Читать книгу The Allotment Chef: Home-grown Recipes and Seasonal Stories - Paul Merrett - Страница 15

MJ agrees with me that we, as a family, could make a bigger contribution to the planet-saving drive than we currently do. We have long been recycling paper, glass and plastic, but, to be honest, we could increase our efforts. I resolve to change all our light bulbs to energy-saving ones as soon as I can and, in the meantime, I sit the kids down and deliver a stirring lecture on the need to switch off lights when they leave a room (to be honest, this is a bit rich coming from me as I am possibly the worst offender in the house). I also advise the children to consider the amount of water they use. I sound like Al Gore as I stand in front of these two slightly bewildered children describing scenes of a sun-baked African village where children (‘much younger than you’) are forced to walk miles to a waterhole or pump before carrying a heavy container of water all the way back to their home. Once again, the irony of my speech is obvious – I have never once turned a tap off while brushing my teeth or put the plug in when washing a saucepan. However, I am not the first great leader to fail to practise what they preach and I do at least intend to change forthwith. From now on, baths are banned unless it’s your birthday and teeth must be brushed with no more than a cup of water. Ellie is horrified to learn that the toilet will only be flushed after number twos and that showers have a three-minute maximum time allowance.

By this point, my children are quite used to my sudden bursts of enthusiasm over some life-changing project or another and it is obvious that they see these new house rules as nothing more than Dad’s latest rant. However, they look quite shocked that their mum is in full agreement, rather than raising her eyebrows as she normally does when Dad goes off on one.

I really think that, if we are to be self-sufficient from our allotment, then we should embrace the whole lifestyle package. One clearly cannot expect credit for growing a carrot if one’s bin is stuffed full of plastic. With my convictions sharpened to peak condition, I turn up for a meeting at HarperCollins. I had known Jenny was behind the supermarket ban, but, when we discuss my green credentials, it soon becomes apparent that a spot of token recycling will not be tolerated. I will not be allowed to write a book about green living unless I do in fact ‘live green’. It occurs to me that I may have rather over-egged our green credentials and that actually we may not stand up to scrutiny, but there’s nothing like a challenge, and my family are more than up for it.

Back at the plot, work continues. The shed base is ready, the compost bin has had its first delivery (a salad Ellie and Richie refused to eat!) and now the task of carving out and digging our first bed can begin.

This involves hardcore digging. Each spade load is a mixture of earth, stones and bric-a-brac. After a whole Saturday toiling on the land we can dig no more. It’s back home for a quick supper then straight to bed for all of us – Saturday night and I’m in bed at half past nine. Vegetable growing sure is one crazy lifestyle!

A day’s digging can make you feel fairly healthy – you are outdoors and it’s good honest physical work – similar to running a marathon (I expect). It’s the next day, however, that puts those healthy thoughts in perspective. Needless to say, I wake the following morning to find my hamstrings are so tight that it feels as though they have been tuned overnight by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix – I can’t scratch my bum let alone touch my toes.

I eventually drag myself from the bed, go downstairs and almost immediately have a row with MJ over the allotment. I say we should have a day off; she disagrees and says she seriously doubts my commitment. Having said this, she grabs the kids and storms off to the allotment. I mooch about at home feeling a bit guilty for an hour or so and, in the end, think the best thing to do is to go down to the allotment, eat a slab of humble pie and show a bit willing.

I eventually manage to lift my leg high enough to get it over the crossbar of my bicycle and, with a genuine feeling of goodwill, I very slowly make my way up Boston Road to the allotment. Dilly and Doug are there starting on a bed their side of the divide; MJ is digging away and all the kids are charging about, filthy, and having a great time.

Having told MJ that I am sorry for my anti-allotment tendencies and reaffirmed my commitment, I grab the shovel and, with a look of resolve in my eye, I throw myself into the task in hand. On the third dig I fall to my knees in complete agony – I literally crumple up; my back clicks and gives way and I am so sore I can hardly move. I have been there for ten minutes and am now reduced to a writhing wreck. I feel a complete fool as MJ and Doug carry me to the car to take me home.

But what makes the experience so much more humiliating is that, after I have been carted home, MJ returns to the allotment where she meets Keith, the committee Chairman. He obviously takes pity on this poor husbandless woman digging her vegetable patch and offers to bring over his rotivator; he proceeds to clear half the plot in ten minutes.

It’s bad enough to be humiliated in such a way, but we have also used a rotivator to clear cooch grass, which is exactly what we were told to avoid doing. I had told MJ Chris’s warning about spreading the cooch grass, and she had quite obviously ignored my advice.

To make matters worse, Keith tells MJ that, since it’s March, our first bed should really be put aside for potatoes as they are due to be planted soon. On the back of this, MJ has bought three bags of seed potatoes on her way home … at bloody Tesco. Now the very shop we are working so hard to avoid, has sold us the first thing we are going to plant.

I ask MJ what variety of potato she has bought, determined to pour scorn on whatever strain she has got (huh, Desirée are so common, we’ll simply have to take them back), but she finds that the labels aren’t attached so we don’t even know what our potatoes are. I am away from the project (due to a serious industrial injury) for two hours and, all of a sudden, the whole thing has gone tits up.

There’s no doubt that allotments are dangerous places – I see the osteopath three times in one week. On my first visit, Mal next door literally has to carry me to his car and slide me in horizontally across the back seats, before driving me up to the Old Isleworth surgery. It is obvious to me that Stuart the osteopath had rarely seen a man as badly injured and he has to draw on all his experience to gain me just a little comfort. He uses gels, manipulation and acupuncture to relieve the pain. I am not able to walk, sit, lie or stand with any comfort, though sympathy at home is, quite frankly, in short supply.

A few days later I go to our local garden centre with MJ. She has spoken to her mum about our imminent potato patch and has been told that, before we plant them, we should get some manure dug in. My back is still so sore I can hardly get in the car, but I manage to hobble about pointing at the things I think we should buy before returning to the car and collapsing once more. People give me very strange looks as I sit in the car and watch my poor wife load three twenty-kilogram bags of manure into the boot!

After lunch we return to the allotment, where MJ digs in her manure (not her manure obviously – we are not that green yet) and plants our unknown variety of potatoes that she has so carelessly purchased from the supermarket. I am still way off ‘planting fitness’ and, to be honest, I feel that, since she has taken the decision to buy the things regardless of the fact that we have not done a stitch of research on the topic, she can darn well plant them. I (slowly) terminate weeds with a (very light) can of (hopefully green) weedkiller that we bought.

We arrive home to a phone message from Doug saying that he is picking up the shed and we can put it up the next day. This will make going to the allotment a whole lot less hassle as we can leave stuff there.

The next morning my back is still sore but I am determined to get the shed up. I meet Doug at the allotment at 11am and we get cracking; cracking probably isn’t the right word as we make painfully slow progress. We have purchased the cheapest shed in the shop (1.8 x 1.2 metres/6 x 4 feet); it is tiny but it still takes us the best part of four hours to assemble. This is not only because the assembly instructions have been written, I reckon, by a dyslexic foreign teenager on work experience at B&Q, nor completely due to me being bent double with a serious back injury, but also because of the never-ending stream of goodwilled advice from our allotment neighbours. The gist of this advice is as follows:

1 Face the shed into the prevailing wind (north?) or else it will blow away in a high wind

2 Have the door on the south side so that we can sit outside when the sun shines

3 Have the window facing south southeast (or something) so the rain doesn’t get in

As neither Doug nor I have a compass on us, we decide to just get the thing erected and take our chances with nature. Having put it up we realise that good old B&Q has given us the wrong size of roof boards and we are about six inches too short. Rather than go all the way back to the shop, we decide to bodge it together with a couple of redundant floorboards that we find lying about; I feel this represents the green option both in recycling the floorboards and also in terms of saving fuel emissions by not driving back to the shop (actually, we simply couldn’t be arsed to go all the way back – sometimes ‘green’ is the easy option).

During the final stages of construction the kids join us and Sheila pops over to chat to them. On seeing us finishing the shed, she delivers the most useful advice of the day – always remember to keep an emergency bottle of wine hidden in the shed in case there is a thunderstorm. This gem apparently comes from her experience one time when she was stuck in her shed for almost two hours without a drop to drink!

Despite the shed being in place, the allotment continues to feel like it will never be conquered and, as a novice, it’s really hard to see it taking shape. It is now April; the only things we have planted are a few potatoes, and the part of the plot that isn’t knee-high in weeds is still so strewn with rubble that it will take days to clear.

On top of all this, it turns out that on the Friday when I got very drunk with Chris, he apparently offered me (and I accepted) 50 cubic metres of topsoil. This is great – it is good quality soil and will help our digging efforts – but 50 cubic metres weighs around 6 tonnes and I have one wheelbarrow and a bad back. If it comes soon I shall have to tell MJ to shift it, which could see me on the receiving end of a spot of domestic violence.

Allotments aren’t all about marital strife and industrial injury though. We now have crops in the ground, something to look forward to. Ok, so they weren’t quite planted to plan but at least they’re in the ground.

The fun in this vegetable growing game is in the anticipation. Having sown our potatoes, it is hard not to start imagining what I will cook with them. The potatoes are of an unknown variety – they could be new potatoes, waxy or floury – so, for the time being, I am content just to imagine eating as many chunky chips as I want.