I am a non-conformist. Not a rebel, note – rebellion’s for idealists and fools – but more a square peg in a round hole. Wherever I am in life, I never seem to fit.
I used to hate this. As a young man, I despaired about it. Young people live in terror of being ‘different’. When you know beyond all doubt that you are a total weirdo, being a 16-year-old is purest shit.
I’ve embraced my outsider status over the years. For good or ill, it’s me. I’m simply not mainstream, and there it is.
On the other hand, I enjoy flirting with convention – and I’m religious about planting my first early potatoes on St Patrick’s Day.
In common with folks up and down the UK, I was digging shit and planting potatoes this weekend – and loving it.
It’s a weekend of promise and optimism, and a job to be savoured. Hurry up, Summer!
Posted on 18th March 2012
Under: Potatoes | 6 Comments »
Quite a mixed bag tonight. I appear to have grown Britain’s biggest beetroots to go with the exhibition cauliflowers. I may have to make that weird summer salad the Greeks like so much – you know, the one that’s a mixture of cooked and raw veg, purple because of the fresh beetroot. Rather nice.
This is turning into an extraordinary year in the vegetable garden. From a very inauspicious start, I’m getting bumper crops in almost all departments.
The ghastly weather helps, of course. Rain sucks, but it makes fierce vegetables.
Posted on 17th July 2011
Under: Cucurbits, Flowers, Potatoes, Roots | 4 Comments »
So I thought my new potatoes might be ready. So I dug up one plant to see.
This is the result: one egg-sized potato and one pissy rabbit turd. This represents a return on my planting investment of a half potato.
Some return.
There are no words up to the task of adequately describing my disappointment. Digging the first new potatoes is usually one of the highlights of my vegetable growing year.
Obviously not this year. The only consolation is that it’s now pissing with rain pretty much 24/7, so after the drought we’ve had I might at last see things catching up a bit.
Posted on 12th June 2011
Under: Potatoes | 5 Comments »
Spring is within view, at last; when the seed potato order arrives, it’s not far off.
I’m being very unadventurous: Desiree, Orla, Kerr’s Pink. The only slightly unusual one is Ratte, a terrific French second early/early maincrop that I’ve become fond of. Utterly delicious salad potato.
Who knows? I may even go to the allotment at some point. After, er, a month’s absence.
Posted on 21st January 2010
Under: Potatoes, Spring | 9 Comments »