Spade Work : From Plot to Plate

From Plot to Plate

Down on The Allotment is right when she says that it doesn't get much better than digging your own veggies on Christmas Day to serve alongside the turkey. All this growing malarky is a prelude to eating!

I read somewhere in the run up to Christmas that about 24,000 food miles went in to the 'average' December 25th dinner - how they arrived at that figure I don't know.

But it got me thinking what went into mine?

Well all the vegetables pictured here travelled 250 yards from the allotment to the kitchen - though this doesn't factor in miles travelled by the seed in the first place (none was saved from last years crops).

And here's what went into a meal for three. The beer travelled about 10 miles from the Hog's Back Brewery (and the hops were grown locally). The wine is French, a white Cotes de Gascogne and a red Cabardes both from the South West, so say add 1,000 miles?

The potatoes were harvested in July, buried in a clamp and dug up on Christmas morning to travel the 250 yards to the kitchen as did the leeks, carrot, parnips, the onions for the stuffing and the brussels sprouts. Not pictured is the bread for the stuffing but it came from a local bakery (though how far the flour travelled I know not).

The chicken (no turkey as there were only three of us) was free range (whatever that means in practice) and came from Wales so add 170 miles or so. (If you know a good supplier of locally raised chicken within say 15 miles of Guildford please get in contact). The bacon for wrapping the chicken travelled 20 miles from White Lodge Farm and for dessert we thawed frozen Autumn Bliss raspberries grown on the allotment.

Oh and the Christmas wreath was made by Thrive and travelled 30 miles. None of the vegetables were packaged but add say 100 miles for the energy used in the plastic wrap, the freezer bags and the wine bottles.

So this was as local as we could make it (I could have bought the wine from Denbies Vineyard, 10 miles away but I was looking for French so we live by our choices) and I reckon there's about 1,300 food miles give or take.

Quite a bit when most of it was 'home grown' but I draw the line at giving up wine!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and later today we'll feast on the bounty of the alloment!

Let It Fog...Let It Fog...

You may have read, seen on the TV news or heard that Heathrow airport is fogbound. Here's a pic looking west.

I'm sorry for the travellers stuck there trying to get home for Christmas but living under the flight path this is great news.

I woke up this morning to an unreal silence - no aircraft noise.

Let it fog.....let it fog...

Woody Parsnips

With a stinker of a cold I just about managed to shiver on to the allotment this weekend and harvest some leeks for a sauce, kale and parsnips - well feed a cold, starve a fever.

I was happy with the parsnips (Tender & True) long, fat, canker free, no splitting and with several frosts this week the sugars in them roasted  nice and sweet.

But they all had a fairly woody core. Instead of cutting this out, I sliced them, 'blanched' them in the microwave for five minutes, then roasted them. This seemed to soften their centres and the taste and texture didn't suffer.

My question is: how to grow them without the woody core in the first place; are some varieties better than others?

Winter View

I expect the recent frosts will have sweetened the parsnips and brussel sprouts and I'll find out next weekend when I get down to the allotment and harvest some more.

Meanwhile here these are the early morning winter views looking east.

Love 'Em or Hate 'Em

The one thing you can't do is ignore them this time of year.

Brussels sprouts are one of those vegetables about which people have strong views.

I'm a fan as long as they're cooked right - rapidly boiled so they're served with a little crunch to them - none of this boiling them in ham water 'til they fall apart into an irony tasting mess. And don't add anything to the dish, just serve these emerald nuggets plain - maybe a knob of butter to coat them if you must!

This is my first crop of brussels this year - some are blown (I didn't stake them) and they are small (they suffered in the drought) but they're delicious. With luck they may even bulk up in time for Christmas dinner.

Composting Again

It seems that a compost trench is a good idea and Jane at Horticultural suggested I line it with cardboard to help with water retention. 

I don't have any to hand but in the past I've used newspaper - sorry Jane. There are more uses to the Guardian than becoming tomorrows fish and chip wrapper!

Maybe I'll use the endless bags of shredded paper produced by my wife's office.

Turnips

What can I do with these turnips?

Is there such a thing as a delicious turnip recipe?

Call That a Wood Pile?

Got to the allotment briefly on Saturday and the later sowings of broad beans (4 Nov) are just showing through the surface. Taking nearly two weeks longer to show than my previous sowing on 15 October, the germination rate is about the same - 90%.

I'll be interested to see if the early sowing produces a significantly earlier crop. I doubt it but we'll see.

With not much else to do other than check the netting over the growing area (pheasants raised for the nearby shoot are a problem) and the rabbit fencing it was back to the house to stack a delivery of wood.

Now cold climate gardeners, hardy Vermont bloggers and anyone reading this from Wisconsin or Minnesota will fall about laughing - just about enough wood to heat a dolls house on a warm afternoon they'd think.

But enough for log fires on the weekend in our enviably mild climate.