Dig This – Harvest thanksgiving

DigThisPotatoesIt’s not a line from a Carry On script, but I’m marinating my plums in gin. There are only so many tarts and preserves you can make with them, particularly this season’s bumper crop, so I’ve set a winter tipple away.

Peeled and pale, they’re sitting in a Kilner jar in the garage soused in Aldi’s award-winning Oliver Cromwell London Gin (a steal at £9.65) and will remain there – looking for all the world like pickled eggs – until the festive season. The liquor will then be administered neat, while the fruit could form the basis for an interesting festive dessert.

Multi-use is the essence of allotment produce. Vegetables can be served up in totally recognisable form – such as sprouts and broccoli – or blitzed into soups and puréed to form the basis of a dip.

A lot of it has to do with planning. I was given several curly kale plantlets a few months ago and what a magnificent sight they make now. However, one or two of this highly-nutritious, underrated brassica plants would have supplied all our kale needs (cut young it keeps on coming) throughout the year.

And with hindsight, I wouldn’t have planted horseradish where I did. It has rather taken advantage of a prime position in the allotment and although it’s a favourite at home as a relish with roast beef, I think its time in that sunny spot is up. It’s the very devil to get rid of, but we live and learn.

Lifting potatoes may be back-straining work, but there is no job in the allotment quite as satisfying as carefully positioning a garden fork to tease out your hidden booty. Every forkful turns up a surprise – one disappointing action forgotten when the next effort reveals fist-sized Desirées or tennis ball Kerr’s Pinks.

It’s now time to draw up a plan for winter and early spring. We’ve been offered a neighbouring plot to work and it’ll need careful consideration. Onions, definitely; potatoes, of course; peas, beans and cabbage, oh yes. More horseradish? Perhaps not.
Plums? Let’s see what Oliver Cromwell says.

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