Paul Merrett - The Allotment Chef - Home-grown Recipes and Seasonal Stories

We have been trying to stagger the sowing of seeds where possible because MJ’s mum has told us that, if we stick everything in at once, we will have a problem with overwhelming quantities when it comes to harvest time. This may seem obvious, but the temptation to get everything up and running is enormous. Many gardeners find that, for three or four weeks each summer, they are literally buried under a mass of ripening fruit and vegetables and, as many gardeners are better at the growing than at the cooking end of vegetable production, they fail to keep up with the harvest.

There are two solutions to this problem: one is to buy this book for tips on using a glut – I would highly recommend this tip (and congratulations to you for having done so); the other is to stagger planting, thus extending the cropping period (but don’t forget it doesn’t have to be either or!).

Planting out the young plants is very satisfying. The bed is now full of small green stems all in neat rows, but there is a worry at the back of my mind. What if the temperature drops? Or there is a swarm of locusts? The plants will have to fend for themselves. I expect it is a similar experience to waving off your grown-up children at the airport as, with rucksacks on their backs, they go travelling the world. That night, as the wind whistles outside, I think of the bean and sweetcorn seedlings out in the elements, but there is nothing more I can do for them now.

I have started to daydream about succulent asparagus slowly pushing through the delicate topsoil. It’s almost erotic. When I bought the crowns I was told they would show through in about a week. Each day I visit the allotment with only one thing on my mind: has the asparagus come through yet? After six days and not a single spear in sight, I am beginning to worry that nothing will happen.

The weather is still awful, especially for late May. Richie’s birthday football match in the park with his friends (Brentford versus a World Eleven) is very nearly rained off. As a gardener, however, there is a small silver lining to the enormous rain cloud presently over Northfield Avenue. I can at last use the phrase ‘at least it’s good for the garden’ and really mean it.

On the water front, I read that blueberry bushes need very soft water. The water they are currently receiving is coming from either a passing cloud or from the allotments’ water butts. These butts are plumbed in and have a tap from which you can fill a watering can. At first I decide not to worry about this snippet of information, but these things play on my mind. In the end I find an Argos catalogue and look up water filters. The cheapest one looks like a big kettle and is about fourteen quid. I could fill it up at the beginning of the day and, when the water had dripped through the filter, I could pour it on to the blueberries. MJ says this is a little obsessive and she is probably right because we don’t even drink filtered water ourselves, so I risk it without.

As May draws to a close the weather slowly begins to improve and I am back to watering the allotment each morning. Back home we also water our flowers and shrubs, but I can’t help feel that pouring tap water on a plant that will never be eaten is completely at odds with our drive to create a greener environment. I suggest to MJ that she could use ‘grey’ water rather than filling the watering can straight from the tap. Since ‘grey’ water is used bath water and second-hand washing-up water, she cleverly points out that I have banned baths and that we use a dishwasher so I have to agree that the tap is the place for the watering can.

One evening I get a call from Andy who says our shed window has been blown out by the wind. The next morning I scrap my plans to install a water butt at home and head off to the allotment. Stuff the window – today is a great day: we have asparagus! Five beautiful, innocent, happy spears have gently nudged aside the well-limed, stone-free earth and are pointing skywards. My mind wanders back to the birth of my children – that is the impact of this discovery. Sure, they will grow up into big bold asparagus wrapped in pancetta and smothered in hollandaise sauce, but, right now, they are the pride and joy of my short gardening career. They must not be cropped for three years but it is all I can do to stop myself dining on them there and then.

I call home and tell them the news, expecting them to drop everything and rush down to share the moment but, to be honest, their reaction is a little low-key. This could be because I have talked of nothing other than asparagus to anyone who would listen – so they may well have had their fill of the stuff before a single spear gets boiled.

The news just gets better – we also have broad beans coming through. I net them for protection, mend the window and then head off to do the family shop. Although I have been telling family and friends for some time that I will never again visit a supermarket, the truth is that I have occasionally broken that rule with a sly trip to Waitrose. This particular brand of supermarket feels slightly more in tune with the ethical shopper in my mind; they also sell a very decent version of millionaire’s shortbread, which I love! Pulling up in my car, I feel like an alcoholic outside an off-licence as I lurk outside the shop, telling myself it’s against the rules, but knowing I will end up going in, and hoping nobody sees me.

On the occasions that I have visited the supermarket, I have limited myself to buying only British seasonal produce that can be purchased free of packaging. I feel that this is in some way making a stand, and what could be more seasonal today than a kilo of Norfolk asparagus. In honour of our future harvest, I plan that the weekend’s menus shall revolve around this little beauty: asparagus soup – both hot and chilled; asparagus wrapped in Serrano ham and roasted in olive oil; and asparagus with hollandaise sauce.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.