Blood on the Compost

Odd Socs

2011-12-08T21:01:00.002Z

Just returned from a meeting to decide if the plot holders on our site want to form an allotment society. The driving rain tonight probably kept a lot of people indoors, but the people who did turn up to represent the Norton Lees site were up for it.
So far, my understanding of allotment societies is that on the whole, they work, and have been very useful in terms of providing security for sites as well as skips for waste removal, and deliveries of manure for use by society members.

My interest comes from a very deep seated need for affiliation. I need to feel part of a group, or community otherwise I tend to feel very easily isolated and my efforts seem to be less important when I can't share it or learn from others.

Does anyone have any experience of allotment societies?

New Beginnings

2011-12-01T23:44:00.003Z

Not going to be a long post - just enough to get me up and running again. Once again, not blogging doesn't mean I haven't been digging. We've had another very good and productive year, albeit with some failures, naturally.

Putting the brassicas beneath a young oak tree didn't help, but earlier this year my neighbour and I set to the surrounding bushes and trees with a petrol hedge trimmer and banished most of the shade from the top end. This was not achieved without pain.

My neighbour was fine, she is younger and sturdier than me - but days later my back collapsed with the strain of carrying (what felt like) a ton of metal around. We were a bit gung ho with the power tools, swinging it around like Arnie in Predator, but I didn't survive the encounter.
Well yes I did, I'm exaggerating. It was a while ago now.

I have to write something because now my neighbour has given up the plot. There was no acrimony or anything like that - she is simply carrying an addition to her family (and moving house). I don't think she is moving away because of me - having said that, I did once play the melodeon at her in the street, which would have embarrassed anyone enough to move to another town.

I had some immediate interest in the allotment. There is after all, a three year waiting list so I believe. So I asked her for the key to the site, thinking I would need it sooner rather than later. However, the two people who said they'd like to share the plot, had a think, and decided it was too much for them. I won't print my thoughts on that.

Funny though isn't it, how having just one shared interest with someone, can make you friends with that person when you probably have nothing else in common. My neighbour and I shared food and cooked it on the allotment. We had children who played together, who shared and explored a huge green space, and ate peas and raspberries together straight from the plants.
We got drunk together while choosing pumpkin varieties. We felt a shared sense of achievement when our efforts were rewarded with produce. That's all finished now. End of an era, in a way.

The plot has green manure on it, and some is covered. I'm leaving the parsnips in a bit longer, but other than that, it's a clean slate again, and I'm on my own next year. Wish me luck!

Here is a pic from early summer - before the growth really kicked in. I've taken lots of pics on my phone but I'm useless at technology and can't get them on to the pc. I will make a resolution to take the other camera in future.

Forking Hell

2010-10-11T20:34:00.003+01:00

I keep forgetting my camera, which is making this blog too wordy and means I'm unable to prove a) a chicken egg found in one of the carrot boxes, and b) my neighbour's amazonian strength when using a gardening fork.

The chicken egg was weighted, and clearly dead, so we didn't want to look inside. It was obviously nicked and buried by a cheeky creature who thought we wouldn't notice.

My neighbour stuck her gardening fork in the ground to dig a patch for our dormant goosebob bushes to move into. Our plot is very stony, and after she'd dug up half a small cottage worth of stones, she got one caught in the tines. After pulling on the fork, she brought it out of the ground to reveal it pointing with one finger, as if to say 'that was you, that was.' Ooh we did laff.

Being the hardy young lass that she is (guffaw), she carried on with the bent fork regardless, and we got the job done.

The sun was out today, but it was hard work. It wasn't just my arthritic knee. I'm quite young (guffaw) to have such a thing wrong with me, but it was the fact that I'd only had two slices of toast for breakfast, and we were out there till 3pm with no lunch. My neighbour is a slave driver.

We also planted some bulbs today, to lift our spirits come next Spring. I tried to plant them in the letters of my daughter's name but some stones got stuck in the third letter. I'm not going to mention it to anyone.

Summer over. Over Winter.

2010-10-04T19:55:00.005+01:00

We've learned a few lessons this year, and that's without the benefit of a gardening course. As far as learning curves go, this one is long, but never dull. It is still good however, to be working this plot with my neighbour, as it means the plot is always an enjoyable job to be done, rather than another discarded hobby, left to the weeds of demotivation. It makes finding a pristine, unbroken full sized bath at the top of our allotment a fun discovery instead of just a practical one. I would always recommend sharing a plot now.

The second installment of my gardening course at Meersbrook park had a more promising turnout, but it poured it down all day, so we stayed under cover and discussed the merits of artificial compost. I still don't know what the benefits of artificial composting are, as apparently I can't buy the raw ingredients (Coir anyone?) nearby anyway. I can order it online though. I need to look into this, because it is used as an alternative to peat, but I haven't yet researched how much peat there is in the bags of compost you can buy anywhere.

I also now know, that if I'm going to make some up, I'll need sand, especially in the newly acquired carrot bath. Our carrots are lovely (albeit small) this year, grown in home-made and reclaimed boxes (due to clay soil and carrot fly larvae), but they were grown in small receptacles, so we could get a larger crop next year.

We've sown mustard and rye, and will sow field beans for our green manure. We've now put our alliums in, for over wintering. Our red onions failed last year. We think we planted them too deep, but we also reckon the packets come with different instructions every time (that's our excuse). Our courgettes are finished now, but were one of our great successes along with the potatoes. The peas were great too. The brassicas are coming along, and as by all accounts the squashes must come out now, we might have to pick our small fist sized ones, even though it's still a healthy looking plant with lots of flowers still on it. Any advice?

'Secret' Gardens

2010-09-24T20:45:00.004+01:00

One way to increase your gardening knowledge is to go on a course, which I have done. Today. 'Practical Gardening in the Walled Garden, Meersbrook Park' for its full title. Six of us have joined up. We need another four for it to run. If you are reading this and interested, sign up now!
If it doesn't, then I have learned some things already from today. I may struggle to write them down however, as my 20 month old daughter has been inserting her tiny fingers in the keyboard of the laptop, and the 'a' key is dodgy. I'm typing very carefully but the the key keeps falling off, or not working.

I never knew that aspirin came from the Willow, or that you could treat bruises with Comfrey. I feel a bit daft admitting to that, as I'm old enough to know. I just thought it was a nitrogen fixer.

We'll be planning a herbacious border, doing a winter pruning, taking hand wood cuttings and naming grden plants using scientific names (it says here). I'm interested in veg and herbs primarily but this is all transferable knowledge.

So we'll be learning about composting and herbs, a bit of veg and studying weeds - otherwise known as 'plants you don't want just there.' Didn't know that did you?

Meersbrook Walled garden is run by volunteers, who took it over just four years ago after it was lain to waste. Hard to believe when you look at it now. The Japanese Garden is wonderful, and when you ask anyone there about it, you can feel the love that has been put into it.

After a bit of weeding, I was allowed to take home with me, an Astrantia, for my allotment. I shall sit it by the Lemon Balm on the border tomorrow.

Astrantias are superb perennials for under trees, on a streambank or in a moist border.

While botanical Latin tells us a great deal about a plant, few varietal names are as illuminating. The outstanding Astrantia major subsp involucrata 'Shaggy' is an exception. Instead of displaying the usual crisp symmetry and sharp points, the bracts are pinched in the middle and much cut, drawing out into wide green and white stars. Shaggy perfectly describes its unkempt look and rascally charm.

Carol Klein in the Telegraph, where they say you can buy one plant for about £7. I just got mine for nowt!

R.I.P Tomatoes

2010-09-02T19:35:00.002+01:00

I couldn't agree more, M. As I was digging the black stalky remains of the tomatoes out to be burned I felt gutted. 'Every silver lining has a cloud', as M would say. We have agreed that planting in pots or bags is the way to go for next time.

However, the last of the summer sunshine has lifted our spirits and provided us with a crop of potatoes to last the rest of the year. Baked on the barbecue, less than a minute out of the ground, they were the best I've ever tasted.

There is still a lot of hard work ahead, but I'm looking forward to it.

Blight and Barbecues - An Existential Quandary

2010-09-02T18:53:00.008+01:00

Nearing the end of today's spell on the plot, watching quicksilver droplets running over brassica leaves after their leap from the watering can's rose, I can't help it when my mind begins to ponder the allotment cycle from the point-of-view of the plants.

Does the blighted tomato really feel any different about its ultimate fate than the potato, the corn cob or the courgette? For each they have the same destiny, ripped from the ground and tossed onto the fire. Does it matter whether it is the Pink Fir Apple, given a jacket of tinfoil and placed on the barbecue next to a fine pork sausage? Or whether it is the blight-ridden tomato, its still green skin bubbling and blistering in the fierce flames of the brazier?

Ahem ... hem ... it really has been hot today and I forgot my hat.

No way, hose.

2010-08-27T22:00:00.008+01:00

Now I've been inspired to post again, I'm pleased to be able to offer an (un)guided tour of the plot for comparison with the very first photo on here. It's pretty astounding, and motivating, to see how frightening this plot looked.
This is only the second post in a year, two days apart. I'm so chuffed at what we've achieved I can't wait to show off about it. But I'm aware that I need to check myself before I start peacocking about. What I see as amazing, other plot holders will see a laughable lack of reading and experience. That may be so, but considering this is our very first year of proper production, we've been lucky.

The first bed is an extended root bed, which we (thought we'd) put parsnips in. We had oriental poppies instead. After they'd finished, we took them out, saved the heads and found five sweet potatoes there! Don't ask. So we staked them and are now waiting to see what happens. The upper half of that had chioggias and golden beets, some of which were a nice size, and fascinating. Why don't they sell these in the shops? The others, including the golden variety, have been a bit small. Further up the swedes have come on nicely despite only one thinning in a small area.

Then there are the Lady Balfours and Pink Fir Apples. They are looking tired now and are ready for picking. The first two I dug up were great.

The onions, garlic and shallots have gone and I've put mustard on as a green manure/mulch.

Some sunflowers, flanked by boxed carrots. We've been told that Sheffield soil does not support carrots - and we believed them. In between are redcurrants and goose berries.

Then the brassicas. I'm holding my breath for them.

Followed by peas, beans (of different varieties - my neighbour and I chose them during a heavy wine session and I forget which), with sweetcorn mixed in. On the edges is courgette. What is this white stuff on it?

Under the make-shift poly tunnel are the chillies, which look OK. Then there are the tomatoes. Oh dear, what happened? They were looking very good last week and now they have some kind of blight or rot. Can any of the fruit be saved?

Beyond that is where the shed of doom once stood.

Our last bounty has just been increased by one courgette, a floating potato and another fist sized swede, illustrated here. The huge marrow isn't ours. We don't like marrow. It was given to us by a friend, who doesn't like marrow.

The garlic is our first attempt at plaiting.

Plotting not publishing!

2010-08-25T21:30:00.005+01:00

I know, it's been a long time since writing. But since my neighbour boldly agreed to take this on with me and M, we have come a long way with the allotment - and just because we haven't been writing, doesn't mean we haven't been working!

It's hard to know where to begin again. We were literally wading through weeds that were taller (and thicker) than we were. I still have a lot to read, and learn about gardening.

We (according to the allotment office) are still only cultivating about 30% of the plot. Since the last post, we have, believe it or not, still been in the process of clearing and digging and removing vast swathes of carpet. I wrote to them, after their second letter saying it was 'generally unkempt, etc etc) politely detailing our hard work and albeit minor successes. I sometimes don't know what they want. I know at the moment there is a high demand for plots, but surely, addressing this doesn't mean lavishing negative attention on people who have had a plot for a mere few years. Our plot had been left for years and years, according to our allotment neighbours before we got it.

Every week since our last post, through wind, hail, rain and bleakly sunny days until this summer, me and my neighbour have toiled, sometimes with our babies strapped to our backs, to get this plot into shape.

I never would have thought, that this plot would change my life so much. For a start, having a baby made me more, not less determined to make this work. Maybe if E hadn't have come along, it might just have been another failed project. M of course, couldn't do a week day as he works full time, and we just seemed too tired for anything at the weekend.

My neighbour H has made all the difference to that scenario, and her son has been company for E. At first, when they were only about four months old, they wouldn't get out of their buggies at all. If we were lucky, we could park them side by side and they would sleep a good two or three hours. That's how we did all the hard work. We did six hour shifts up there, from 10am till 4pm, stopping for picnic lunches, and taking it in turns to babysit while the other pottered and plotted the schedule for next time.

Now, we can't keep them in the buggies at all. But now, there is a path! Now, there are beets and brassicas, potatoes and peas, courgettes and carrots, tomatoes and er, swedes.

We have had failures - oriental poppies grew where we planted parsnips. How did that happen?

The peas have had a bit of pea moth. Not enough though, to stop my little E from picking and eating a pea straight from the pod. How happy am I, knowing that my child actually knows where peas come from?

And the other day, I gave her a blackberry. She popped it in her mouth and said 'lovely', for the first time.

Raspberry

2009-07-16T17:00:00.004+01:00

I can't tell you how honoured I am to have been invited to contribute to this blog - thank you sooo sooo much M. You are so very kind.

Seriously, I'm happy to be starting on the allotment again after all this time. Even though it was all your fault, M, for us not being able to go up and carry on what we started all that time ago, I can forgive you (just the once) and I'm looking forward to arguing about something different with you.

First though, we have to go up, harvest the bumper crop of rasp and goose berries, and reclaim the tools from somewhere beneath all that horrific bramble. We've got a babysitter for Saturday (my dad and step mum). Hopefully when H and C can get started, it won't look too daunting - and that will be their reward for being brave enough to say yes to this folly.

Or we could leave a bit of bramble for them...

OK, so let's start again ...

2009-07-14T17:19:00.002+01:00

Alright, admittedly we've let things slide with the allotment. This is in fact the first post for more than a year, but we have had a very good reason. We are now the proud parents of little E, a beautiful girl who has been filling up more than enough of our time until now.

We have, however, more good news. We're in negotiations with a couple of neighbours, H and C, who are also new parents of little boy G, to start working the plot together. They have been wanting to get down to some serious growing and, like us, have nowt but a yard behind their house. We all went and took a look at the plot last Saturday and they've agreed in theory to take it on with us which is great as we stand a much better chance of doing something with the plot with regular help, rather than the now and then help we've had and very much appreciated from my parents and brother and D's mum.

We also have something we can harvest! Yes, even though we've done sweet nothing for sixteen months! Two of the unidentified bushes have turned out to be raspberry and gooseberry which is brilliant. The raspberry has started to get a little unruly so when we start to take control of the plot again, we'll get it under more strict supervision.

Anyway, the shed of doom's days are numbered. I've already started looking for a new fortress of solitude*!

* More commonly listed on websites as a "8' x 10' Apex Double Door shed".

A mixed bank holiday weekend ...

2008-03-25T12:41:00.006Z

This was going to be a post full of joy as yesterday my parents and my brother came over to help us with the allotment and we got masses of brambles and other weeds cleared away. It would have taken us a hell of a lot more time to do it with just the two of us and we've also found two beds that are almost usable.

However, we went down to load the tools into the car this morning and some bastard had nicked the rear wheel. Bad enough, but this follows on from Saturday night when somebody, probably a drunk parking up to use the nearby cash machine, has bashed in our rear passenger side door. May they rot in whichever personal hell would make the dishonest gitbags suffer the most!

Anyway, rant over. Lets get back to the plot.

We got a huge amount done yesterday, met a few of our allotment neighbours and made some very nice discoveries too. The main task of the day involved cleaning weeds and rubbish. Underneath the weeds we discovered two beds which had clearly been in use 'recently'. In one bed, we found a number of spuds and also a number of nasty little cutworms, so we'll not be putting spuds in there again this year. That said, the beds, which are now nestling cosily under some nice weed supressing fabric, should be ready to use very soon, probably towards the end of April. Today, we were going to dig another bed to go with them so that we could start to plan our rotational crops, stick in some left over onion sets that my dad's donated and plant a Champagne rhubarb crown which D's mum bought us, but that'll have to wait a few days now.

Above: Our two lovely beds, snuggled beneath their sheets. In the background is the vast pile of waste we generated yesterday. Ulp!

One of our aims in taking on this plot is to encourage wildlife as much as possible and to use said fauna to help us control any pests we may encounter. We want the plot to be organic, peat-free, wildlife-friendly, water efficient, carbon neutral - any good practice you'd care to name, we want to do it. That was why it was lovely to see the little fella below hopping around when we'd cleared a few areas.

Above: A little frog. Aaaah.

We also had several visits from a nice little Robin, but I didn't get any clear pictures of it. Never mind.

Our clearing also uncovered the fact that our allotment is, as an estate agent might put it, "Sited in a pleasant spot in the south of the city with good views and a rustic outhouse with inbuilt toilet. Carpeted throughout." Yes, inside the Shed of Doom there is a loo and there was quite possibly more carpet hiding beneath the growth we cleared than there is in our home. This does leave us with the worry of what to do with a thousand square metres of soggy Axminster, but it will have kept some weeds at bay anyway. Below are a few clearer views of the Shed of Doom (I've spared you a look at the loo).

Above: The exterior - charmingly ramshackle and lethal as hell!

Above: The interior - a well-organised working space ... erm!

Though the interior shot was taken with my arm outstretched, I did later take my life in my hands and venture in to find a new (old) shovel and rake, both in good working order. Throughout the day, we'd also uncovered a pair of loppers, several soil sieves, a propogator and assorted pots and trays which can all be cleaned and should all be OK.

We met a few neighbours for the first time too. One bloke wandered past a couple of times and gave much-welcomed, good-natured encouragement as he did so. A few plots down there was a very pleasant gentleman who spent a good quarter of an hour giving us a potted history of the site and helping us to find the nearest water tap. He modestly said we shouldn't take his allotment as an example of what can be achieved, but it was actually great! A smart, well-organised layout with a pond, canes ready to accept beanstalks, composters slowly ... erm ... composting. He took his plot over three years ago and admits to having a shed that was probably even worse than our wreck.

There's hope for us yet!

More mystery growth ...

2008-03-17T08:43:00.006Z

Some more mystery growth which I hope people can help us identify. I suspect that both of these may be crops which have just overgrown and gone to seed since the last allotment tenant gave up and scarpered. I feel like I should find out, because if they are some kind of pesky weed and there are problems like deep taproots that I should be aware of, I can do something sensible about it rather than just hacking and slashing indiscriminately and exacerbating the problem.

Sorry for the blurriness of this picture, but it was on the end of a tall thin stalk and I wasn't tall enough to get any closer. The blurriness is caused by a tight zoom and hand shake. I have a feeling this might be a carrot plant that's gone to seed. Am I right?

Another crop gone to seed? If so, what?

Be cheeky!

2008-03-16T11:39:00.004Z

Just some thoughts on cheekiness. Now normally I'm an anti-social bugger who likes to shun the company of humanity, but I've begun to realise that some contact with other sentient bipeds can be of use.

Yesterday, while wandering back from the pet shop with a heavy bag of dried cat food under one arm and an even heavier bag of litter under the other, I noticed a couple of hefty exterior doors leaning against a house. Our plot is in need of a door to make it secure so I asked the feller if we could take one and he seemed only too happy to agree. Cheeky, I know, but we've got to take advantage of these opportunities now. It's also good for the old carbon footprint to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as you can manage, so salvaging in this way is ethical too.

Of course, finding something else even heavier to carry was perhaps not the best thing for our arms, but, as the cliched mixed metaphor says, never let a gift horse pass you by.

Book reviews

2008-03-16T10:15:00.012Z

Here's a few books that we've been reading in preparation for getting our plot. Believe me you need to do some research before taking this on. It's been a revelation to see just how little we knew about what we've decided to get ourselves into.

The Allotment Keeper's Handbook: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Growing Your Own Food by Jane Perrone (RRP £14.99):

This one's a corker. Wonderfully reassuring and full of great advice, this is a must for anybody wanting to get into organic gardening. Perrone, who writes for The Guardian and whose blog (see links) is also a great source of advice, has a friendly style which is a pleasure to read, but she really packs the book with great information. One particular plus is that she acknowledges the huge number of mistakes that she made early on (mistakes that ... ahem ... rather echo our own) and her later successes offer great encouragement to carry on. It's a little short on illustrations, but is written in a clear manner, which fully explains any of the bewildering new jargon which you'll have just been exposed to. Highly recommended!

The Allotment Specialist edited by Alan and Gill Bridgewater (RRP £4.99):

This is one of those wonderful books that takes you through everything step-by-step, with lots of painted illustrations so that even fools like me can understand. It's much less-detailed than Perrone's book, but complements her work wonderfully by concentrating just on the basics. I've often sat there with these two books and the HDRA Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening (see below) open side-by-side, flicking between the three of them to expand my knowledge on a given subject. It's also very cheap. D's ma picked up a copy of this and another in the Specialist series for just a couple of quid. A real bargain.

Allotted Time: Twelve Months, Two Blokes, One Shed, No Idea by Robin Shelton (RRP £12.99):

Unlike the other books, this isn't a reference work. It's an account of the first twelve months of the allotment that Shelton and his best mate Steve took over after Shelton left his teaching job with stress and as such it's a very effective example of the nourishment that allotmenteering can give to the soul as well as the body. We follow the two pals through some tricky times, but it's clear just how valuable Shelton finds his allotment in terms of his recovery. He also makes the food sound great. Shelton comes across as a nice bloke and creates an appealing impression of what allotment life and people are like. While there is little in the way of direct advice, that's not really what the book's about anyway. Just read it, enjoy it, and look forward to your first shed and your first crop. The copy we read was the hardback which we borrowed from a mate (we've still got to return it - sorry Phill!), but the book has since been released in paperback at £7.99.

HDRA Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening edited by Pauline Pears (£18.99):

The HDRA (Henry Doubleday Research Association) has since become Garden Organic, the UK's leading organic gardening charity (see links), and as you'd expect this huge book is a key text for any organic gardener. Aimed not just at the allotmenteer, this takes in all aspects of green-fingeriness, giving advice on lawns and decorative gardens too. It's thorough, authoritative and illustrated with some stunning photographs, although the double-page spreads on beneficial insects and pests and diseases are stomach churning (I know that they're good for the garden but ladybird larvae are the hideous stuff of nightmares!). It's got great advice on composting, water conservation, green manures, natural pest control and anything else you'd ever need. I know you can buy a lot for £18.99, but believe me, this book will pay for itself many times over.

The Vegetable and Herb Expert: by D.G. Hessayon (£7.99)

I remember Dr D.G. Hessayon's Expert series from being a child. My grandfather was a keen and skillful gardener and always had this book to hand, so it reminds me of the sweet, soothing smell of beautiful, plump tomatoes ripening on the lip of the sash windows, their colours running the full spectrum from deep green, fresh from the vine, through yellows and oranges to the most vivid blood reds. Mmmm. Anyway, there is much to commend this book. It's a detailed reference work to every aspect of growing hundreds of crops, from soil types, diseases and pests, sowing and harvesting times and anything else you'd care to know really. On the negative side, it is a little out of date. The vast number of chemicals that Dr Hessayon suggests using to kill off all manner of nasties is actually rather shocking. It is, however, an interesting insight into what's changed in veg growing over the last few decades and like any advice, you can of course pick and choose which bits you want to take. Whether the cover's claim that it is "The World's Best-Selling Book on Vegetables and Herbs" is true or not, it is a very useful book. It just seems extreme to napalm your cabbages just to rid them of a few blackfly!

What is this?

2008-03-15T09:28:00.004Z

Above: Mystery green thing.

Help! We don't know what this is. Can anybody indentify it? I've not found it in any of the books yet. I'll be honest, we're probably going to dig it up anyway, but it would be nice to know.

What the hell were we thinking?

2008-03-15T08:23:00.004Z

Above: The plot from hell, overlooked by the shed of doom!

Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Oooooh d... well, you get the picture.

We - that's my partner, D, and me, M - like food. We watch programmes about it on the telly. Not that wretched Gordon $%&£*! Ramsey - we hate him. And we don't like Jamie Oliver either - there's something schizophrenic about the manner in which he'll be all ethical one minute, like a zoo keeper telling off Rotherham mothers for feeding their caged children chips through a fence, but the next he'll be trying to get you to fork out your cash for whatever high fat, high sugar rubbish that his supermarket paymasters want to push that week. We kind of like Rick Stein, although he can seem a little insincere, but our favourite is Hugh Whiffle-Sturnwhirler ... just kidding (sorry about the cheap gag!) ... Fearnley-Whittingstall. Not only has Hugh helped me to shrug off years of prejudice and the belief that everybody with a double-barrelled name is an inbred fool and a waste of oxygen, his charming, enthusiastic, ethical and logical approach to food - whether it has roots, feet, fins or hooves - is inspiring.

However, what has inspired us most is that D is actually a fantastic chef (I call her that advisedly, as she makes the very good point that all too often men are called chefs while women make do with the title of cook) who makes lovely food of whatever kind she turns her hand to. I like cooking, make decent chilli, curries and stir fries, but I am not in her league and feel thankful every day that I'm with someone who cares enough about us to make such great grub.

We've been getting organic deliveries from a local, Sheffield wholefoods store for a couple of years, and the next logical step was to start growing our own. We've got herbs in the yard of our redbrick end terrace. The yard's a nice size. If you're careful you can almost cover the floor with one opened out page of broadsheet newspaper. We tried growing onions from sets last year. They went in tiny and after months of care and nurture came out ... tiny, but still fresh. You needed about six of them for any job, but never mind.

Anyway, because of our space issues we put our name down on the waiting list for an allotment. At the beginning of the year, I bought D Jane Perrone's excellent 'The Allotment Keeper's Handbook' joking that "this will be the year we get our own plot", but believing that it would be years down the line. Sure enough, within the very week we get a letter from Sheffield City Council offering us a plot at a secluded site in the south of the city (good alliteration, eh?). After just over a month of sending back and forth paperwork and cheques and what have you, we've finally got the keys. We've had a look. Oh dear! Ooooh dear!

The thing with D and I is that we tend to solve problems by arguing. We get grouchy and shout and swear and when the cussing and hollering's done, usually we'll have got through whatever job we needed to do and we can get back to being friends.

We're going to be arguing a lot over the next few months.

The plot is rather overrun, particularly with bramble. There's a patch of some weird leafy green thing that we can't identify and a deathtrap of a shed (seriously, it's amazing that the damned thing is still up after the earthquake the other week). On the plus side, there are two water butts, a couple of rusty wheelbarrows, at least one of which still works, and various other discarded equipment that might be put to good use.

This brings me to the point of this blog. Inspired by the idea of fresh, homegrown veggies on the table, spurred on by experimenting with new culinary delights, we will do this. We will turn this wasteland into a fertile, productive plot which will provide most of our vegetable food. If we can do it, and we don't know our brassicas from our elbow, others like us could do it too. If we record our successes and perhaps more importantly our balls-ups, others may be able to learn from our experiences. And if nobody does, well at least we'll be able to read back over these pages when we're feeling down and see how far we've come.

We've got our flask, some thorn-proof gloves and a selection of salvaged tools very kindly bought for us us by D's mum.

Time to get mucky.