The Allotment Chef by Paul Merrett

Author:Paul Merrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

The sun shines down as we sit eating lunch and that raises everyone’s spirits. The allotment is a different place when the sun shines; even the children start to enjoy themselves. Richie and Eddie maintain the fire while Ellie and Sylvie use some spare wooden pallets and timber to build an elaborate construction that bears no resemblance to anything in existence, but it pleases them.

As the weather seems to be looking up, we decide to take our chances and get some planting done. Four rows of potatoes, salsify, broad beans, replacement spring onions and some new strawberry plants all go in. Suddenly the allotment feels like a good place to be.

The pinnacle of our achievements, though, is the building of the compost heap. Our plastic council-issued bin had blown away in the gales and had never been found. I expect it had been claimed – based on the ‘finders keepers’ rule – by some allotmenteers several plots over.

The fact that it had blown away in the first place was because of the very small amount of vegetation inside it at the time of the gale. There are two reasons for this. The first is that MJ has decided to put all our home waste into a ‘green bin’ and leave it out for collection by the council. They take it away and compost it in a facility that traps the methane gases released; these gases are then used to make fuel. MJ’s argument is that this is a ‘greener’ approach than having a compost heap that releases methane directly into the atmosphere. I thought compost was the very pinnacle of greenness – all this environmental stuff ties me up in knots sometimes.

The second reason for our lack of compost is that most of the weeds and vegetation that we remove from the allotment, and that could go in the bin, is burnt by our children on their regular bonfires. MJ encourages this because she knows how much they enjoy it, but I can see an inconsistency here – surely all that smoke going up into the atmosphere is at least as harmful as the methane we might have produced from the bloody compost in the first place. I give up.

This year, however, we are determined to cut the cost of the allotment and one way is to stop buying compost at £4.99 a bag and have a go at producing some ourselves. Buying a plastic compost bin seems at odds with our project and I still have a lot of timber left over from lining our beds, so we build a new compost heap from scratch with neither swearing and violence nor any mention of divorce.

During supper that night, Ellie mentions, with some justification, that the only vegetable we have eaten from the allotment this month (and last to be honest) is purple sprouting. I explain that this time of year is tough on gardeners and, unless you are really organised (and especially if you’ve eaten through your frozen stocks), you can find yourself with nothing to eat at all.

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