My Tiny Plot

When you’re on your way home from work and you want to harvest some veg for dinner, there’s really only one option - deploy the handbag!

I have a love-hate relationship with Runner Beans. Every year I draw up my masterplan and omit Runner Beans - this is because we can’t eat them as fast as the plant produces them and I hate to see veg go to waste. Plus I’m not wholly convinced that I like the taste of them. But it gets to about this time of year when I see everyone else erecting their lovely bean poles and wigwams and I think, bah! I want to grow some Runner Beans. But of course I haven’t created a festering bean trench full of lovely kitchen waste and ready for some hungry beans. If you’re in the same boat never fear! You can do a ‘quick job’ on the bean trench in the following way.

Emergency Runner Bean Trench

• Dig a trench 60cm deep
• Lay some well-rotted compost in it
• Cover it with soil and lightly dig in some pelleted chicken manure
• Water it and leave it for two weeks before you plant your beans

Right then, better sow some Runner Beans…

This is a photo of my onion patch. I planted around 20 sets of the super-early onion Radar, back in December. They seem to be romping ahead and are nearly big enough for picking green. The Red Baron sets that I planted in February are still very small so it seems worth while to get an early variety in during the winter if you can. I just used up the last of the stored onions this week so my plan for self sufficiency in onions seems to be coming together. I haven’t bought an onion since the harvest on Aug 9th 2006. Two months and three weeks to go!

I don’t grow Asparagus. When I first got the keys to mtp I was convinced that I wouldn’t have the plot long enough to warrant planting Asparagus. Plus I’m pretty impatient, and waiting two years before getting a crop seemed like way too much forward planning for me in my veg growing infancy. Boy do I regret that decision! If I had planted one-year-old crowns in my first year I could be cooking this recipe with my own, home-grown, lovingly picked Asparagus. Instead, I’m working with Morrison’s finest. Ah well…

Asparagus and Gruyere Tart

Ingredients

• 1 pack of Ready Rolled puff pastry (okay I’m lazy)
• bundle of fresh Asparagus (Delia says British is best)
• Around 200g of Gruyere cheese
• flour, butter, milk, bay leaf (for white sauce)
• Parmesan for topping

Method:

1. Roll out pastry to a square. Score around the edge of the tart 1 inch from the edge
2. Arrange Asparagus in neat rows within the inner square
3. Bake for around 10 minutes until the edges of the tart have started to rise
4. Meanwhile make the white sauce by whisking all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pan
5. Chop the Gruyere cheese and add to the sauce. Stir until melted
6. Pour the sauce over the Asparagus and cook in a medium oven until the top is brown
7. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the finished tart

I love Basil - the taste, the smell, the lushness of its leaves. Everything about it makes me hungry. Now is the time to start off Basil seedlings. I put these in a few weeks ago and placed them in my mini-greenhouse. They were through in a couple of days and are doing well. I sowed some Purple Basil a couple of days ago which I will plant next to the green Basil once it’s big enough. Purple Basil is worth growing if only for its small pink flowers that stand out against the dark purple background. Both taste pretty much the same so one variety is fine, but in my opinion, you can never have too much Basil.

My Black Lace elderflower bush is just starting to flower. Now all I need is my gooseberries to ripen and I’ll have all I need for a Gooseberry and Elderflower crumble - that should make under gardener happy - he’s a sucker for a traditional pudding dish.

I bought these fennel plants at the local farmers market. I paid a pound for a pot with around 5 plants in it. I’ve never grown Fennel before so when I got them home I separated them and grew them on individually ready to be planted out. I have four left (gave one to my next door neighbour for feeding our cats when we went away - plants are handy presents!). However, I found out recently that, like Rocket, Fennel is susceptible to bolting, especially if it’s sown early in the year. Therefore it’s best to wait until May/June to sow to ensure that your plants will bulb up. With that in mind I’ve bought some fennel seed and will be sowing it this week just incase this lot goes skyward.

The best thing about this time of year is the fresh, young, salad crops that look so tasty (especially after a shower of rain). This year I’m trying some Cut & Come lettuce (a salad mix). It’s fantastic. They’re ready way before the hearting varieties and it means that we’re enjoying salads already!

Grow Your Own (the movie) is out on June 15th. The website has just launched and they’ve used some of my recipes! It’s a very nicely designed site with a section where you can watch the trailer too. Looks like a pretty ‘true to life’ example of allotment life if you ask me.

The brassicas are all tucked up in their new home. We planted two Broccoli plants, three red cabbage plants and three cauliflower plants. Mtp has a bit of club root problem so we needed to add some lime to each hole and dig it into the soil before we planted them. Then each plant received its own brassica collar to deter cabbage root fly from laying its eggs around the stem and then the whole patch was covered in fine grade mesh to keep the butterflies out. Man, brassicas are hard work! I’m amazed anyone grows them.