Wind damage

The weather since the beginning of 2008 had been pretty awful everywhere in Britain, snow, heavy rains and flood. In Glasgow, it's not been much worse than usual with a lot of rain and some pretty cold temperatures! But last week we had gale force winds, which caused a bit of damage in the city and of course, on the allotments. A few fences came down (like the Urban Bumpkin's) and bits of shed and greenhouses went flying everywhere. At No 52, the biggest casualty was the plastic greenhouse which I hadn't dismantled, hoping it would survive the winter. Turned out I was wrong .

My small greenhouse, standing proud in March 07

Not so proud anymore in January 08

So I braved the very cold weather and finished what the winds had started. I will put it back up later this spring, but it will need a bit of repair first as some of the metal frame has been badly twisted and the plastic cover needs patching up.

I had a bit of fun playing with my new camera in the brassicae bed and managed to harvest a few winter veggies: leeks, turnips, jerusalem artichokes and a bit of raddichio (survivor of the frosts!).

And I leave you with a couple of views of the plot, looking a bit sorry for itself in the pale winter sunshine...

What to do with your free Metro?

A lot of people complain about Metro, the free newspaper that you get in public transports in most large British cities. The idea is that you can either take it with you and share it with colleagues at work or put it back where you found it or in another Metro stand (depends if you travel by bus, train or underground…) for someone else to “enjoy”. But unfortunately, a lot of them end up tucked between the seats and windows or scattered all over the bus or train floor and are simply binned at the end of the day by the bus and train companies instead of being recycled.

I always take mine back with me and I have actually come up with a few ways to recycle or re-use my free supply of newspaper pages. All of them on the allotment of course…

- You can shred them and add to your compost heap. It does actually help with the compost balance if you’ve added too much “green” material and is particularly useful after adding a lot of grass clippings to avoid your pile turning into a sorry slimy mess.

- Shredded again, you can lay it under your strawberry plants as a mulch. It also helps to keep the strawberries clean and mud-free. Cheaper than straw and get people talking!

- You can lay them on the ground in thick layers to act as a biodegradable weed suppressant. In thick enough layers, they will last over the winter and you can dig them in when they start decomposing. As you can see on the picture, I also use cardboard to the same effect. For no-dig (lazy) beds, you can also cover them with topsoil, compost or manure and they will slowly decompose with time.

- You can use them to make biodegradable seed pots. There are a lot of detailed instructions available on Internet, more or less advanced. And you can even buy paper potters as you can see on the picture (not mine; I’m more of an origami or “roll around a cardboard cylinder” kind of girl). It certainly beats peat pots for eco-friendliness and is really versatile as you can make them in all sorts of heights and sizes to accommodate all your plants needs! By the way, egg boxes are good too for little plug plants and toilet rolls and kitchen paper tubes are ideal for peas, beans and sweet peas, which all need room for long roots.

- You can roll them up to make thick cylinders which you can use to blanch leeks or celery. In the picture, this weekend handiwork!

I think that’s about it now. Have you got any more ideas to use up old newspapers at home or in the garden?

Why?

You always hear stories of vandalism on allotments, crops being ripped off the ground, tools being stolen or even worse, sheds being burnt down.

For some reasons, I have always considered our allotment safe. After all, Riddrie is a fairly quiet residential area, home to many families with small(ish) children, young professionals and older folks. I have lived there for well over a year now and always feel safe walking around even late at night, I've never witnessed any trouble or seen any broken windows or stolen cars. I sometimes go to the allotment after dark to pick some bits and pieces for our tea and never worry about meeting unsavoury characters on my way. The only person I normally see down there “out of hours” is the cat lady feeding the local wild residents.

Of course, I did hear the stories : the greenhouse on our plot many years ago at which the kids threw so many stones that nothing is left of it now apart from the bricks foundations, the many failed attempts at shed burning on the plots at the back and a number of thefts. But I guess I really didn't take them in, I was naive or deluded and I continued to believe our allotments were safe and we didn't have a vandalism problem.

On Saturday, when I found that the lock at the gate had been sawed, I didn’t think much of it. It’s only on Monday night that a chat with my neighbour revealed what had actually happened: the lock had to be cut open by the fire brigade last Thursday evening when a neighbour reported a fire on the allotments. It turns out our secretary’s beautiful shed had been burnt to the ground. He’s on holiday at the moment and doesn’t know anything about the destruction. He will be devastated when he comes back. His shed was without a shadow of a doubt the nicest shed on the allotment, a work of art, it looked like a small chalet, neat and painted, not like the normal allotment sheds made of all sorts. It must have required hours and hours of work and I can imagine a fair bit of investment. You could see it from the entrance gate and at the weekends, guess the shadow of the secretary through the windows reading the paper or listening to a Celtic match on the radio. Now all you can see is a big pile of ashes. It really breaks my heart and I really don’t understand why someone would do that to another human being. What is the point? Does it make them feel strong and powerful to destroy someone else’s properties? What are their motives? I don’t get it.

Time to dust off the knitting needles!

When I work in town I like nothing better than an Innocent smoothie to go with my lunch, they are the best around, 100% fruit, no sugar, additives or preservatives. Almost as good as the ones I make at home but a great deal more expensive! And now, I would be buying them for a good cause.

They are raising money for Age Concern, a charity helping older people. They have launched the Big Knit project, in which they are asking people to knit little woolly hats for their smoothies bottles. The behatted smoothies bottles will be sold in Sainsbury’s in November and for each bottle sold, 50p will go to Age Concern. The money raised will be used to provide support to older people in winter including hot meals, blankets and advice on how to keep their houses warm. Last year, £115,000 was raised - that’s 230,000 hats! This year the aim is to raise £200,000 with 400,000 hats being knitted.
Thanks to the Urban Bumpkin for reminding me about it. I had a look at the patterns on the website and those little hats are really a doddle to knit. I made those 4 little ones in just one evening. They are the plain and boring type but some people are a great deal more creative, check out the Hats of the Week section for inspiration!

My contribution to the Big Knit project - more to come!

Sloe gin

We spent the last bank holiday weekend in Lancashire. It was a bit too late to go blackberrying, the berries were almost all gone, eaten by birds, and the remainder was just getting mouldy on the bushes.

Instead, we went sloe picking. Sloes are the tiny fruits of the blackthorn bushes which are found in hedges all over Britain. Sloes are far too tart and bitter to be used in cooking, even with plenty of sugar added to them! However, they make a wonderful fruity liquor when mixed with alcohol and sugar. Vodka or gin are particularly suitable but I personaly prefer gin. We managed to pick a couple of bags full and have been making sloe gin. There are lots of recipes out there, but we like to follow Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's from the River Cottage Cookbook.

Ingredients:

2kgs sloes

1kg sugar

3 bottles of cheap gin (use vodka if you prefer)

Method:

Prick each fruit with a pin or a fork (that's the VERY boring bit!), then transfer to a large Kilner jar, demijohn or any suitable container with a stopper or tight fitting lid. Add the sugar and pour in the gin. Seal and leave in a cool place away from direct sunlight. Every week or so, turn the jar on its head, then back again. After 6 months, strain the liquid through several layers of muslin then bottle and seal tightly (we keep empty bottles of spirits for this). Leave for another 6 months. It will be even better after 2 years.

One of the two Kilner jars with the sloes steeping in gin

We made a couple of bottles last year. As you can see HFW recommends waiting up to 2 years but there’s no chance this is going to happen in our household! It was hard enough to wait a whole year, two would be torture. I had a glass on Monday night after a long pricking session and it was just perfect, rich flavoured and sweet. Nothing like the artificial sugary taste of the Gordon’s version – although I have been known to enjoy a glass or two before ours was ready!
I’m not sure how two bottles are going to see it through till’ next year though…

Apples

Overladden apple tree!

These are the sweetest red apples ever ...

Guess what I'm doing this weekend? Yes, picking apples! I have been collecting the windfalls for a while but I think most of them are ripe now and it's time for a good picking session.

We have another three apple trees on the plot, two are cooking apples - very tart - and the other one, I'm not sure as the apples are really small and I only used them for juicing last year and I don't remember actually tasting one!

Last year, we had tons of the cooking apples and only a few of those red ones. We had plans to make cider but didn't in the end for lack of time. We just ate a lot of apple related desserts and apple sauce!

We were hoping to have a go at cider this year but the cooking apple trees only have a few fruits on because it was very windy when they were flowering and not many flowers actually stayed on the tree! I'm not sure we'll have enough for cider and I think the red ones are probably too sweet ... Looking forward to apple and blackberry crumble though!!!

Not quite an indian summer then?

After a terrible summer, we were led to believe by some clever people at the Met Office that we would get an Indian summer. September has come and almost gone and still no sign of it!

And actually, I think it might have been the coldest September I remember since I have been here, with some surprisingly early frosts. More Artic Summer than Indian!

I had suspiscions we had a couple of frosts last week after I found black and floppy leaves on my beans and squashes and some soft rotting small pumpkins. My doubts were confirmed when a fellow allotmenteer at Kennyhill allotments reported similar symptoms affecting her beans. But this morning, it is official : the cars and grass outside the flat were all covered in those white little crystals that tell me that winter really is on the way.

Time to start winter preparations on the plot, protect the last of the fragile summer plants with fleece and mulch the hardy and perennial ones ...