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

2. Dr DG Hessayon – The Vegetable and Herb Expert

It would be tempting to dismiss anyone who called themselves a ‘vegetable expert’ as a horticultural megalomaniac, but he is a doctor and that must mean he’s well qualified. The book is basically a page per vegetable, and outlines growing methods, pest control, cooking advice (steady on doctor – my territory), and varieties of plants.

3. Alan Titchmarsh – Gardeners’ World Complete Book of Gardening

Everyone knows Alan Titchmarsh. I met him once when I was working at The Greenhouse (the restaurant, that is), and he was a charming man. His books are very informative and you feel you can trust him (people say this about Delia Smith with regard to cooking, and they do share the same haircut). His outlook is a more modern one than Geoff’s so it will be a good balance.

4. Edward C Smith – The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

This book claims to contain all you need to know about successful vegetable growing; however, I seem to have fallen for the word ‘bible’ in the title. Cookery writers have employed the same trick – The Bible of French Cookery or French Culinary Bible would be obvious titles – but generally they are written by people who spend two weeks a year in the Dordogne and claim to know all there is to know about French cookery despite the fact that they wouldn’t know Marc Veyrat if he married their daughter. (Actually, thinking about it, Alan Titchmarsh has done Songs of Praise so, from the Divine’s point of view, he would get the nod on using ‘bible’ in the title.) Anyhow, to get back to Mr Smith’s book, every subject from soil testing to pruning is covered with helpful step-by-step pictures.

Pictures are a really important element because you really do want some idea of the final result before you start to dig (or whisk).

All of these books contain fabulous pictures of finished vegetable beds burgeoning with peas, beans, tomatoes and just about any other vegetable you can think of; this can, though, leave one a little frustrated if, like us, your vegetable plot currently consists of a shed, a compost bin, a potato patch and a vast uncultivated area. All the books do, however, give practical advice on starting out, and it is obvious to me that we should give some thought to how the finished plot will look.

There are more ways than one to plant a cabbage, apparently, so it is important to think ahead. At this stage two questions need to be answered:

1 Are we the ‘plant in row’ traditionalist types, or are we going to have raised beds?

2 How are we going to deal with crop rotation?

I turn first to the issue of raised bed versus traditional row sowing. My grandpa’s vegetable patch was a succession of perfect rows, each one a different vegetable – this is the ‘row’ method and it allows the gardener to walk between the plants to weed and water. The modernists are not satisfied with this tried and tested method, however, so they have come up with a new method called ‘raised bed’ growing. Here, one builds the bed up above ground level and then sows in blocks so that, when mature, each plant is touching its neighbour (sounds like a dodgy council estate!), thus producing very high yields. This is apparently done in narrow beds so all watering and weeding is done from the edge of the beds. Geoff Hamilton is a ‘plant in rows’ man and he does look like the type you can trust, but Titchmarsh reckons one shouldn’t overlook the block planting method and he’s done OK for himself, so the jury is still out.

Next up it’s crop rotation. All the books agree that crop rotation is a must. This is for two reasons: if a bug knows that every May his or her favourite food will be in abundance then he or she just sits and waits for the harvest to begin, so crop rotation thwarts pests and disease; secondly, certain plants sap the soil of certain nutrients so, if one sows a different type of crop in a plot each year, the nutrients remain at a consistent level.

This is all well and good but here’s the snag – the authors can’t agree on how many beds one should be rotating. The vegetable expert Dr DG Hessayon suggests three beds – roots, brassicas and ‘others’. Geoff Hamilton enjoys a little more rotating with four beds, though one of these he suggests is for permanent crops (as yet, I am not sure what permanent crops are). Compared to these, Alan Titchmarsh takes a ‘radical’ view suggesting (correctly, in my opinion) that both DG Hessayon’s and Geoff Hamilton’s systems require equal space for each crop type, which can result in yielding slightly more root vegetables than is fashionable to eat. He, however, has a picture of three beds with an enormous list down the side of the page showing what he is growing, including nasturtium, Florence fennel, rocket and coriander (Geoff will be turning in his grave at this list: ‘Where are your turnips and swede, Alan lad?’).

My gut feeling on all the above is to sit down with MJ and decide what we want to eat, then group the list into types of vegetables and take a view on how many beds we can logistically chop our allotment into. We both agree to limit the rotational beds to three: legumes, brassicas and root vegetables will all get a similar sized bed and be moved to the neighbouring bed the following year. On the row versus raised bed issue, I decide to go with tradition – and the seemingly easier option – and sow at ground level in rows.

Further reading reveals that permanent crops are those plants that are only planted once: rhubarb, soft fruit, perennial herbs and asparagus all need a permanent site. I reckon that, if we concentrate on getting these beds dug and planted, at least we will feel we have made progress. My plan is to line these beds with old floorboards so they are defined in area; this will also make the digging feel more achievable.

With my osteopath’s digging ban now at an end, and having read up on the relevant topics, I am ready for some serious allotment action. I get up full of enthusiasm and head to the local garden centre. As I walk towards the entrance, I have the same feeling of excitement and anticipation I used to feel as I approached HMV. Now, rather than wondering if I will come out with an Otis Redding CD or one by Bob Dylan, however, I have string and nails on my mind. Actually ‘String and Nails on my Mind’ does sound like it could well be a track by Bob Dylan, but this is a complete coincidence.

I have never been good at sticking to budgets and I decide that I will buy everything we need to kit out our shed on this one visit. String, nails, wire, hooks, soil-testing kit, forks, trowel, rake and a very necessary pink barbecue set are all purchased and then carted back to Blondin. The afternoon is spent hammering in nails and hooks and putting up shelves and, by the time I leave, the shed is beginning to look like it is a real gardening shed, albeit with very shiny tools. The pink barbecue is given to Ellie and I promise to teach her how to cook on it.

The Easter holiday arrives and with it comes the first serious sign of dissent in the camp. Ellie and Richie are far from thrilled to learn that Mum and Dad intend to spend most of the holidays moving things on at the allotment. I think they both feel that they are the victims of a huge con. Back in November, when we explained to them what an allotment was and why we should have one, I seriously played up the plus points (as anyone would when trying to encourage an unconvinced third party). I promised them that the allotment would be huge fun: bonfires, digging big holes, picking strawberries, pulling carrots, finding frogs, having barbecues; in truth, the only things ticked off that list so far are bonfires and digging big holes – and there are only so many holes you can dig with a smile on your face.