Purple Sprouting to Piggies.

Wow, I finally have an hour to myself (just mistyped that as 'my elf', but I've paid him no attention either) Life has suddenly become overwhelmingly busy as the Norfolk Kitchen empire expands. As you probably know I have 2 allotments for the first time this season. I keep telling myself it's not as daunting as it sounds as both plots are half the traditional size so, really, it's just one plot. That's not too bad is it? Really? It'll be all right won't it??

I took advantage of the glorious weather and visited the Bressingham allotment (the old one) yesterday. Sadly, I forgot my camera which means I couldn't capture the blossom on the fruit trees or the glorious, glowing, shimmering purple of the sprouting broccoli. I photographed it at home but it's just not the same as when it's bathed in sunlight. I'm uncommon pleased with the purple sprouting, I bought a few spare plants from a fellow allotmenteer for 20p, stuck them in the soil and ignored them til now and suddenly, unexpectedly, I have this gourmet treat (stir fried in olive oil with anchovies by the way)

When I'd finished swinging a matock while sweat dripped off my nose in an attempt to dig over the sun hardened clay of the ex-Cavolo Nero bed, I called at the new allotment to check out the rotavating a friend did for me. The soil is beautiful, as fine a tilth as sand. I surveyed my blistered hands and could've wept!

Added to the extra land I've taken on 3 extra chickens making a total of 5, plus I'm getting quite heavily involved in the Diss Community Farm Livestock project. The Community Farm is basically a co-operative of local people, we're hoping to rent some land, work on it ourselves, share the produce and have a few laughs along the way. It's a huge project to get off the ground and lots of people are working very hard on it. The hope is that the Farm will become a reality next year and in the meantime we're running a couple of small pilot projects to test our plans and procedures. The vegetable growing project I'm leaving alone (see above) but the Project Piggy is a different matter ....

A local landowner has agreed to lease us an area of woodland of about 2 acres for a peppercorn rent and a side of pork, our plan is to keep a few pigs and some nice fierce geese to keep them safe from marauding teenagers. If all goes well we can scale up for the farm proper.

We're holding a Family Cream Tea this Sunday, 10th April, at Roydon Village Hall at 3pm. Please come along if you'd like to find out a bit more about our project or get involved. And if you're very lucky, you may even get to sample a little Norfolk Kitchen jam (but not the courgette and ginger which was very firmly rejected!)

Xanthe's Mud Pie Kitchen

Ta-daaa! So here it is, Xanthe's Mud Pie kitchen. At the grand old age of 4, Xanthe is already an allotment veteran. We've reached the stage where miniature tool sets and packets of seeds have waned in the excitement stakes and every announcement of an allotment visit is met with loud howls of protest.

I've been avoiding this flashpoint by only visiting the allotment when Xanthe is at nursery but as demands on my precious child free time grow this is becoming impractical. The issue of keeping Xanthe amused and engaged feels even more important at the new allotment where our plots aren't fenced and the neighbours are the neat and tidy straight lines types who wouldn't fancy small feet tramping over the border.

I appealed for ideas on Twitter and Facebook and got some great suggestions including making scarecrows, flower pot mud castles (like sandcastles only muddier), flower pot stilts and cardboard tractors. All of which are fab ideas I have squirreled away for future use. The lovely Rachel, she of the transplaneted courgette, came up with the Rolls Royce solution: A Mud Pie Kitchen.

An hour in the charity shops of Diss produced a wooden wine rack which a dab of glue, 2 cheap hob covers and 2 big red buttons turned into a cooker. We added in a variety of charity shop utensils and the job was done. So far, it's proving to be a huge success. It's spent the last 48 hrs sitting in the living room, waiting for today's allotment trip, where it has already facilitated Xanthe's hamster stew ("pretend we're cats cooking hamsters!")

We took it to the plot today where Xanthe put it through it's muddy paces. For the first time in this family's allotment career, Xanthe was so absorbed in her mud and weeds cookery it took all my powers of persuasion to get her to leave and Willow's in a sulk because she hasn't seen the kitchen in situ yet. My ears are ringing to a new and unfamiliar refrain "But Muuuuum, when are we going to the allotment? I haven't been for aaaaages!"

Chickenopolis

Wow, what a chickeny weekend we have had. We decided to buy a bigger new coop so that we could put non-laying Feathers out to retirement and replace her with 3 new point of lay hens. The coop was ordered when I received a call asking if we had space for a few ex-batts someone was collecting. I immediately agreed to take 3, now that we'd had a bit of chicken keeping experience I felt more confident about taking on chickens who potentially could have some problems, plus there's the fuzzy glow of doing something good, plus, well, umm, they're free so I've saved the best part of £60.

Once the new coop was assembled we realised that we had room to keep the old coop too so our plans expanded, we would go from owning 1 coop stocked with 2 hens so 2 coops with a combined total of 5 hens. The pre-existing Crispy plus 3 ex-batts meant we only had to buy 1 extra hen.

Sunday dawned cold and sunny and our day of avian runaround began.

Feathers was taken to her retirement home, namely a work mate of Adam's who adopts waif and stray birds from bantams to barn owls. He agreed to make a chicken sized space for Feathers who will no doubt thinks she's suddenly grown a foot overnight after being introduced to the bantams.

Next we sped off to collect the ex-batts. I've never seen one before so was a bit shocked, not at the lack of feathers so much, but their wilty combs and anaemic appearance. The lady who'd rescued them told me they actually had more feathers than most ex-batts so I think I'd expected them to be a bit more conventional looking.

Back home, we had a minor escapage during our complicated re-cooping schedule which resulted in Crispy and the ex-batts coming beak to beak a bit sooner than planned and, completely unexpectedly, Crispy turned into Rambo Hen. Making a growling noise I've never heard before, she launched herself ruthlessly at a hapless ex-batt, stamping on her neck and pecking viciously at her head. Naturally, we quickly separated them so we now have the 3 ex-batts in the new coop and Crispy the Bully is on her own in the old coop. She won't be alone for long as I'm getting her a brand new point of lay playmate tomorrow, I'm hoping that if we follow conventional rules, introduce the new hen after Crispy has gone to bed and get a newby that bears a passing resemblance to Feathers, Crispy will accept her a bit more readily.

Meanwhile, the ex-batts have been named. They're Spark, Katie (after the singer in the Ting Tings) and Lady Gaga (believe me, not my choice, but I suppose she's wearing about as many feathers as Lady Gaga wears clothes) and they seem really happy. They've made themselves at home and are really curious about us, coming out to line up and stare out at us from the run every time we come out of the house. And the icing on the cake (not literally) this morning, less than 24hrs after arriving, all 3 had laid an egg!

So hurrah for the Bash Street Hens, although they do have really long claws, does anyone have any experience of trimming chicken claws? Is it easy to do?

Potato Madness

I finally got hold of my Ulster Sceptre seed potatoes thanks to the 2011 East Anglian Potato Day. It was the first time I've been to one of their events and it was an education! I envisaged a market stall type set up and as I only wanted a small number of one variety I thought it would be fairly easy to quickly drop by and pick up what I wanted.

It was a shock to the system then, to arrive at Stonham Barns and be faced with actual queues of traffic waiting to get in. I finally parked and was directed to the marquee by a helpful car park attendant who admired my parking spot and cheerfully exclaimed "At least you won't get stuck in the mud like the others!". Outside the marquee, I tagged on to the end of a huge queue of people in wellies with that outdoorsy sheen of mud and rude health about them and shuffled patiently towards the door. Apparently those in the know get there early and start to queue before the tent's even open.

Inside I was faced with a frantically busy potato jumble sale, complete with steely eye glints and sharp elbows. Rows of seed potatoes were laid out in alphabetical order, punters fill paper bags with their required varieties and then commence the arcane payment procedure which involves a two stage tally ("Did you not count them?") and pay ("Did you not write the name on the bag?") system.

I paid 12p per potato plus my £1.50 entry fee. For my small haul that worked out at roughly the same as garden centre prices but clearly, further hauls would have yielded greater savings. Indeed, I was mildly surprised to see people tottering under the weight of bags of life stuffed to the brim. The only reason I was so restrained quantity wise is the gift of two bags of seed potatoes (Arran Pilot and Nadine) I was given by a fellow allotmenteer which I already have tucked away at home.

It took much longer than anticipated to make my small purchase but what a great event! I love the fact that there are so many people out there who are obviously bonkers enough about potatoes to stage the event, to queue happily in the mud and to eagerly anticipate Potato Day each year. And thank goodness they do, I've no idea where I would have got my Ulster Sceptre otherwise.

I'm going in for potatoes in a bigger way than I'd planned this year thanks to the seed potato presents I've got but it'll be interesting to test the Ulster Sceptre against a more standard variety and see if there's any taste difference. It would be even more interesting to test them against Ulster Sceptre grown in Cheshire to see if there's any truth in the claim that it's the salty Cheshire soil that makes them taste special.

I'm especially happy to have got through a whole post about potatoes without once saying "the humble spud". Cliche neatly side stepped I think.

How far can a straight line take me?

That's not an entirely rhetorical question. You may remember that over the winter, while the veg patch sleeps, I've been exploring the world of the haberdasher. My sewing skills are limited, I've never followed a pattern, never sewed in a zip or made a button hole. In fact my one and only skill is my ability to sew in a straight line. It's true I've dabbled in a three stitch zig zag on prone to fraying raw edges but, to be honest, it makes me anxious. So straight lines it is.

Sewing is supposed to be a thrifty activity but it doesn't take long to discover that the mainstream approach of purchasing fabric and patterns from the local haberdasher is more expensive than you might think, so I've been rather enjoying the challenge of finding alternative means of sourcing cheap materials.

Charity shops are an obvious first stop. My local Oxfam sells bundles of about 5 roughly fat quarter sized pieces for 99p as well as cards of buttons presumably snipped from clothes destined for the rag bag. Zips (which are beyond my capabilities) seem to be a perennial charity shop favourite too at 50p a pop. It's also worth keeping an eye on the Lidl website for their twice weekly specials which a few times a year throw up bargain sewing machines, boxes of thread and well stocked sewing boxes.

I'm also lucky enough to live relatively close to the heart of the silk weaving industry. (Sudbury, seeing as you ask, it was news to me too) I know of two silk mill factory shops, Vanners and Stephen Walters. I drove over to Sudbury just after Christmas, unfortunately Vanners was closed (Thank You chap on the phone who assured me they would be open on Tuesday but he actually meant Thursday. Still, they both begin with 'T', an easy mistake to make, what's a two hour futile round trip between friends? Tsk) but, happily, I unwittingly walked in on the first day of the Stephen Walters January Sale. I came away with about 6 meters of brightly coloured silk destined for tie making plus a couple of bumper patchwork bags of satisfyingly heavy, seriously good quality fabric for £19. If anyone knows of any other silk/fabric mills with factory shops, please let us know.

Oh, and I think we all know Ebay is our friend, especially for bulk buying ribbon, cord, buttons, trimmings etc. And another obvious one, there are lots of free patterns and tutorials out there on the net.

So, how far have I got with my bargain materials and a straight line?

I'm quite proud of myself actually. I mentioned in a previous post that I made 2 fleece backed patchwork quilts for the living room. I have also made a crazy patchwork table runner, a curtain to hide the toy shelves in the living room, Christmas stockings, a dog glove puppet, 2 drop bags and 2 drawstring bags for the children to keep their toys in and a series of 'pockets' to go along the side of Xanthe's new bed to keep her treasures in. Next on the list is a Nintendo DS pouch for Willow. Then we bring out the big guns - an actual pattern (eek) to make some soft toys and cushions for the kitchen chairs with (bated breath) zips! Does this mean I've come to the end of the straight line??

Update! Talk about timely, Lidl are stocking some sewing materials, yarns, needles etc on Monday 10th Feb.

Glorious Day

What an amazing day yesterday was. It's been like spring here in Norfolk, I can't believe it's only January. Although it's very pleasant it's also quite disorientating to go straight from heavy snow to verdant new growth and we all know we can't trust spring after last year's seedling destroying late cold snap.

Global warming concerns aside, I grabbed the opportunity to plant my raspberries and survey the snow damage on the plot. I haven't been to the Bressingham plot for some time because it's been impassable to vehicles for months now. The vehicle access isn't hardcored or metalled in any way and was quickly reduced to a quagmire with the onset of Autumn. The only solution is to leave the car on the road (much to the annoyance of local residents and passing farm vehicles) and totter unsteadily through the slutch and ruts - it's not an appealing prospect in bad weather with small children in tow.

I wasn't surprised to see the Rainbow Chard completely felled by the snow although clearing away the dead leaves revealed new leaves already beginning to grow again. The Cavolo Nero on the other hand is looking positively refreshed after it's ice bath, it's not only survived but actually grown. Despite this, I'm having doubts as to whether there's any advantage to growing Cavolo Nero as opposed to a bog standard savoy cabbage. I can't really taste much difference and have become dissatisfied with the stalk to leaf ratio of the former so may plant the latter instead this year.

The bad news is I think we've got rats in the compost bin. Other plot holders have seen them around the site and compost appears to have been thrown out from inside of the bin. My immediate response was the pull the Macaulay Culkin Home Alone face and sprint away as fast as my clay encased boots would allow. Naturally I will not be investigating further until I have my husband on hand to hide behind.

So, the next task is to sift through my seed packets, assemble my cold frame and plan a timetable for seed planting. I'm still in the process of tracking down my Ulster Sceptre seed potatoes, there aren't any in the local Garden Centres and my parents can't find them in the north west either. On-line suppliers are showing stock coming in during February so maybe they'll appear in the shops in a few weeks but if anyone knows of a Garden Centre in South Norfolk or Warrington which may have them, I'd love to hear from you.

My boots yesterday. Soil as clay as clay can be.

Well Hello 2011

If it's OK with you, would you mind being a tad warmer than 2010? Oh, and please, please kick off spring on time, I'd very much appreciate a growing season of the standard length. And please don't tell anyone about the exciting, tentative, top secret empire expanding plans. Many Thanks.

It's hard to believe that my allotment career is not yet a year old. This time last year I had nothing doing in the garden (other than that pesky cat problem) but now I'm the proud owner of two whole plots and the luxury of plenty of time to plan, plant, chit and sow, unlike last year's March start.

So far I have my Autumn fruiting raspberries which need planting now the ground has de-frosted as well as my potted Tayberries.

Next on the list is my desire to re-create the potatoes of my childhood (yes, really!) Anyone from the NorthWest will be aware of the revered Cheshire potato, sung out from luminous banners in Chippy windows in early summer. A little bit of internet research tells me that Cheshires aren't actually a variety but just the name given to Ulster Sceptre potatoes bestowed with a unique flavour by the supposedly salty Cheshire soil. So next week I'm off to try and source some Ulster Sceptre seed potatoes. Maybe I'm on a hiding to nothing, maybe it's true about the soil, maybe Norfolk mud's just not the same but the beauty of an allotment is that I can give it a go.

Talking of those luminous food signs, anyone remember the Tasty Toaster? I just fancy a slice now ......