Upwardly mobile

Many apologies for my recent silence. Having moved house we no longer have a landline and were quoted >£1000 for one unless I dug the trench myself. The thought of the pile of stones that would entail has forced me into desperate measures: a visit to the mobile phone shop. It appears we have a broadband transmitter visible from our bathroom. Although my mobile phone puts up a miserable performance in the house, we can get perfect internet by placing a receiver smaller than Al's prized parsnip on the ledge of the pantry porthole, the only north facing window in the house. Marvellous.

Miner Detail!

I suppose I better talk about some vegetables. Now having the plot in my back yard as it were, a constant flow of winter produce is feeding a line of new experimental dishes, and not all of them contain turnip. By popular request, I will be passing on some recipes starting with some dishes to keep you going through the tough winter months. The subject of the first is Miner's Lettuce, fresh and succulent from its goldrush at the end-of-year awards. Claytonia perfoliata amazingly grows through the winter unperturbed by heavy frosts although susceptible to a bit of mudsplash. While having no distinctive taste, its attraction is in its texture, a chewy crunch if that's possible (officially "mucilaginous"). A recipe? Two slices of homemade sourdough (sliced), some cheese (sliced), a large dollop of home made carrot chutney, one miner's lettuce (chopped). Combine the ingredient in layers, starting and finishing with the bread. I havent got a name for it yet but I think might catch on.

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.