Ye olde weather sayings

I always find those old weather sayings either a bit bossy (never cast a clout before May is out) or incomprehensible (if you are in pain, it will rain) and just plain idiotic (a cow with its tail to the west makes the weather best). Mind you given the fallibility of modern weather forecasting these olde sayings are as good as anything– weren’t we meant to look forward to a ‘barbecue’ summer last year followed by a mild winter? We might as well consult a crystal ball when it comes to long-term weather forecasts. However, the old saying for me, which seems to hold true every year is ‘March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb’. Cast your mind back to the beginning of the month and we were still in the grip of winter – icy winds, sleet and snow and then, almost exactly in the middle of the month, around the time of the equinox the weather eased and the sun shone warmly. The winds were balmy and no longer did I have to venture out in the garb of a yak herder on the Arctic wastes.

I wouldn’t call my self a fair weather gardener, but there are limits. I don’t venture out in the freezing cold and tackle a wet, claggy soil. I confess I have been hiding away these past months – rather like those hibernating mammals - I’ve holed up in a cosy, dimly lit nest  and lived off a store of last year’s produce.

But how nice it is to get out there and feel the heft of a spade again! You can almost feel the plants sighing luxuriously and unfurling in the sunlight. Of course this time is  all about renewal, and on the allotment it is not just about plants, but about renewing gardening friendships also. There are people here who I haven’t seen throughout the winter months – people who I’d see and chat to every day in the summer. So how nice it is to establish all the old links  - how comforting it is to grumble about the usual things – pigeons, slugs, the weather – it’s like settling back into a comfortable old armchair. Of course many of these allotmenteers had got on top of all the jobs I had neglected in the recent months. One of these is pruning  …

Now somehow this is a task that passes me by… until I’m poked in the eye by a wanton twig. It then dawns upon me that aforesaid twig should have been pruned a while ago. I confess I’m a little nervous about pruning – I consult the books and scrutinise the diagrams and then it all goes out of my head the minute I have the pruning shears in my hand. Having over-pruned our blackcurrant bushes one winter resulting in a mass of foliage and no fruit I now try to be cautious. I stand with secateurs at the ready scrutinising each shoot and then rather like Edward Scissorhands I start slowly with a few cuts and then gradually build up to a frenzy of snipping. The end result is that the fruit bushes look as though they have had a very bad haircut; the apple tree has shorn back and sides and then, because I can’t reach very high, a Mohican on top boasting long skyward strands. Ah well, I feel another nonsensical olde worlde saying coming up: “Give a lot, expect a lot and if you don’t get it prune.” Mmmm very helpful.  

Potatoes - exotic fare?

Spring is not quite bursting onto the allotment scene, but taking a few tentative steps. From our point of view it is not the emerging green tendrils or the appearance of hopeful buds that herald the arrival of spring, but the cluttering up of our household surfaces with egg boxes full of chitting potatoes.

What’s this cried a visiting friend? Are you incubating dinosaur eggs? I saw her point – each seed potato snuggled into its individual pod looked as though it might be harbouring a baby velociraptor or maybe even a ninja mutant turtle.

For me, the arrival of the seed potato order ushers in the new gardening year. I know some say you don’t have to bother with all the chitting nonsense, but we all need our seasonal gardening rituals – and this is one of ours.

Potatoes have really had a Renaissance recently. We used to just think of them generically as new potatoes or large whites. But these days we refer to them by their, often very charming, names: Charlotte, Anya, Vivaldi, Mayan Gold, Desiree, Cara. But these varieties are apparently a mere drop in the ocean – there are 5,000 cultivated varieties in the world, 99% descending from a species that originated in a small area of Peru. So this vegetable that we often think of as a bit of a boring adjunct to a more exciting food on the plate is really very exotic. Their origins may be exciting, but for most people potatoes spell comfort. You know all is right with the world when you ladle a mound of creamy potato on your plate or spoon some garlicky Potatoes Dauphinoise to nestle against a lamb chop.

The creator of Winne the Pooh, AA Milne, asserted, "What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow." What he didn’t say though was that if you like them too much you’ll end up with a girth not dissimilar to his famous creation.

purees aren't just for babies

This is a strange time for allotment produce – our stores are dwindling but the spring crops such as purple sprouting have not really come good yet.  This is partly due to our extended winter and partly because the pigeons have treated our crop as an ‘all-you-can eat’ buffet. Ah well all is not lost and we are still eking out our pumpkin and parsnip crop – and have a few leeks still to come. But I’ve had enough of winter – come on sun – come out to play.

Now my daughter and her baby, Alice, came to stay recently. Alice is just being weaned so purees are just the thing for those toothless gums. I rummaged in our vegetable store – otherwise known as the spare bedroom - and cooked up some cubes of butternut squash. I whizzed them with a bit of homemade chicken stock and Alice lapped it up with amazing speed and gusto – that is between blowing raspberries, squidging it all between her hands and splatting it on the wall. I licked one of the many splats that came flying my way and it tasted darn good. Maybe purees are not just for babies. This was later reinforced when we went out to a restaurant a few days ago and my plate arrived with an artistic smear of – would you believe – pureed swede. It was velvety, probably laced with cream and butter and beautifully seasoned.

So this gave me a few ideas and as we have  some pumpkins past their best I cut off the nasty bits and cooked up the rest to make:

Pumpkin Pasta Parcels

If you have ever eaten pumpkin ravioli you’ll know how delicious it is – but also guessed that they are very time consuming to make. This is my cheat’s version.  I’ve left the quantities vague as you can make as much or as little as you like.

You’ll need:

A quantity of cubed pumpkin of squash

Cream – single or double

A few knobs of butter

Sheets of lasagne

Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Seasoning

In a saucepan, cover the pumpkin or squash cubes with water and cook until tender.

At the same time, put on a large saucepan of lightly salted water to boil. Then add lasagne sheets – 2 per person. Add a glug of olive oil to stop the sheets sticking

 When the pumpkin is tender, drain some of the water, but leave enough liquid to make a puree with a handheld blender or food processor. Now stir in cream and seasoning to taste – it should taste smooth, rich and velvety. Add a few small knobs of butter.

Drain the lasagne sheets.

To assemble put a lasagne sheet on a serving plate and add  a tablespoon or so of pumpkin puree and wrap and tuck the lasagne sheet around it. Grate some parmesan over and drizzle on some olive oil. Do  2 parcels per person. All you need to accompany this is a green salad.