Bonfires or is it Bone-fires?

For me winter isn’t winter without a blazing, crackling bonfire. It’s almost one of those rites of passage  in the gardening year, marking the transition from the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness to the chilly frosty days  of December, January and February. The trouble is we’ve missed the bonfire ‘window’ on the allotment , this is the few weeks in November when we are allowed  to light fires on our plots – any other time it is verboten. Strange rule, but as Tennyson wrote ‘ours is not to reason why’!

We have lots of burnable rubbish on our allotment – rotten bits of wood, canes, fallen branches etc . Yes, we can lug it all over to the city tip – oh but the hassle, not to mention the big black spiders and snails crawling over the inside of the car. I know from past experience that these critters hide in dark corners then pop up days later to give you the mother of all frights  as you navigate a tricky turning! And of course, just think of the environmental cost of the petrol to get there. Oh yes a bonfire is definitely the thing. You may have guessed it …. I’m excited  about lighting a fire outside. It’s one of gardening’s innocent pleasures – not that there are many guilty ones. But what I mean to say is that we all turn into children when we gather around a blaze watching the flames dancing and sparking. So we decide to flout the allotment  rules…

Now it is hard to be furtive about lighting a bonfire, but we do our level best. We site it well away from the communal pathway and keep glancing over our shoulders in case anybody from the allotment committee passes by. We look guilty as hell! We pile up the wood as high as we dare and light a match. It catches briefly, sizzles and then dies – it’s all a bit damp  and sad. Like good boy scouts however, we’ve come prepared…firelighters to the rescue. This is more like it! Slowly, sparks ignite splinters and shards that in turn flame up to engulf the pile. We are triumphant and vie with each other poking the fire and throwing more and more bits on. Caution is thrown to the winds. Of course this is a one person job but neither of us is going to leave the fireside and we stand around rubbing our hands in the warmth as our faces go redder and redder.  I’m suddenly a child again standing with my dad around the garden bonfire – impatient if he thought it wasn’t going properly he’d dig out the can of paraffin from the shed.  Then with gay abandon he would slosh the pink liquid around the bonfire and watch joyfully as the flames leapt dangerously near the garden fence. Inevitably, of course,  it caught alight one year – what a hoo haa …buckets of water, angry neighbours ….

Speaking of angry neighbours I spy, Mike, one of the allotment committee far too close for comfort and I rush up the path to distract him with fatuous conversation: ‘So what are you growing ?’ and ‘Got any plans for Xmas?’ Out of the corner of my eye I see my other half dampening down the fire.  ‘Can you smell smoke?’ says  Mike. ‘Uhh smoke? No,’ I point in the far distance, ‘must be people in the houses over there’. I guiltily creep back to the allotment. The bonfire has burnt down to a core of hot embers and I half wish I’d brought some chestnuts to roast. Ah well mission accomplished .

As we walk home I mull about these gardening rituals, some seem to be purely  personal – one allotment neighbour always plants his broad beans on 21^st October, others have fixed days for pruning fruit bushes  or cleaning out a greenhouse.  Other traditions are mired in history, often linked with the farming year. Apparently the lighting of bonfires at this time of year is a very old farming practice. Around the beginning of November, with the growing season coming to an end, farmers would slaughter many of their animals, preserve the meat and use the hides and then burn the carcasses to make fertiliser. So it was literally a bone fire which then became known as ‘bonfire’. Ah hah I’ll remember that when I’m standing trial in front of the allotment committee – ‘It’s traditional’ I’ll yell either that or I’ll point accusingly at my husband and shout ‘He made me …it was all his idea!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful borlotti

I was chatting to some friends in London who have an allotment in Finsbury Park and they told me that they devote two thirds of their plot to growing borlotti beans. I know a lot of our Italian neighbours also cultivate them so this year  we decided to grow them seriously.  We were told to sow them a little bit later than the runners  to avoid black fly and they were a huge success The vines develop beautiful crimson pods that in turn produce pretty pink-freckled beans like miniature birds’ eggs. Most people harvest the pods when they are dry and desiccated and then store the dried beans or freeze them. However I often collect the pods before they reach this desiccated state as the beans have a fresh creamy texture  at this stage.

I know now why my London friends grow so many. You can store them throughout the winter, they don’t take up much space and then you just throw them in soups and stews for about half an hour until tender . They are truly delicious without the earthy taste that many beans have. Sometimes I cook them separately as a vegetable in their  own right.  This is how I do it:

Put the podded beans in a small saucepan cover with water mix in some crushed garlic and a splash of both white wine and olive oil. Add some herbs such as sage or rosemary. Simmer for half an hour and then drain them.

To serve, splash a little more olive oil over the beans and sprinkle them with sea salt (don’t put salt in the cooking water as it can make the skins coarse). You’ll find the beans will have absorbed all the delicious flavours. I quite often serve this with roast chicken which sounds strange, but works brilliantly. 

Kale - Italian-stylie

Our leeks are thickening up like Nora Batty’s ankles and the parsnips are looking vigorous, but we decide to wait until a frost sweetens them up before doing any harvesting which leaves our veggie options rather limited. Luckily we grow cavolo nero (which although a kale translates from the Italian as black cabbage). I’m not a fan of kale, disliking its rag-like texture. This however, has a good firm texture and makes fantastic and versatile eating throughout the winter and is rich in all sorts of vitamins notably K, A , C  and B and elements such as manganese, calcium and iron. I buy the seeds from Seeds Of Italy, a supplier specialising in Italian varieties. It’s easy to  grow, it survives the coldest of winters and has a pleasing look about it – rather like dark green feather dusters poking out of the ground. Of course the Italians have always known about its benefits and grown and cooked it for generations, notably in a dish called ribollita which is a kind of soupy stew. I prefer to stir fry it:

Cavolo Nero Stir Fry

 Firstly I strip the leaves from its tough stem. Then I fry chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until they are golden and then throw in the shredded leaves, stir frying them rapidly for about ten minutes. Then in goes a slug or two of dry sherry or wine and some flakes of  dried chilli and some fennel seeds (fennel is a really good flavour with cavolo nero). Now cook slowly for ten minutes until the liquid is absorbed. Add a little more olive oil and stir fry again for a couple of minutes and serve immediately. Delicious and so good for you

 

Putting the plot to bed

It’s time for the annual clearing up on the plot and putting to bed for winter. It sounds so cosy as if the allotment is being tucked up with a cup of cocoa and a bedtime story. However, it does seem far from cosy as we drag yards of pumpkin vine to the compost, wrestle sunflower stalks to the ground, dismantle bean poles and clear away leaves and windfalls. Exhausting as it is it does seem somehow therapeutic – almost like a spring clean – if that doesn’t sound too weird. Once the detritus is cleared away you can somehow see the blank canvas again. Now that many of the plants have gone you can energetically unearth all the weeds that were hard to get at before – and also be safe in the knowledge  that they won’t be growing back so vigorously. And then there is the digging – as each forkful is dug you can almost see the earth breathing in the air and turning it’s face to the sun – albeit in a few weeks’ time   it will be tickled by the frost. I’ve decided to attempt double digging as I feel this is what real gardeners do – I assume this means digging twice. I  look up the term on the net – and oh no – it is nothing as simple as that.  You dig a trench and put the earth in a wheelbarrow and then dig another trench putting the earth  from there in the first trench and then from there … ok you’ve guessed it – I gave up. It is back breaking work and to be frank life is too short! I  look over at one of my neighbour’s allotment –now he comes only occasionally to his plot but his patch always looks in good shape. I decide to watch what he is doing… I realise he doesn’t dig but hoes and then spreads compost and manure over the top to let the goodness seep in and be taken down by worms. Well, this sounds like a plan – I presume it means that the goodness is kept locked away as some of it must get leached when exposed to the elements in the digging process. I realise though I like digging – it doesn’t feel like gardening if I’m not wielding a fork in a meaningful way – I like to see the worms wriggling, I like to look at and feel the earth and smell … well the earthiness of the earth …. Basically I like to do things the hard way!

 

Gardening exhibitionism

I have been taking pictures of our pumpkins. I’m very proud of them: we have several fine-looking specimens of various shapes and hues and one enormous green, knobbly affair that looks like it might house a colony of Martians. I’ve posted the pictures on my blog and bored my friends with them on Facebook. What is this need to ..well … show off. I suppose gardening is such an intense and often solitary business that, when given the opportunity, we want to crow about our achievements. It’s partly that we want to share our wonder of how a small seed dropped in to the soil all those months ago has grown into something productive. It’s a little like child rearing, you start with a tender little shoot to protect and feed , which then grows into an unmanageable adolescent stretching its gangly limbs over the plot … oh and playing host to a number of unsuitable friends – of whom many of them should be issued with ASBOS – that is Anti Social Bindweed Order. After all these nurturing efforts, you do hope to end up with a productive individual of whom you can be suitably proud. Everyone knows those people who never stop talking smugly about their offspring – and so it is with gardeners they just want to exhibit the fine specimens they have produced.

The desire to show off garden produce is very much evident in the local gardening show. I gather these events were introduced as a means of stimulating interest in growing vegetables presumably as part of the ‘Dig for Victory campaign around the 1940s. Their continuing popularity is testament to the desire to display our gardening successes. This year, for the first time, I visited a local show and was intrigued  and hugely impressed by the entries all neatly arranged on trestle tables. It was all gloriously homespun with giant onions jostling for space with the preserves  and oddest-shape vegetable display. It seemed all just a bit of fun …. that was until the grand announcement of the winning entries. The atmosphere turned expectant and just a touch tense – did Mrs P really deserve to win the best flower arrangement (not only that she carried off the rosette for the best jam as well), were old Dan’s carrots really up to snuff! The category of prizes were seemingly endless and imaginative and by the time all the winners were finally announced I was more interested in scoffing a gigantic slice of home made Victoria sponge – mmmm I wonder if it was one of Mrs P’s homebakes? Ah well it was congratulations to some and better luck next year to others and despite the intensity of the competition one got the feeling people just wanted to say, ‘look what I’ve been doing all summer – this is what I have created – it’s  a part of me.

As for open gardens, what better way to spend a summer afternoon then poking around someone else’s patch. It’s a great way to get ideas and discover new plants.  But what about the owners of these gardens? Yes the entry fees are a brilliant way to raise funds for charity, but I reckon that a part of them really loves to share the joy of their beautiful garden with other people. So much thought and creativity goes in to the cultivation of a patch that when it reaches its pinnacle how lovely it must be to hear people exclaiming what a thing of beauty it is. Of course it doesn’t have to be a National Trust size property, we even want to show off the smallest of patches – note how many people pay particular attention to their front garden so passers by can appreciate their pretty flowers and scented shrubs they have cultivated.

I have to say I do have that showing off instinct myself – even in the allotment. Our twenty-something daughters come down from London for the weekend and are ritually dragged to the plot – they come unsuitably dressed with a look that I can only describe as intense boredom. I talk them through what we have been doing and then try and engage them by asking them questions. ‘Do you know what we’re growing here,’  I say pointing at carrot fronds….’Courgettes,’ they reply in a deadpan fashion. I look at them  to see if they are joking? Do they really not know what they are? Or are they just being deliberately awkward to cut short the visit. The answer comes when after 5 minutes they start looking at their watches – shall we go to the pub now, they say rather too emphatically… hmmmmm

Ah well I ‘ve just checked my Facebook – a friend has seen the pictures of my pumpkins and has commented ‘Great crop Paula’.  Hurrah, someone appreciates my hard work!

 

It's raining apples

It’s raining apples. The tree on our plot is laden with rosy fruit and the windfalls are carpeting the ground. They are good to eat, good to cook and if left any longer good to rot. Our neighbour, Franco, says they are too hard for his teeth when we offer him a bag. This sets him reminiscing on his youth in Italy. He tells how he and his brothers would crush apples with a clothes mangle – put it all in a large drum and leave it to ferment for a week. Then they would guzzle it … very alcoholic he says! You don’t say! Cider Italian style. 

Well I make something much more sedate...

A quick apple tart

You will need a quantity of sweet pastry – how much depends on how large a tart you want. I usually make a quantity using 10 oz flour to 5 oz butter. If you want to make it really quickly just buy the pastry.

Preheat the oven 200 degrees or gas mark 6. Put the pastry in the fridge to rest while you peel, core and cut the apples into quarters and then half moon slices. Put these into a bowl of water acidulated with a squeeze of lemon to stop the slices browning. Roll out the pastry reasonably thinly in a rectangle or circle. Arrange rows of overlapping slices of apple on the pastry. Cram them in as they do shrink in the oven. Now sprinkle soft brown sugar liberally over the slices and then dot with butter. Finally shake over some ground cinnamon. Bake the tart for about 20 -30 minutes until the pastry is golden and the apples soft and slightly caramelised. Delicious hot or cold – irresistible with ice cream or cream.

Muddy toil?

Last week  a friend said to me, “I’d love to grow homegrown vegetables, but the thing is I don’t much like gardening.’ Well this set me thinking. Yes it is fantastic to have veg newly dug from the ground but the fact of the matter is that the gardening is the thing. ‘why don’t  you just go to the supermarket and buy organic veg,’ say other friends mystified as to why I bother with the muddy toil as they see it. Now when most people ask what it is about the appeal of allotmenteering I usually trot out my mantra about how delicious and fresh the produce is – how you couldn’t possibly buy such quality…Oh and the fresh taste etc etc . Absolutely all true, but for me and I suspect for many fellow gardeners the produce is only part of it and for some almost a by product of an enjoyable activity – in fact a few gardeners I know give away most of their produce.

Since my friend’s comments I’ve been trying to tease out what makes gardening so satisfying and just darned  good fun. Well there is much sensual pleasure to be had  ‘No, no not the bodice-ripping, pass the smelling salts, Edith’ type of pleasure but something much quieter.  Each sense comes into play when gardening. There is the  musky smell of the earth after a rain shower, the sharp fragrance of a tomato vine, the sweet scent of broad bean flowers and even the hot vegetative smell of the compost. Marilyn Monroe when asked what she wore in bed said ‘just  a dab of Chanel number 5’, well for me I’d bottle all those gardening fragrances and dab that behind my ears … well maybe. I’m not sure eau de allotment has the same allure – even worn by Marilyn. Our sense of sight, of course, affords us many gaudy pleasures but often it is the unexpected glimpse that can be joyful: a ray of evening sun glimmering through the bean poles catching a perfect cobweb in its sights or the sparkle of a raindrop cradled in a leaf. The soundtrack to all this is the hum of insects, the metallic rattle of a distant jackdaw and  often the chatter of my fellow allotmenteers.  I don’t wear gardening gloves and my hands and nails are testament to that, but I like the crumble of the earth under my fingers, the feel of fronds of carrots and the soft, furriness of leaves like  well worn suede trousers. We are often only half aware of this rich sensual experience, but imagine gardening without it ?

Thoughout history we’ve created gardens – not so much to tame nature but to create havens – an escape from day to day life. For me  gardening is  meditation with thoughts and anxieties seeping away while I occupy myself with some repetitive activity – weeding, digging, sowing. I suppose that is what Japanese zen gardens are all about but I have to say the appeal of endlessly raking stones to achieve inner peace is not quite my cup of green tea . Sometimes though I think we are all searching for our own Secret Gardens where we step into another world and find solace there. It is interesting that so many of history’s powerful and ruthless rulers created sumptuous gardens where they could drift of an evening after a gruelling day’s looting, sacking and burning. Think of the wonderful gardens of the Alhambra Palace where Moslem sultans would glide after hard battles with the Christians of Southern Spain – and who doesn’t wish that they could have just one glimpse of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon with its terraces and lush waterfalls. Mind you I do wonder if any of these mighty rulers – creators of these wondrous gardens actually got their hands dirty? I imagine a horde of slaves and eunuchs were dragooned to do the dirty work and then make themselves scarce before the pampered princes and princesses wafted through to pick a perfect blossom. Ah ha that may well be the solution to all that muddy toil and to my friend’s dilemma – all we have to do is find a willing eunuch or two. Any offers?