Soilman's Allotment Blog

No more woody asparagus!

How to harvest asparagus correctly and prepare it for the kitchen

Prepare for boarding

Thought I'd give you a brief glimpse of the sordid Soilman reality, rather than the carefully posed pictures.

My parsnips took seven weeks to emerge – a new record. Here they are, thinned and ready... but smothered in weeds. A day or two more in this weather and they'll be swamped. Just haven't had time to sort them out.

Suppose I should be grateful they germinated at all. Instead, I'm kicking myself for being a neglectful allotmenteer.

Okra update

Please wait...

Cheers... and tears?

Another outrageous success on the plot this weekend. Two hours of work in gorgeous sunshine. Felt like a foreign country.

I have seeds sprouting everywhere with reckless haste, desperate to make up for lost time. Grim and gloomy April is all but forgotten.

The only disappointment is my overwintering cauliflowers. They look terrific – the pigeons were successfully repelled – but no sign of any heads. Which is bloody peculiar, given that it's now May.

Have I lost the Midas touch with my brassicas!?

May's heavenly harvest

Had our third meal of asparagus tonight. Eaten within minutes of cutting, it needs only 3-4 mins of steaming and is sweet, crunchy and delicious. A total delight.

For the next few weeks, I'll eat it plain – not even any butter. By mid May, it will need some kind of accompaniment... so we'll break out the hollandaise sauce. Once that novelty's worn off, we're in trouble.

Sick of asparagus: classy sort of problem, huh?

Copper-bottomed plotter

Hurrah! Celeriac plants are out on the plot. Left them under a fleece tunnel for a week to get fully acclimatised to allotment conditions.

Talking of which, it's not just the plants that need hardening off. After my massive dig-and-weed-a-thon on Saturday, I have a seriously stiff arse. Sitting down is posing problems.

Wasn't aware gardening exercised the gluteus muscles so effectively. It's yet another benefit of the madcap funster allotment lifestyle.

Soilman: Buns of steel.

Out, out, brief candle

I've never been so pleased to see a potato. Thought they'd never make it.

How good was yesterday? The sun shone like it meant business, and I got a little burned. Did two hours of sowing, weeding and diverse agriculture.

I even acquired a blister. It's been about 18 months since it was possible to work outside long enough to get one of them.

But don't pack away the hot water bottle. It's back to pissing rain and March temperatures next week. 

Nonsense about me

This is one of my onion sets. Sprouting at last!

But it's not the reason I'm posting. Lucy at the Smallest Smallholding has tagged me to answer some questions. So here goes:

What Was I Doing 10 Years Ago?
I'd just become a magazine editor for the first time. I was a few months into it and starting to realise that nothing I'd done thitherto remotely prepared me for the job.

My To Do List for Today/Diary of What I Actually Did
Sow carrots. I'm staggeringly late with the early carrots this year. Been meaning to sow them for about two weeks... but keep not having the time. And I failed again tonight.

Snacks I Enjoy
Halva, Bombay mix, chocolate. Had no interest in chocolate whatsoever until my 35th birthday, when some mysterious chocaholic gene switched itself on. Now this addiction is threatening my sanity.

Things I Would Do If I Were A Billionaire
Quit the allotment, buy a place with a VAST garden and become an urban peasant. Total self-sufficiency, full-on organo-fascism.

Three of My Bad Habits
Arriving early (for everything), colourful language, detail-blindness

Five Places I Have Lived
Dorset, Oxford, London, eastern France. Oh, and Swindon (the Glamour Years)

Five Jobs I Have Had:
Bus conductor (number 11, Fleet Street to Putney), waiter ("More cherry cake, Madam?"), life insurance salesman (total sales: 1 policy, later cancelled), teacher, journalist

Five People Who Write Interesting Blogs That I’d Like to Tag (but don't bother if you've done it already or don't have time):

• Laura at mas du diable
• Welsh girl 
• Gina at My Skinny Garden 
• Kayle Garkut 
• Greenmantle at Quotidian

Blizzard postponed

No polythene required yesterday (sorry Gina!). From an inauspicious start, it became a gorgeous day – the first that's felt anything like Spring proper.

So I got the wretched spuds planted and did some weeding. It's so long since I did any sustained digging and bending that I was soon sweating like a rapist.

And bafflingly, I got shit all over my face. This perplexed the wife: "Why are you planting potatoes with your head?"

"I may be some time..."

Right, that's it. Enough's enough. The allotment's getting these bloody maincrop spuds TODAY.

They should have been planted a week ago. But of course that was impossible.

*Insert weather rant here*

So I'm planting them today – come rain, shine, snow or an ice storm from Hell itself. Even if I have to dress up in polythene like the farmer in Withnail.