Shallow Onions across the globe

At end of year I thought it would be good to reflect on the global phenomenon that is Shallow Onions so here are the all time stats for the Shallow Onions blog.





While we at first glance we aren't doing bad this amount of hits could easily be the result of keyboard typing errors, though being generous here is a list of search terms used
shallow onions - eighteen searches - probably Hugh Fearnley Shittingstone trying to find the link
firewood racks made from pallets - three searches!
home made rhubarb forcer - two searches
jackknife position - eh?
wood shed using pallets - I blame DSB's pallet toilet thingy for this
azada shovel - one search - i think that may have been me
pictures of deer stands made from pallets -eh?

We have some way to go and DSB I am looking to you as lead blogger to crack the South American market this year so more of the Inca veg please and any other tubers, the STANCAM(tm) and live weather link may also bring in a viewing or two. Clearly the word pallets are popular but if we can mention the words tits or arse somewhere might help as well. Anyway much to ponder as we build up to the new year.

His parsnips are small, but they're yellow

and just to prove it here are a couple of snaps from my extensive land holding on Christmas eve - all I can say is they tasted great! so will have another go next year though obviously not in the same spot (notice attention to detail with tape measure used this time).

A blog is for life...

There's been a distinct lack of activity on shallow onions of late causing me to reflect on the report from the Soil Baron's Ball which served as a reminder of bloggers past, present and sadly absent leading me to draw the parallel between blogging, gardening and indeed life itself , have a belated happy New year and may your seeds always fall on good soil in 2012!

That Was The Growing Season That Was

I'm sorry you all missed the Soil Baron's Ball last night where the annual gongs, the Snabbies, were handed out while watching repeats of The Mentalist on Channel 5. This year's awards had a musical theme so forgive me if I keep bursting into song while I announce the winners.

1. Best single vegetable: "Will You Ever Make the Plate" by The Humble Peas
2. Best fruit album: "Spring Pickings" by Forced Rhubarb [although that's technically the stem of a perennial herb so for the pedantic please accept "Microfruit" by The Alpine Strawberries].
3. Breakthrough act: Celeriac
4. Best newcomer: Wild Celery
5. Best obscure Indie act: Miner's Lettuce
6. Best group: The Brassicas, (at least after Carla Breeze, the Robbie Williams of the band, was expelled for going AWOL)
7. Best international artist: The Japanese Bunching Onions
8. Onion-related underachievement lyric award: "I left my swollen bulbs to rot in the August monsoon, I'll never make that mistake again, I'll be pulling in June"
9. Frank Sinatra Regrets I've Had a Few Award: April Frost and the (Notso-) Hardy Kiwi Ensemble
10. John Stevens A&R Award for heavy investment in a spectacular flop: The Barren Pumpkins.
11. Most mysterious unsolved crime (except of course the great Brownfield Briefing Awards Night robbery): overnight theft of my entire Blackcurrants box set (Yes, we have no ribena)
12. Kenny Rodgers Award for outstanding commitment to growing fruit and vegetables: Family Shittingstone's three weeks in Australia in the prime planting season. You picked a fine time to leave me Hughey, with four hungry raised beds and a crop to be drilled... Did Hugh ever come back, he hasnt posted since?
    
13. Outstanding contribution to the blog in 2011: "What is the point of green manure?" Whatever happened to ComeonyouToms? Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didnt mean it...
    
14. Nanotechnology award for new dwarf cultivars: allcomers were trounced in this category by Al lotment's proteges The Subatomic Carrots. Altogether now:

• For he's a Technical Fellow
• His onions are never too shallow
• His parsnips are small, but they're yellow
• Which, at least, nobody can deny...
  

I'll be thinking of you all over my neeps and sprouts, which in a festive first, will be whisked straight from plot to chopping board in ten seconds. I wish you a fruitful 2012.

Household Name

Building your own house, as you may have learnt, can be quite a fraught experience, but the majority of the agonising has been about what to name it. It all makes me feel rather self-conscious, which is not something a like to think about too often, but not having a street with a numbering system means we have to call it something. Most houses around here seem to be named after birds, flowers etc while the number of fake stone suburban style bungalows named after majestic Scottish mountains is ridiculous. And, yes, there's even a Dunroamin! The new house at the bottom of our drive is prosaically called Birchview, fitting giving its rather restrictive view of a profusion of silver-stemmed trees. So as you'd probably expect, we have gone for something slightly out of the ordinary and, if I say so myself, poetic: Tha Snab. Before you ask, I would see it as a conflation of two definitions from John Jamieson's Scots Dictionary of 1825. Ah the internet - a wonderful resource.

SNAB 1 A shoemaker or cobbler's boy. 2 A cant term for a shoemaker
S To flame as an author our snab was sae bent He ne er blinn da styme till he gat it in prent Pickett's Poems ii 132
SNAB 3 The projecting part of a rock &c
Then knees an elbows like a crab Spraul up yoursel yon dizzy snab A Scott's Poems 1811 p 122 2 This term also denotes the bank rock or hill itself which projects. This has been defined I believe very accurately the brow of a steep ascent.

Yon Dizzy Snab will be welcoming visitors soon but the new postbox is now installed ready to receive the usual overwhelming pile of Christmas cards.

Uber Tuber

Pushing the boundaries of the plot is a hazardous business, and I can confirm that the beautiful Inca tuber, mashua, tastes like Fairy Liquid. It is reportedly an acquired taste but I can't see it being given the chance to be acquired. Much more palatable though is oca, Oxalis tuberosa, another Andean aesthete. Like mashua, it swells only in the autumn but not as prodigiously, this picture showing my total yield from three plants. Still, its shamrock like leaves make for an attractive weed-suppressing border edging and so it will be getting a more extensive experiment next year. Rich in oxalic acid like rhubarb and sorrel, it has that same acidic sweetness which make it a bit of a delicacy. Unfortunately, the mice seem to agree.

Northern Riviera in Hibernation Shock

Al, I've been alarmed by the output of your widget of late. There seems to be some systematic southern bias built in. The plot has had very little snow, at least in comparison to Dallas, although it is now inaccessible to vehicles due to icing on the scarp slope. My car might get some of those new wheel socks for Christmas. November now seems like a long time ago but its afterglow should keep us going for a while.

Incredible Inca Edibles

With the distended autumn, it's been a long time coming but here is the second of my exotic challenging crops you've never heard of. This is mashua, which I don't even know how to pronounce but I'm guessing the -ua bit is sounded like the 80s scouse ensemble Wah!. It is a tuberous nasturtian, a climber with ornate leaves and tubular flowers to rival its more decorative relatives. But after the equinox, it starts to swell down below, and given a long enough frost-free period it produces a bumper crop of tubby tubers that look like a cross between a parsnip and a cone of raspberry ripple. This basketful came from one slither of root. I will approach eating it with some caution though because descriptions on Plants For A Purpose, the web bible for exotic challenging crops you've never heard of, put it somewhere on the scale between a piquant "delicacy" and "rather unpleasant". Also, if your thinking of putting on a romantic candlelit rootveg supper, stick to your microcarrots. Mashua is reportedly an appetite suppressant, the bromide tea of the Incas. I'll let you know if I notice any difference.

Strike while the iron's hot

You might call me an opportunist, but I have formed my own union, balloted the membership and won a unanimous mandate for a day of action on my pension. My pension is of course the house, so that's where today's action is centred, and will be coupled with a rally against hedge funds. I will be forming a picket line at the plot boundary consisting of rank and file members of the hornbeam family. No-one will be allowed through except the plumber and electrician, who are performing essential services, although they seem to have been on strike for weeks. At the same time, I am saving money for the hard-pressed council while starting my transition to part-time working, although the council might see it as my transition to unemployment.

And so to bed...

There is something satisfying about tidying up the plot for winter but the closed season here has been put on hold. It has been an outrageously fine autumn and we are still awash with colour - carnations, snapdragons, coreopsis, verbena, even some sunflowers, all in full bloom. And see my artichokes. It has been a long year for my best friends in the veg garden, delivering a crop in June and again in October. I've even mastered the heart surgery required to extricate the edible centre from the prickly shell. But it's now time to pamper them for the winter. Having survived at -12degC last winter, they don't seem too fussed about a bit of frost but damp and frost will likely do them in. So stems and leaves are cut back almost to ground level, their roots protected with a thick mulch of manure and their crowns covered with bracken fronds to let them breathe. Talking of fronds, take a look at that asparagus. I'll be cutting my fist crop in the spring. Can't wait.

More whining from down south

The grape harvest is in and I am excitedly looking forward to next Fridays oxford wine tasting festival where of course I can strut my excellent knowledge of the Barolo region (see above - taken during a particularly enjoyable 100km bike ride) following my half hour in the Barolo wine museum. DSB I know you are a big fan of Italian food so you may enjoy browsing at this link http://www.eataly.it some of the best food i have eaten and the good news is they do mail order! also very much in line with your locally grown philosophy so i can see the possibility of a Kinloss franchise soon.

Northern Riveria (2)

To assist DSB in his weather monitoring the Shallow Onions Team is pleased to announce the new Met Office Widget thingy - available at the bottom of the page! Enjoy - users can change location as needed of course.

Micro Vegetables (2)

Despite the deeply unsuitable climate and soil that we have in Oxfordshire some plants do grow and here to prove it is this years bumper (defined as anything edible) harvest of carrots and the odd parsnip that I wanted to check how they were doing. No one was more suprised than me when this lot came up and they taste guide good as well. Funnily enough my beetroots are looking good as well so next year its onto a harsh regime of neglect as the recipe for success.

Northern Riviera

Just in case you think I make these things up, here are yesterday's temperatures!

Winter armageddon postponed: return to your plots

We may be at Hallowe'en but there's nothing dark and foreboding down at the plot. The very brief cold snap has given way to a dry balmy October. Our proximity to the warm of the Firth means summer flowers, leafy veg, globe artichokes, strawberries and raspberries are coasting through frost-free to November. As keen students of the weather, you will have noticed that, thanks to the local warming wind, the Grampian chinook if you like, this has often been the warmest place in the UK this last week, unless you're counting the Greater London heat island effect. But this is no time to sunbathe. Winter salads, garlic and onions are in, along with some experimental peas. Broad beans probably next week. Nitrogen fixing green manures are covering the exhausted potato patch. You will all also have your pigeon and deer protection on your Christmas dinner sprouts, January King cabbages and spring cauliflowers, I expect. But you will have to wait for the next in the series of exotic crops because I have to wait for the first frost to kill them off.

Four Seasons Veg in One Day

We seem to have skipped autumn here, following up the best weather of the year only a week or so back with a maximum of 6 deg yesterday. The relentless march of the seasons signals a shift in the diet for the struggle through winter. My orderly ranks of celeriac look up for the fight. Unlike most vegetables, there is no advantage in growing small celeriac. These are my biggest yet.The key, apart from abundant natural watering, is space and I have plenty of both of those commodities. I'll let you know if I think of any recipes for it. My neeps, your Swedish turnip, I will treat as a learning curve. Transplanting, like I did successfully with the rest of my brassica, has set them back, although not quite following the trend in microveg. Next year I will sow direct, thin slightly and leave plenty for the mice over winter. It's not all wintry harvest though. We continue to be weighed down with alpine strawberries. They have a fragrant sweetness that sets them apart from the overbred versions but leave them too long and they start to taste like dolcelatte. I have nothing against blue cheese but it's probably not what you aim for in a strawberry. These were destined for Scotland's finest culinary invention, Cranachan, of toasted oatmeal, cream and a splash of the finest Glen Rothes 12yo, or more soberly with the oatmeal, plain yogurt and maple syrup. To complete the annual cycle, we also have a taste of spring with the purple sprouting broccoli.That's not what it said on the tin but we must just give thanks for a freezer-full of broccoli soup.

Aid Aid

As I'm sure you know, there are over 20,000 species of edible plants, but humans choose to restrict themselves to a small fraction of them. Only 20 species provide 90 per cent of human food. There is an apocalyptic strand of thinking that the burgeoning world population will lead to food shortages and escalating price of staples. Aside from the increasing cost of stationery, we will all be forced to get our food from whatever is available. It makes sense to research the options early, spread yourself more thinly and have a few unusual sources of nourishment up your sleeve. You'll then be the one turning away the hungry hordes from your door when the famine hits, rather than rooting around in the bins on Botley Road. To do my bit in this quest, I am pushing the plot boundary with a new series illustrating alternative or exotic crops that grow prodigiously - or otherwise - in the difficult north.

First up is the achocha. This grows like a cucumber but is much more fond of cooler climates it would seem, running rampant over the willow tower we stingily bring inside to use as a Christmas tree. The support has now buckled under a combination of the weight of the vine and our omnipresent wind - such potential effects on Christmas decorations need to be considered in the solution to the coming world food crisis. Its bite-sized fruit are the size of a quail's egg, if that is not too bourgeois a comparison. Its hairy features give it something of a human personality but, if you can bring yourself to eat it, it tastes somewhere between a cucumber and green pepper for use in salads, sandwiches, pizza topping etc. Coming to a soup kitchen near you soon.

Hope squashed but no cauli wobbles

I've been out harvesting my potatoes this week wearing only a hat. Seven sackfuls, sweaty stuff! Best weather of the year here, but it's come too late to save my pumpkins. I had one sizable specimen but it has taken to impersonating a squash. When I poked it the other day, it dented like my new football after a huge black labrador attacked it on the local rec when I was 10. Inside turned out to be a gooey mass. The plant was still healthy; I think the fruit must have just shivered to death for absence of sunshine to ripen it. It's a tricky business growing pumpkins this far north. Last year, you'll remember my infeasibly bountiful wheelbarrow, but many of them had been softened by an early frost at the end of September, and they didnt keep too well. One can only learn from such setbacks.
My brassicae offer a good case study. Last year, I lost half the crop to root fly. Answer: grow more and prepare for repalcements. Strangely no root fly this year, so my nursery bed is still heaving leaves. Then the survivors were decimated by caterpillars. Answer: inspect your nether regions and squash any yellow growths. The neeps were then eaten by mice and/or deer in the November snow. Answer: err... no snow? And to cap it all, the supposedly hard cavolo nero and sprouting broccoli didn't survive the December ice age - leaving me with only the trusty curly kale for the dark months. Answer: I'll be ready with the polytunnel. This year, my patch has made it through to the season of mellow fruitfulness in very good heart. Only one thorny issue to deal with now: how to tell my dear pumpkin she's in for a season of clapshot and rumbledethump suppers.

micro vegetables

DSB - Mr M from Southmoor has requested some advice on the attached - lovely leaves but no carrot! is it the notorious oxfordshire climate? or our sandy soil? any tips appreciated though apparently these are quite tasty.

PS enjoying blog but no time to reply looking forward to a jar of honey when next you are down

Invitation to Tender: Phase I Desk Study Required

We all want to leave our mark on the world. Googling yourself is of course the standard measure but taking things a step further is to get yourself into a Landmark Envirocheck. Well, I am sure you'll be ordering one today to see if I've been successful. Off-grid as we are here, we have to install our own sewage treatment. In lieu of a hi-tech Sun Lane type reedbed system, we opted for this beauty. This is no ordinary wastewater treatment plant, shunning electricity and running entirely on air. This though requires the four metre high welcome-to-Briach Nessie feature. The boulders beneath our feet are too free-draining and a soakaway is a risk of pollution of the water environment, apparently. So, we will be discharging direct to the Black Burn under a 10:10:10 consent. I don't follow the logic but I am just a humble gardener - I leave that sort of thing to the experts in SEPA. To live with my conscience, I will of course be collecting the effluent in a bucket to enhance my cabbage patch.

Has bees

It's important to cut a dash wherever you're stepping out. The apiary is no exception. It is received wisdom that beekeepers suit up in white, with a minority opting for dirty brown or sage green. So 20th century. Hence, when you turn out at the hives in a tasty lavender pink, you can expect heads, if not their accompanying veils, to turn. But my girls seem impressed, waxing lyrical about it. You see these are our bees, currently being beesat a couple of miles down the road awaiting construction of their new honeycomb centre alongside the rising human-size hive. Beekeeping is very much a personal thing and Mrs Honeybun and I are already reduced to petty squabbling about how to handle the ladies. The answer of course is his 'n' hers hives. So we have decided to procreate, which seems all the rage at the moment and I just can't resist the latest buzz. This is slightly different of course as it involves a one-night stand ending up with the death of the male. Sounds exciting, but not something I'd like to try more than once. With any luck we will be hearing the patter of hairy feet in about nine months time.

Has beans

It's been a difficult summer for sunbathers. Courgettes have been rolling off the plants at the rate of one per week. Pumpkins are the still the size of golf balls. French beans have forgotten the auld alliance. But anything with penchant for cool damp conditions has romped away. Peas are odds on to be vegetable personality of the year again, carrots and celery so easy to grow here. But I might have slightly misjudged how many broad beans we can eat. It's a good job bean podding is a popular pastime in its own right round here.

Infamy, Infamy...

The emperor Octavian was, I suspect, not a gardener in the north of Scotland. If I were asked to name a month after myself, I would have chosen one signifying hope or even idleness rather one of expectations unfulfilled. I have shamefully to admit that things have rather got on top of me. Preoccupied with bathroom and staircase specifications, and with the plot an unappealing cold squelchy place for the first half of the month, I've rather let the place go to seed, at least metaphorically - except for the calabrese, which took it literally. An empire of weeds you could say. Unlike HF-S though, I have actually visited the vegetable garden but I am reduced to crisis weeding, the sort you do to find where you planted your courgettes. Occasionally, a surprise cucumber surfaces. But I actually find myself looking forward to winter when the battle with the weeds becomes an even contest once again. Next August, after the annual routine of removing the blighted foliage from my potatoes, will be a good time to go on holiday. On second thoughts, Rome wasnt built in a day, and all roads will lead back to the Romanesco broccoli.

Baby I'm... Clad All Over

No doubt I've been thoroughly slated for not posting of late, but I've only now found the right window. You see things have just larched from one crisis to the next. Now we're galvanised and everything's pretty in zinc. From here, we must turn inwards in search of insulation.

Putting my neck on-line

It's a truth universally acknowledged that you need to be hard to survive up north. If you're soft, stick to the south. Well, this is the conventional wisdom with garlic. There are two types differentiated by their necks. Conventionally sold to gardeners is softneck, a dowdy run of the mill short stem which you pull when it goes yellow. The hardneck is an elegant plant with a proud stem that twists like a swan's neck eventually opening into flower. This bit is called a scrape which is sold in its own right as a delicacy in high-class establishments for a modest fortune. I'm not sure "scrape" does it justice, and perhaps a rebranding is require before further market penetration is achieved. I'm of course not one to choose what I grow based on aesthetics but I can imagine that some of you might consider using it as a decorative addition to the garden. Although it looks good alongside our designer shed, I am only attracted to its northern latitude pedigree, having bought mine from the Really Garlicky farm which is just down the road. Drawbacks? Despite a decent size bulb, you get only about six cloves to the bulb and it does not match the keeping qualities of the southern softie. I guess you can't have it all, but we're getting there.

Its all looking sunny here

A quick update in my performance todate in the Manchester sunflower and marrow growing competition:

Sunflower - I suspect the QA/QC in Mr Fothergills seed department was a bit dodgy - everyone was issued with a "Giant" variety but there have been wide ranging results including sunflowers flowere at less than a metre. In my row the range is astonishing - short and tall, forked double headed ones, some showing one flower, some dozens. Still there you go.

Anyway, as winning is everything - I seem to have a contender at 2.40m and still growing. Trumps Al's at 1.97 at latest account - maybe rain is good for sunflowers!

Marrows are rubbish - grow to 10cm, become rotten from flower end and fall off. Will start nurturing them soon - competition date is no until end of September so plenty of time yet

Cherry picking

We're now in the midst of the Scottish summer, where in the 2nd week of July the sun disappears and it chucks it down relentlessly until 1st September. Only difference this year is that it's cold as well. Fortunately the foraging season is in full swing to keep the spirits up. There is something special about going out and getting food for free - I guess it's a similar feeling to the one you got when filling in your expense claims in the 1990s. It starts here with elderflowers in June and goes through to October taking in blaeberries, brambles, chanterelles and hazels. July though is the month for plucking the ample fruit of the local native tree, the gean (Prunus avium).

They taste and look very much like sweet cherries, which isn't really a surprise because that's what they are. The biggest surprise is that no-one else seems to pick them or even know they are there. They rival the Kentish cherry for taste, just lack the same fleshiness. Biggest problem is getting there before the birds take all the low-hanging fruit - and these are huge trees. In future though, I hope to forgo this bit of the foraging season. I have planted a sweet cherry in my orchard, a compact tree that I can throw a fishnet over, together with a sour morello type, which I'm sure you are all aware is a different species, Prunus cerasus. These cherries are bound for a clafoutis, a rather fine stodgy batter pudding. The rest will go to make a French style jam with a few wild redcurrants to provide the pectin - perfect for the those late summer breakfasts in the September sunshine.

Summer of discontent

Sorry for the recent silence. I've had an attack of blight. Not on my potatoes but my computer. But all's not well in the potato patch either. Leaves have turned yellow and the stems turned black and rotted. It can only be blackleg. It's the pits. I shouldn't beat myself up about it, it comes in with the seed and it's only affecting a few of my Charlottes. I had no choice but to strike early and man the pick it line. Underground was a rich seam of decent sized tubers giving an early glut but left in the ground they will likely turn to mush. They were in good condition except for a touch of scab. Perhaps our bloggers from the mining heartlands can tell us why there are shared terms for strikebreakers and potato diseases? Hopefully, I can keep disease out of my cauli-ery.

Honeysuckle help

help, my newly planted honeysuckle (its been in for about 3 months and until now seemed quite happy) is going all weird on me and looks like it could be on the way out, any help greatly appreciated thanks.

Weeding by example

A warm welcome to our fresh sweaty members from the cool and fresh far north.

If you are ever moved to try and tame a piece of pasture, you'll need to know your weeds. There was a time when persistent perennials like horsetail, bindweed, redshank and couch grass were the enemy. I get none of them here and spend my time fighting frighteningly fast-growing annuals like chickweed, fat hen, corn camomile, deadnettle, thistle and some strange radishy/mustardy thing (might be oil seed rape).

So on my expanse of newly exposed ground, I've been trialling some weed suppressing green manures. The winner, excluding potatoes, is fenugreek ahead of clover and buckwheat while the slow-growing lupins are a dead loss against chickweed. Fenugreek is also the cheapest as you can get massive packets at 80% discount from your local Asian grocer. (According to the gardening establishment, you cannot be sure grocery seed is viable and you should buy from a reputable seed supplier. That's bollocks.) However, I should perhaps have factored into that cost comparison the travel costs to our local Asian grocer in Glasgow.

Sometimes though, you just have to admit that the weeds are better at growing than you are. In such circumstances, the alternative to the horticulturally highbrow solution is to buy yourself loads of expensive windows and mulch them into submission.

No rain shadow here...

You might not be surprised to know that everything is green and well watered in Broadbottom - my plants are at much higher risk of drowning than drought. With regards to the Manchester office fruit and veg competition classes see attached - sunflowers are looking a bit straggly but I have reasonable hopes in the largest marrow competition - they have just started flowering.

Also just painted the guest accommodation in the garden if anyone fancies stopping over - it appears to be of a similar construction to Stan's new house! And finally: attached a picture of two enthusiastic horticulturists mid discussion

Windy Tiller

In your sweltering spring, you may not have noticed Scotland had one of its wettest Mays on record. Not here of course, the old rain shadow in action again. What we don't have is a wind shadow and Briach always seems windier than anywhere else round here. You can feel the strength of the gusts just looking at this picture. But one must adapt to one's environment. The hedge is now a year old, it's still mostly stumpy hawthorn with the odd thriving elder; but in a couple of years it should provide some decent protection. Tall plants like artichoke then go on the windward side. Mrs Honeyman has weaved her usual magic to make an attractive framework for the asparagus wind vanes. And learning from last year's transplant shock and sulking crops, sweetcorn and french beans I sowed direct into swallowholes covered with glass. One cob would be an improvement. Also in the veg brigade in the picture for the spotters amongst you:
Pea, Pea, Celery (Seed), Camberwick Greens, Sea Kale, Chard.

The Shallowest Onion

A warm welcome to the latest addition to the Shallow Onions team (Rory Parsnip Mash) and one that will probably talk a lot more sense than most of the contributions to date. Congratulations to all and looking forward to the first contribution. May also need to start building creche facilities at Shallow Onions HQ for the coach trip.

Gooseberry Question Time

Stan Thomas (83) writes in with a request to diagnose his gooseberry - what is going on here? Some are ok but about half have this horrible looking infection of some kind. Any suggestions greatly appreciated does it confirm your earlier diagnosis?

The Briach Triangle...

...you can see it from a new angle. Sorry to use the blog to paraphrase a Barry Manilow track, and one of his most nauseating too. But the plot geometry has been elevated to a new level. You'll have to excuse my Manilowesque attire - I was just back from the beach where my jute trilby was drawing envious glances from the basking hordes. You can spare me any jibes comparing my physique to scaffolding poles.

I am sure you're interested in the swellings in my onion patch...

Choke's on me

With the help of sandy soil and plenty of mulch, I successfully nursed 15 of my 16 artichoke plants through their first winter outdoors. I have four different varieties and am well on my way to cornering the local market with jars of carciofi grigliati - which won't be difficult as no-one else grows them and Valerie and I probably constitute the whole market. The arrival of the first bud, along with the first nose of asparagus, has to be one of the highlights of the year, which I guess sums up my lifestyle these days?