Getting ready for Christmas
It’s been busy on the allotments as we’ve made the most of the bright days
December is certainly showing us its teeth and reminding all gardeners that we’re in the depth of winter. The cold snap has brought that sense of reality to the allotment. Those few dry days allowed me to finish the winter digging on the bare patches and the frost will help to break up the large sods. It was also an opportunity to have a period of gentle exercise and keep those extra pounds of weight in check before the real feasting starts!
The allotments were very busy last week and many of the plot holders also relished the chance to get in shape and finish off those chores delayed by the long spells of rain. The place was buzzing – no, not with bees – and the banter was rife!
Many households these days are in possession of a shredder to deal with all those sensitive documents. And where do all these shredded pieces of paper end up? In a recycling depot. But not for me! I’m ultra cautious and like to recycle everything back to the plot. So these shredded papers are used in my wormeries and give the perfect topping to them and help keep my worms warm. They also provide the ‘dry’ material which wormeries need and form a good blend of materials for these hard-working creatures. It also provides me with the comfort of knowing my sensitive documents are all chewed up and helping to provide nutrients to my plot!
There has been one more important job to do before having a few days off and that is gathering the vegetables for our Christmas dinner. There’ll be no shop-bought vegetables on my family’s dinner plate, just ones all grown on my Welsh hillside. There are freshly gathered sprouts, parsnips, swede and leeks and these are joined by the potatoes already in the shed. It’s also time to harvest the first bunch of carrots from the drums in my greenhouse. I’ve had a sneaky pull of one or two to ensure they’ve made some decent roots but, with any root vegetable, there’s no guarantee that what’s below soil equals what’s above it!
But as they appear to have done really well they’ll supply the orange colour to the dinner plate. Also I now have confidence that for a month or two more I’ll be able to supply my own carrots.
The remaining runner beans come from the summer harvest stored in the freezer and even the turkey is being treated to stuffing freshly made from onions and sage grown on the plot. Only the bread and turkey are costing me money! If previous years are a measure of how well these vegetables taste, then the plates will be wiped clean.
I hope your Christmas will be spent with loved ones and if you haven’t provided all the vegetables yourself why not make next year the one to try? Now it’s just New Year’s Eve to tackle, then it’ll be back to normality in my gardening life!