Getting started

Yesterday I posted pictures of the plot as it looked when we took ownership a year ago. We got very excited on the first day and then, it started raining for two solid weeks. Every single gardener worth his salt will tell you NEVER to do any digging when the soil is too wet. We decided to ignore the advice but we badly regretted it. Because double digging waterlogged, weeds ridden, heavy clay under the pouring rain was tough work. We got wet, we got muddy, we got tired and I got in a very bad mood … But we were desperate to get the plot into some reasonable condition to grow something over the summer. After many hours of clearing all the rubbish, digging, and pulling out weed roots, the plot started looking a little better.

The plot from the bottom – we can see the paths and we’ve got beds!

Around the shed – and a brand new home-made compost bin

We actually managed to grow quite a bit last summer despite a late start: lettuces, all sorts of salad leaves, a few onions, some cherry tomatoes, a lot of green and yellow courgettes, radishes, peas and beans, sweetcorn, turnips and even some strawberries.

Our first lettuce!

Young alpine strawberries under one of the apple trees

A lot of it, we just made up as we went along, planted where there was space, not worrying about soil type, companion planting, crop rotation, etc. It works but I suppose it’s not the best way to manage your plot if you want years after years of tasty and healthy veg!

Last winter, I spent a bit of time reading, planning and preparing and hopefully, this year, we’ll do even better.

Ready for the growing season at the beginning of March 07

One year ago ...

So here we are, one year on, hooked on our home-grown vegetables, addicted to our little plot of land, and forever fighting the war against weeds (I seem to be winning at the moment but how long for…?).
But sometimes, when things don’t go quite so well, when the weeds seem to grow faster than we can pull them out, when it rains so much that our plot turns into a very large pond, when it feels that we’ll never be able to keep it as tidy as our neighbour, I need a little reminder of how far we’ve come. So, what did plot 52 look like a year ago?

Well, it looked like a very overgrown tiny orchard!

View from the entrance gate - the central path was hardly visible and the weeds were flourishing!

Another view from the bottom of the plot

The previous tenant obviously loved his apple trees (we’ve got 5 on our little plot!) but didn’t seem quite so keen on actually cultivating the rest of the land. What had previously been carefully delimited beds and paths was almost totally covered in a thick mat of weeds – couch grass, bindweed, horsetail, the lot! Our predecessor was also keen to squirrel away all sorts of bits and pieces of various interests: a large number of glass and window panes, piles and piles of wood in various rotten stages, plastic pots scattered all over the place. Even an old orange fridge and a rusty filing cabinet!

Rotting pile of wood, old windows and the filing cabinet at the back!

We picked this plot out of the 3 we were offered because it had a shed and the old foundations of a greenhouse. Said greenhouse had been vandalised by kids from another neighbourhood some time ago and we still find bits of shattered glass surfacing everywhere.

The greenhouse foundations and more rubbish!

And the shed …

The shed with loads of glass and the broken orange fridge at the front

The roof had not been looked after for a long time and was full of leaks. But that wasn’t the worse. The inside of the shed was where the Squirrel had stashed away all his most treasurable findings: dozens of packets of out of date seeds, bottles of unlabelled pesticides, old tins of paint, plastic containers of old children toys (creepy…) full of stinking water, piles of broken CDs, computer games, an old computer keyboard, and the worst of all, rotten carpets, inhabited by slugs and unidentified creepy crawlies. The smell in there was almost unbearable and my brave boyfriend volunteered to do all the clearing – he was almost sick on several occasions, disturbed several mice, and had to make countless trips to the skip. Not the most pleasant memory of our time on our plot!

Apple trees' blossoms

Banana and pecan nuts bread

I am in the middle of sorting out my allotment pictures, eating some "just hot from the oven" banana bread so I thought I'd post the recipe. This was supposed to be made with walnuts but I didn't have any and I much prefer pecan nuts anyway!

Ingredients:

225g plain flour

100g sugar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large or 3 medium bananas mashed

2 tbsp melted butter

1 tbsp milk

1 egg

50-75g pecan nuts roughly chopped (or walnuts)

1tsp lemon rind

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C /350F/GM4.

2. Mix all the ingredients from the first group in one bowl.

3. Mix all the ingredients from the second group in another bowl.

4. Mix the contents of both bowls together.

5. Pour into a loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 to 1 and 1/4 hours. When it's ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out clean. Cool down on a wire rack and slice before serving.

Should make 8 to 10 slices.

PS. There wasn't much left by the time I got round to taking the picture!

A little bit of an introduction

If you're coming from Il pleut, il mouille! (my other blog), hello again and thanks for visiting here! This blog will be written mostly in English for a number of reasons which I might elaborate on one day. Hope you don't mind too much, it's easier for me and it makes more sense.

So where does this blog come from?

Once upon a time, before I broke my mum's heart and crossed the Channel, I lived in a big-ish house with a big garden in a small country village and my grand dad was growing very tasty vegs in his potager. For the past few years now, I have been taking more and more interest in what I eat, where it comes from, how it has been grown or raised and how far it had travelled before ending up in my plate. I am not quite Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - even though I would dream of leaving the River Cottage lifestyle in my older years! - but I wanted to be able to grow my own vegetables and eat fresher ingredients seasonally. Some might think it's just a pipe dream when you live in a tenement flat in Glasgow with a tiny shared back garden. Well, when we bought our flat, the answer was just staring us in the face. It was there, just across the road.

Kennyhill allotments - run by Glasgow City Council. The website told us there was a waiting list but we still sent an application letter and within 2 weeks, we received a phone call: one of the plots had become free if we were still interested... You bet we were!

We have now been tenents of plot 52 for just over a year.

It's not always fun and giggles, sometimes it breaks your back, you get wet, cold and muddy, or you lose all your crop to the tiniest of flies. But I wouldn't give it up for the world.

I just needed a place to record what we do on the plot, what goes well and what goes wrong so that we can learn from it and do even better the next year. Another thing I enjoy doing is cooking, so I'll probably post a few recipes here too!