

Then, if you manage to get through all of this, all you need to do is get a pan of water boiling on the hob, cut a sliver of butter and grind some blackpepper in anticipation of possibly the most deliciously simple meal you could dream of eating.

Times of Plenty

  There's loads of stuff to be picked at the allotment at the moment. In fact, it's getting to the time of year where there's so much ready to be harvested that you're often spoiled for choice! When there's so much fruit and veg just waiting to be picked it can be easy to forget that there's still plenty of planting you can do at this time of year as well.

Now's the perfect time to get in more beetroots and turnips for a later harvest in September and October. I'll also be planting some florence fennel which should be ready for harvest in the autumn. All the cooler weather we've been having is also the perfect condition for planting more lettuce seeds which won't germinate when the weather is much warmer. If you take the opportunity to do some planting now it means you'll have a much longer season for harvesting all that magnificent fresh fruit and veg.

Ups And Downs

It's getting to that time of year when it's all busy, busy, busy tidying up the plot in anticipation of the onset of winter. It may be a time that marks the end of one growing year but for me that isn't a bad thing because it also marks the beginning of another new one with seeds to be chosen, garlic to be planted and plans to be drawn up of what will be going where in the new year. This means that it is also a good time to have a think back and consider what has done well and what has been a disaster in the season that is drawing to a close. So, here it is for me...

Success Stories

Florence Fennel - the best year ever for this. Plenty of big, fat tasty bulbs and still going strong so we've got much more crunchy aniseed fun to come!

Swede - okay, so these aren't so exciting but I really love them and it's the first time I've ever grown them so I'm pretty proud of the results.

Pumpkins and Squash - a slow start with these but they're finally doing excellently, with just enough time left for them to ripen before it gets too cold.

Sunflowers - not a veg I know but I grow loads of cut flowers and these have been amazing this year. We've had big bunches of friendly, sunny blooms in the house pretty much constantly since mid-summer.

Big Fat Failures

Celery - it all started so well.. Then the weather got cold at the beginning of summer and the plants fell into a state of suspended animation that they have never recovered from.

Sweetcorn - the squirrels got to them before I did.

Tomatoes - ruined by blight again... Not sure what the answer to this is. It may mark the final year of tomatoes at the allotment though. I think we'll have a better chance of success in the garden so that's the plan for next year. I've got everything crossed that this will work...

Squrriel Rampage

Fresh sweetcorn is pretty much my favourite crop off the allotment. I love getting a pot of water boiling on my little gas stove in the shed to drop the cobs into the minute that they've been picked. This year they were a bit slow to get started because the weather has been so unpredictable but finally, over the last couple of weeks, they've put on enough growth to make my mouth water at the thought of eating them. Then it all went wrong...

This is what a corn cob looks like after a squirrel has eaten it. The annoying thing about squirrels is that they don't just take one cob - they eat them all. Every single last one. Very, very annoying! It's going to be a long cold winter ahead planning how to protect my precious corn next year. Any suggestions how to keep the squirrels at bay?

At Least Something is Hot Around Here!

All things considered the weather has been pretty useless here this summer. It's gone from one extreme to the other with fantastic weather swiftly followed by howling winds and torrential rain. It's been impossible to decide what to wear at the plot and the unpredictability has almost entirely put paid to the long summer nights on the allotment that I love so much. It has also meant that lots of things that we have tried to grow have been really hit and miss in terms of yield. For example, our French beans did nothing at the cold beginning of the season but then romped on in the warm wet days, our tomatoes got blight in the wash out and our squash came on depressingly late in the season because it wasn't warm enough.

Despite all this, one thing that has done extraordinarily well is the chili peppers in the greenhouse. We've lost a couple to mice with very well developed palates who have climbed up and taken chunks out of the fruit but, apart from that mishap, they've been a real success. In fact, they've done so well that we're now having to choose how to preserve them because we've got so many and want to make the best of the harvest over the winter. The plan is to dry as many as we can to use in cooking later in the year and also to make chili oil for cooking. I love chilies so this glut of fruit is almost enough to console me for the other disasters that we've had this year!

Pesto Time

Pesto is a perfect summer recipe. It uses up the piles of basil that you will be trying to get through by this time in the season, and is the perfect light and zingy meal for a warm, sunny afternoon. There is also something positively therapeutic about the satisfyingly simple process of making it that is a lovely way to wind down to the relaxed mood that should be a guaranteed feature of every August afternoon.

I use the recipe that Matthew Fort swears by and that was published in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I can't seem to track this down online so instead I've had to link to another by Antonio Carluccio that is pretty much the shame and that I'm sure will taste just as good. And for those of you who've never made your own pesto before? I implore you to have a go because it is so easy and because it tastes so much better than any you will ever buy in a jar, and I can also assure you that it is one recipe that is just as much fun to make as it is to eat.