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.