No matter what the Ladies say, size is important!

After being mowed down by the Blight circus rolling into town, my garden looks a little bare. Where once the patio swarmed with 15 Black Krim plants heavy with fruit (including Tamara Tomato, the true survivor) and around 30 cherry tomato plants of unknown type (I threw the packet away without making a note of it) speckled with red jewels of juiciness, now there is nothing save a few tin baths of leeks.

Where once the valley of potatoes waved their green leaves in the afternoon breeze, now there is simply a row of potato planters. I have chopped back the leaves and burned them. They showed no real signs of anything untoward, but I wasn't taking a risk.

This is combined with some naturally occuring open spaces. The spinach, turnips and carrots are all either eaten or frozen, and the Autumnal sowings of carrots, turnips, spinach, chard, cabbage and lettuce (yes, I know, but I'm trying it anyway) have germinated but are yet to really add to the overall scene.

Still, there are a few pockets of life still standing strong. For a starter, the fartichokes have reached for the sky (but without tin legs), the early chard has gone mental, and the beanage is a tangled jungle of beans and squash of various types.

One of the various types is Muchkin Pumpkin. I opted for this because they are miniature fruit, quick to mature, and the plant is a climber, so it requires less space. It is good, prolific and pretty much looks after itself.

Now, before you dash off to buy some seeds, be warned; size is important.

The actual pumpkins are mature when they reach a diameter of around 10cm, and the skin turns orange. If you eat them as soon as it turns orange, the skin is thin and tender, although less sweet than the flesh. It's also good roughage, if you're an old person or just have a congested bowel! Let it go a deep orange, and it's too tough to eat.

Why eat the skin, I hear you cry. Here's why. Once you scoop out the seeds, there's not a lot of pumpkin left. The best I've had is a 2cm rim of flesh around the skin. I shall, as a result, opt for something larger (although not huge) next year.

There is one upside, however, and this is why all neighbourly gardeners should buy one packet of seeds between them and get a plant each. For a dinner party starter that is both tasty and visually stunning, take one Munchkin per person, cut off a lid and scoop out the seeds. Brush he skin with olive oil or it will harden. Fill each pumpkin with basil, chopped tomates and goat's cheese, season well and bake until the flesh is soft.

They do look good, bright orange and sweet with the sharpness of cheese. Serve with a simple salad.

The other option is to carve one at Halloween for your local neighbourhood dwarf!

Don't laugh at the Baby Jesus!

Initially, I was going to add a disclaimer in the title of this post to indicate that some people with deeply held Christian beliefs might find it slightly childish or even mildly offensive, but then I thought about Christianity in general, and realised that even if you do find it offensive, you'll forgive me. So, what has the Baby Jesus got to do with gardening?

Well, after discussing my potential blossom end rot in the last post, a number of you pointed out that it was probably blight. I did wonder, because it only affected the Black Krim (which when not ill are bloody delicious, so fear not if you've bought seeds). The cherry tomatoes were right next to the Black Krim, and they were pumping out good looking red fruit.

I did a few a bit of digging (not literally), and guess what? Yes, every image of blight I saw looked like my tomatoes. How could this be? Well, I ventured outside and took a look at my cherry tomatoes, and what I saw filled me with dread. It was this...



Yes indeed, folks, it seems that I do have the blight. In fact, I am completely blighted up. I have so much blight, my blight has got blight. It's probably late blight, because ... well, it's late. And it's blight. I think we'll pronounce time of death and move on, shall we?

Okay, those with good memories will be wondering what this all has to do with the Baby Jesus. Well, I blame him, I do. He did the blight to me. Well, when I say I blame him, I really mean I blame myself, because I did - in this bloggery right here - mock him. Yes, I did, and I'm man enough to admit it. Way back when this gardening adventure was still fun and games, I mentioned that I would be following the tradition of planting out my potatoes on Good Friday. I then went on to question quite what the Baby Jesus getting nailed to a tree had to do with potatoes.

Now, it might seem like a mild mocking he got there, but he is a vengeful God, so he waited. He watched me in my garden, and he saw which plants I struggled with most. Then he saw that the tomatoes were a labour of love, and he wrote that down on a tablet (well, he probably got an Angel to do that bit for him, because he had other Godly stuff to be getting on with).

Then he allowed me to taste the sweetness and goodness that was the tomatoes; just a little taste, mind. Just enough to get me hooked. Then he sent down the plague of blightyness. Like Pharaoh's men, I was smote. Now, you might be wondering why I think this is the work of the Baby Jesus, and I'll tell you why. I looked very closely at one of the blight marks, and guess what I saw...



Mind you, I don't blame him. I mocked him, and he slapped me over it. What's worse, I'll probably do it again because I'm an Idiot, but please fellow gardeners, if you want fresh and fruity tomatoes, just don't laugh at the Baby Jesus!

Ultimately disappointing

Today I am disappointed. Firstly, I have discovered that Mrs IG can't keep her hands off other people's things. Regular readers will know that I have planned a trip to Budapest for her birthday, as a surprise. She was aware that she was going somewhere, but not of where she was going. I say she "was" aware, because her snoopy big beaky nose has fouled things up.

She was in my office (I largely work from home, because I can), when she spied a receipt from Travelocity. Knowing it was for her birthday trip, she decided to do the honorable thing and ignore it. She walked away, but the knowledge that it was there started to eat away at her decency, and so 14 seconds later she ran back in and read the bloody thing. There you go, she knows. That's my fun and games teasing her gone up in smoke.

Even worse is the fact that my Black Krim have decided to illustrate what blossom end rot looks like. Thanks for that, lads. All that love, that attention, that dedication, gone in a twinkling of an eye. Respect? They showed me none, instead rotting for the want of a bit of calcium. I mean, come on, calcium for Christ's sake; it's not even a good mineral.

Last night we had Khymer Beef and Green Tomatoes for dinner. The night before we had Baked Chicken and Green Tomatoes. Tonight we're not having any green tomatoes, but I do need to put about 15,000 tons of green tomato chutney in jars, and freeze about 27,000 gallons of green tomato ragu.

Still, I blame myself. Why did I leave that receipt on my desk.

We live and learn (occasionally).

Lamenting the "Last Minute"

The last minute is something of a double-edged sword. As someone who works in publishing, nothing ever gets finished early. It's always down to the wire, and if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done. However, the last minute is a bloody awful time to make decisions. We're not talking spontaneous action, or even acting on impulse here - both of which are good - but we're talking about last minute changes of heart, which are usually born out of panic.

When I was a lad, the Boys' Catholic Grammar School stood across the park from the Girls' Catholic Grammar School. When you were in your last year, they held a Christmas Dance, at which boys and girls were allowed to mingle. For the Boys, it was a rite of passage. If you turned up alone, your final year was one of misery as you'd be attacked and vilified for being unable to pull a girl. If you didn't turn up at all, the same was implied. One year, unable to find a girl to take, one lad turned up with his sister. Word got out, and within two weeks of the new term he had to be moved to another school for his own safety.

Now, as I have mentioned in previous posts, my friends and I weren't the usual run-of-the-mill kids. We were already outcasts, shunned by the masses. We were largely ignored, and because there was a small pack of us, the bullies also left us alone. It therefore was an obvious decision when we agreed to a man (well, to a boy) to boycott the dance. While the other boys and girls paired off and planned for the big night, we just got on with drinking cider and setting things on fire.

Then it happened. Kevin was out with Dave, and they bumped into Louise. Now, Louise had a reputation, the kind of reputation that young boys like. When she asked Kev to the dance, he thought about her reputation and agreed immediately. Then Dave, discovering that she had a friend with equally loose morals, decided to go too. When they saw Steve, they told him, and so he quickly asked Liz, and her friend was left out so Colin decided to go as well. By the time the news got to me, every single one of them was fixed up and going to the bloody dance.

I decided not to cave in, and vowed that even alone, I would not be going. The others warned me, they begged me, but I refused. I would not be dancing for anyone.

On the morning of the dance, I made that last minute decision. It was, sadly, to go. I was screwed without a partner, so I set out to find one, and quickly. Many were already going, a few weren't contactable, and one told me she'd rather die than go out with me. The day raced by with no success. It was 5pm, and it started at 7pm. There was only one thing to do; Lorraine.

Lorraine was the butcher's daughter. She smelled of meat. Her head was slightly misshapen. Her stutter was only obvious when she spoke. That said, she had a rather large pair of breasts - some might say too large for a smallish girl - and a mouth to put a docker to shame. I went into the butcher's shop, and her Dad called her out from the back, where she was splitting a pig.

She accepted, and despite me being one of the ne'er-do-wells, her Dad was so pleased he might get his freak daughter off his hands that he shook my hand and gave me a pound of liver. He told me I might need the iron, adding a wink in case I didn't realise he was alluding to me having sexual intercourse with his daughter.

On the way to dance we necked a bottle of sherry I had liberated from my Mum's cooking cupboard. It made me feel a bit better, but it went straight to her head. She was stuttering and staggering and swearing, shouting obscenities and making lewd gestures whilst trying to kiss me as we entered the darkened room. Despite the darkness, the whole place stopped to stare. It just wasn't dark enough. What had I done? Why had I come? Why with Lorraine? The room smelled of offal. I knew it was her.

We danced, for about a minute. Then she grabbed me and stuck her tongue in my mouth. It tasted of pork fat. Everyone was watching, so I pushed her away. She staggered backwards, and then started to cry. It wasn't a tear trickling down her greasy cheek, more a sobbing wail. Everyone was watching, so I had to do something. I tried to comfort her, but she just screamed, then spewed on my shoes. I heard someone laugh. She tried to kiss me again, and as I drew back in horror she dropped to the floor and started twitching. It transpired she was an epileptic, a point that I felt her father might have found worth mentioning when he tried to give me sufficient iron for the night ahead.

A teacher brought up the lights and rushed to help. I was standing there, in a now very well lit room, with vomit-splattered shoes, while my date twitched on the floor. Everyone stood and stared. Then I noticed, as her legs twitched, that she wasn't wearing any underpants. The others noticed too. Kev said, "She's not wearing any underpants!" See, I don't make this shit up!

So, what's this got to do with my garden? I'll tell you, now that I've settled down after reliving that momentous episode of my youth. When I started this gardening lark, I was going to plant two lots of potatoes: Arran Pilot and Pink Fir Apple. Then, as I read the blogs of others, they were planting four, five, ten, even dozens of varieties. I told myself that two was enough, and then I panicked and made a last minute decision to grow three. The only variety I could get seed potatoes for quickly was Sante, so I added them to the list.

The Sante grew slowly, but steadily. During the drought episode, they survived well, and during the blight scare they seemed unaffected. As the others grew to a height of around 4 feet before collapsing into a mess, they stayed upright. Then as the weather changed, they died off rather quickly. I lifted them, dried them and bagged them up.

Now, here's what I have learned. All of my potatoes had exactly the same conditions, but there have been significant differences. Sante are an easy spud to grow, very easy. They also seem tolerant of heat, drought, over-watering, disease and frost. They were less hassle than the others. However, the crop was poor. Yields were at best below average, and at worse virtually non-existent. The potatoes themselves fall apart under cooking. The outsides are crumbling before the centres are cooked. It's not a floury collapse, more of a mushy one. Oh yes, and they're tasteless.

Say what you like, but Sante will not be welcomed in my garden next year.

Mother, now you're gone I treasure these few things...

I arrived at the Mother's house and noted one of the sisters' car on the drive. It was one that I still talk to, so it wasn't the end of the world. In the living room she was measuring up the furniture. Then she paused for a second and said, as if to no one but actually to me, "You've got a pick-up truck, haven't you?"

I confirmed this, thankful that it left her pondering how to carry off the cabinet she desired. This left me free to make a break for the garden. I found it in the shed, the only-used-once Mantis Tiller, alongside a pile of boxes of various attachments, including a plough. Quite what a seventy-odd year old woman wanted with a plough was beyond me, but now it was mine. I was a ploughman, deserving of lunch! I carried it out the side gate and locked it in the truck before the Sister saw it.

I went back inside, and she was leafing through some photographs of us when we were all children. Family snaps when we all talked to each other, my father hadn't gone off his nut, and everyone was still living. I volunteered Mrs IG to look, thus keeping the Sister busy while I plundered the booty. Next I moved the Bosch Garden Shredder to the truck, before swooping back for the modular plastic shed. There I found the tomato food and some compost in bags. I took the bloody lot.

The truck bed had a few gaps, and I headed for the greenhouse. In happier times, my Mother used to grow her tomatoes in there. Now it was a dumping ground for things no longer loved. I looked back towards the empty house and remembered when she first moved in here. The first thing she did was buy a greenhouse. My father was off his chump by then, and I think she needed the sanctuary. Now it was a home for spare bamboo canes. I had the lot of them, as well as the cloches.

The Sister was in the kitchen now, labelling things as hers. I dashed back in and nabbed a large freezer for the squash glut, before once more returning to the garden to snaffle the Barbeque, the large planters and the strimmer.

Now, I'll be honest here; it was like the vultures had arrived. We raced each other to strip the place. Other siblings were going to be unlucky. You've got to be in it to win it. The truck was filled, and enough stuff was tagged for me for another journey. I stood in that living room, that once housed the living, and looked at the bookcase. There were a lot of gardening books there. I selected those that caught my interest.

Then, inside my head, I heard my Mother's voice.

"Take them all, or they'll end up in a skip"

"Okay Mum."

I actually said that out loud, because she wouldn't have heard if I'd have whispered.

You see, if you thought my Mother had shuffled off this mortal coil, you'd be wrong. After a few years of ill health, and her new husband having defeated (for now) bowel cancer, she's finally listened to sense and sold up. They're off to a retirement flat, and they'll at least have the money from the house to see them through. With very little space and a communal garden, they wanted to get shot of everything they weren't taking with them.

So, what's this got to do with anything. Well, I have the spare books. I couldn't see them chucked away. If anyone wants them, then yell. I'm a tight-fisted bastard, so I'd prefer you to be in the UK as I don't want a postage bill the size of my courgette!

I have the following:
Grow Your Own Veg by Carol Klein
An RHS Wisley Handbook entitled Gardening on Lime and Chalk
A bunch of Dr Hessayon titles including: The Lawn Expert, The Vegetable and Herb Expert, The House Plant Expert and The Tree and Shrub Expert. The last two are slightly battered, but the pages are all there!

 

Winter is coming; the Idiot returns!

Last night we had a lovely storm. It was nothing like the storm we sat through roughly this time last year. For Mrs IG's birthday we went to Hoi An, and luckily so did Typhoon Ketsana. That's the picture of it; well, it's about 24 hours before it hit, actually. It clearly shows the road and the verdant green pastures where the buffalo graze. Her birthday surprise trip to Budapest this year will hopefully see more clement weather!

Back to last night. We had three inches of rain, and gale force winds. This morning the roads out of the village are flooded, and there's a fair bit of debris on the country lanes. My fartichokes look like someone has slapped them about a bit, and the sheer volume of rain has battered my majestic-looking parsnips into a load of bent-over pensioners. I hate to say it, but summer seems to have slipped away before it ever arrived. Winter, ladies and gentlemen, is coming.

I've also noticed that much of the croppage is approaching the end. The Sante potatoes have died off (just waiting for the sacks and a dry day to lift them - that's what us gardeners call digging them up). The beans are producing around ten tons a day, there's more squash, pumpkins and donkey-sized courgettes than I can shake an over-sized courgette at, I've eaten my first swede and celeriac, and the tomatoes have turned red (apart from the Black Krim, but that's another story).

Patches of brown earth are appearing between the swathes of green, and the herbs have started to brown (well, most of them have). The days are shorter too; last night I was watering in gloom (I didn't know the storm was coming; it seemed quite clear).

To ratify my fears that winter is on its way, I was drawn into a pub conversation about gardening. An old hand and his cronies were talking about their morning's work, clearing old crops, harvesting, generally slowing down and preparing for the end of the season. I chimed in, saying I too had been working on the garden that morning. They asked what I'd been doing.

"Sowing" I replied.

They laughed, every one of them. One quipped that I'd been sewing my trousers. Another condescendingly told me that sowing was putting seed in the ground; hadn't I learned that yet? Now, I'm not a violent man, but if these old bastards hadn't been as old, I would have escorted them to the car park to further debate exactly what I meant.

I had indeed been sowing. I had sowed a second batch of turnips (Tokyo Cross), a second batch of carrots (Amsterdam something or other), more spinach, cabbage and my Christmas potatoes (Carlysimon or some other such 1970s second rate celebrity). I also sowed the rest of the Caca mix, and some watercress.

Now, I might have got the timing wrong, and I might not. I don't really know, and I didn't bother to find out. If they grow, so be it, and if they don't, what have I lost? Seeds worth a couple of quid is about all I can see it's cost.

Not only that, but I'm also putting some more lettuce in, simply because there's a bare patch. I've chucked some chicken shit on it, and in a few days I'll do more sowing.

I explained this to the old duffers, who sneered throughout, and as I returned to my pint, one muttered, "You're a bloody idiot".

An idiot I might be, but I could be an idiot with late carrots, turnips, spinach, cabbage and potatoes. And I don't have hair growing out of my ears. Yet.

Taller than the tallest tree

I know I said I'd do the Wet Dream Post next (trust me, even I'm tired of the joke now, so maybe it's best that I let it lay fallow for a while), but Mal at Mal's Allotment asked about fartichokes, and it reminded me that I have been less than vocal about them. Interestingly, Mal isn't the only one to bring up fartichokes this week.

The other evening, whilst testing out a new batch of Chateau Idiot Rouge, a friend made a comment about gardening. Sad but true; despite all the ragging I took from friends and colleagues when I started the gardening journey, many now feel that my openness and honesty about my new pastime has allowed them to give voice to their previously secret passion.

As we neared the end of bottle number two, and debated whether a third was in order (it was), he mentioned that one thing he'd never bother with was fartichokes. He told me the tale of preparing the soil, planting the tubers, watering, nurturing, loving the patch of bare earth until ... nothing happened!

I laughed so hard that wine came out of my nose. Once I'd recovered my breath, we grabbed a torch and headed outside. After I'd tripped over the herb planters, I directed the beam of torch light into the air.

"Look at that!"

"What am I looking at" he asked.

"That! Are you blind as well as stupid?"

"What? The scaffolding next door? Are the Twats having some work done."

"Yes, they are, but look in front of it."

"What? Oh, that tree?"

I laughed again, this time without wine dribbling from my nostrils (that does hurt by the way).

"That's not a bloody tree," I declared, "it's my fartichokes!"

Yes indeedy people, when I read about the fartichoke, many said it would grow to be, and I quote, "the size of a man". Well, unless that man is nine feet 10 inches tall and growing, my fartichokes are marginally taller than a man, even a tall man, or a tall man standing on a box.

Technique, Jim? Simple. My fartichoke technique was born out of panic. When I received the tubers - 20 in all - a note with the package said to plant them immediately. I went into a tail spin, because I wasn't ready for them. This was in my early gardening days, before I relaxed about the life and death circus I had entered. The only spare bit of ground was on old bed of heathers. A few woody plants sat there, and the ground hadn't been touched in years. I ripped out anything growing, broke the ground up with a fork, chucked half a bag of compost on top, and made two furrows. Then I planted the tubers. Aside from a bit of watering, I did nothing else. All 20 have grown like demons.

A few weeks ago we had a strong wind (no, not the harvest, but a real wind, from the sky) which knocked the otherwise straight upright plants a bit bandy. All I did was chuck in some bamboos and tie the whole shooting match into three clumps.

The only other thing I did was grow this...



Winter Savory. I have it on good authority that cooking the fartichokes with winter savory turns them from fartichokes to artichokes. I'll let you know if that works.